The police: Tears for the dead, solidarity with the living
The Nigeria Police is the only organisation that advertises its friendship with the public and indeed uses the alleged friendship as its USP. It proudly announces: The police is your friend. And I recall that I have seen an admonition like: ‘If you don’t like the police, when next you are in trouble, call a thug’. Incidentally, if you asked the public to list their friends – individuals or institutions – you are not likely to see the police among the list except those who seek and or maintain instrumental relationships with them. Indeed, there is an Igbo saying that expresses worry at the paradoxical situation of the policeman who would expect, actually demand, a kola whether he is a guest or a host! There is little or no connection between the public and the police and if there would be a competition for public enemy number 1, the police would beat PHCN staff hands down.
The major reason for this is the high-handedness of Nigerian policemen which started right from inception because they were trained to hound, haunt, and hunt the ‘natives’. It was not set up as the people’s police but rather as instrument of suppression, repression and oppression. That high-handedness has continued, whether they are dealing with ‘aluta’ students, political rascals, protesting women or any group of disagreeable adults. Many of them are insensitive to the needs and concerns of their customers and friends – the Nigerian citizens – are blatantly corrupt, pander to the whims of the rich and powerful and are generally oppressive. They are haughty, naughty and very unfriendly; they act with impunity and the arrogance of power [of the gun and uniform]; they play on peoples’ ignorance and blackmail/intimidate the citizens. Justice is to the highest bidder and they would rather collaborate/be friends with criminals. Extrajudicial killings have become the order of the day and they are bribe-takers rather than haunting the bribe-takers. They enforce laws with wickedness, especially when it affects the poor and voiceless, as in the case in the recent okada-ban exercise in Lagos.
They are even their own worst enemies! We all remember how they treated that fine police officer, Alozie Ogubuaja, of the pepper-soup theory fame; how ‘rankless’ policemen manhandled Tafa Balogun, an ex-IGP; how they also joined in Ribadu’s NIPSS training imbroglio; and even how the current EFCC boss [Lamorde] was deployed to one small local police division when he fell out of favour – the huge amount expended on his training and his experience notwithstanding. Courtesy of Channels TV, we now know how some senior officers trained the junior ones in a piggery-like environment and still expect wonders from/of them. They have also compromised themselves to the extent that drivers, conductors and area boys no longer respect or regard them.
The Nigeria Police is also buffeted from all sides; it is grossly underfunded with a divisional office getting an allocation of circa N2,000 [two thousand naira] monthly, and its men are attacked by soldiers, naval and air officers and even civil defence chaps. They are poorly armed and equipped and even area boys are more operationally equipped than our police, not to think of OPC, MEND et al, and the latest scourge, Boko Haram. It is only when it comes to MASSOB that they are effective and that is because MASSOB adopts a non-violence philosophy.
These are true; these may all be true or they may all be perceptions [and perception is the ultimate reality]. But the policemen and the police institution are for us; we can’t just abandon them and display an attitude of ‘let then stew in their own juice’. Whenever we are in trouble, we still call on them or go to their dilapidated and shanty-grade offices. Two years ago, I towed my vehicle at unholy hours of the day [10pm+] from Agbor to Anambra State. Because I hardly travel by night, it was a scary experience. But the presence of policemen along the expressway up to Niger Bridge was comforting. I realised this when we crossed the Niger and did not see a moving object from Onitsha to Igbo-Ukwu! Those who return late from work are always very happy and assured when they see the policemen around on their way home [even when they ask that their vexatious question of ‘wetin you chop remain?’]. Many of them work hard; they are committed, disciplined, courteous, and they put their lives on the line for our collective safety.
Of late, it has been a cocktail of death, sorrow and pain for the policemen, their families and the institution. Our policemen are mowed down with reckless abandon in the course of their efforts to protect us. It happened in Bayelsa, then Bama, and then Alakyo. This evidences a systematic rot; a situation in which the defenders of the people now appear defenceless and are at the mercy of the citizens who are supposed to be under their watch. This is bad; it is condemnable and it stands condemned. UK that lost about a dozen policemen in the past ten years is alarmed and is pressing for harsher punishment for those who murder police officers. We have lost about 100 in the first 4 months of this year. Before then, police formations in the north-east and across the country have been objects of deadly sports for criminals and extremists. This is an attack on all of us. The government must do more than issuing condemnatory statements to express its angst at these kinds of occurrences. For we the people, even if we condemn, we must commend and empathise when appropriate. I condemn these dastardly murders and dehumanisation of our policemen. I commiserate with their families. I declare personal solidarity with the police both as individuals and as an institution.
Most important, I wish that we take steps to ensure that these sad situations do not recur. For a start, the policemen on duty must be more alert to their duties and dangers they face. They must act like people who are in death-and-life situations because most of the times, they do not. When policemen on duty are toying with their phones, patronising a corn seller, chatting with a passer-by maiden or simply dozing, it becomes obvious that something is wrong.
Meanwhile, last week was a historic one, for good and for bad, for the same-sex debate. But I have just realised that there is some sense in this same-sex madness. As the so-called developed world is busy practicing and enforcing same-sex marriage, they are also advancing in cloning technology. So, since they cannot procreate and as the stock of adoptable kids from Africa is limited, there has to be a way of generating children for the couples who cannot have children. They have to be manufactured through cloning. There is indeed coordinated sense in the madness! Let the madness continue; it is personal freedom!
Muo is a lecturer and management consultant in the department of business administration, Olabisi Onabanjo
University, Ago-Iwoye
muoigbo@yahoo.com
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