The boy cannot be anything more than eight or nine. He was surrounded by some area boys. Within minutes they had stripped him naked. The boy pleaded in vain to be let go. After rounds of beating, one of them ordered him to kneel down and gave him a large concrete slab to carry. It was at a bus-stop; in the full glare of passers-by. I was going to see a friend when I noticed the wailing kid. I wondered what he could have done wrong to warrant such ill-treatment, so I inquired from one of them. ‘He was trying to steal from a commuter when we caught him’, he snapped, barely paying attention to me. I stepped in to put in a word for the lad. I did not know him from Adam. I guess I was driven by pity and love. “Sirs” I started confidently, “instead of manhandling and torturing the poor boy, why not let him lead you to his parents for proper punishment or he confesses to you who instructed him to do this” It was like a bee stung them. Before I had the chance of saying more, I had received torrents of punches. I staggered under the intoxicating influence of the knuckles. I swallowed hard. “Iwo lo ran wa, abi? Iwo lo ni ko wa gbale?” he queried in a husky Yoruba voice. I dithered, still trying to explain something to him. He charged at me more furiously with disrupting blows that left my bowels singing discordant tunes. I began gasping for breath. I tried hard to bring out my ID card and show him, if he understood it at all, that I was a student and no thief or emissary for anyone. Thank God my chi was wild awake. I was able to scuttle from the scene and join a bus, relieved to be away from the arena of the madness. While ruminating over the incidence, it occurred to me that I was lucky. I’m aware that many innocent people like me have been lynched for such trump-up allegation. But at a point I discovered my eyes became misty with tears. My head was spinning and my mind, fuzzy. I could not fathom what just happened to me.
But I hadn’t seen anything yet. Just in the next bus-stop was another drama that almost drove me crazy with indignation. Three policemen were engaged in a fierce argument with a car driver over an issue I could not ascertain because I was out of earshot. All I could see through the scratched window pane of the bus where I was seated was that at a point, one of them became so uncontrollably aggressive he removed his cap, hit it several times against his hand in a feat of anger; stretched his neck, shouting and protesting with the misplaced zeal of a Nigerian policeman just to make his point, his neck veins bulging in the process. I looked away as I fought back tears. I almost lost my composure. Here are paid security officials, arguing over an inconsequential matter while the life of a child is under threat for alleged theft.
Why didn’t you inform the police? A friend had asked after I narrated my ordeal in the hands of the area boys. Sincerely, I never even thought of it when before me was another mad comedy show that has further dampened my faith in the Nigerian police. But I vowed to write if only to draw attention to this misplaced priority and show that the Nigerian police have stopped pursuing substance and now chase shadows.
Many of them have become obsessed with material benefits, and not national service. Sadly, Nigerians have adjusted to the anomaly, inured to the pangs. A policeman demanding money from commercial bus drivers is no longer an eye sore. The media have also stopped talking about it. But each time I am in a vehicle and I see this, an inexplicable anger wells up within me. Such should not be seen in a decent society! My journalistic instinct even made me toyed with the dangerous idea of taking the picture of a police officer receiving illicit gratuity and using it as the photo of the week in a national newspaper to serve as deterrent to others. Deadly, isn’t it? I can’t also imagine the beatings I’ll get if discovered. But that is how angry I am.
The previous day, I had seen a group of policemen mount roadblock half of a major road, causing heavy traffic. They commandeered some poor drivers to a dark spot to demand settlement. I was particularly uncomfortable with the commando-like way they pointed their guns as if in a war zone. It was awfully dark and eerie that if anyone drops dead nobody will know so the best bet was to cooperate. Moreover behind us was a cemetery. I could not help stylishly taking cover behind another commuter to escape being a victim of stray bullets. I was disgusted at their shameless act under the cover of the night. I wondered if there was anybody who felt the same way as I.
I know this problem is not new. We have always had an avalanche of suggestions on how to cure the security system of this viral infection and I have no intention of adding to the screed of treatise on it. The trite solution has been enforcement of discipline. But who will discipline who? Except we want a pretentious situation of the black pot calling the kettle black. I read a report of one Dr Komolafe published in 2002 when he urged the then newly appointed Inspector General of police, Mr Tafa Balogun, to cleanse the police of the smudge of kickbacks. I don’t want to open healed wounds. Suffice it to leave the rest to you.
But I guess the situation has reached a sickening level. We are getting tipped to a precarious precipice. These policemen now unabashedly stand in broad day light as licensed government beggars, dispensing tallies, harassing commuters and drivers and dealing ruthlessly with uncooperative I-know-my-right radicals. At first, the alibi for this ungodly indulgence was poor salary scale. But in 2008, the late Ya’adua led administration moved in swiftly through the consolidated police salary structure and pushed up the salary and allowances of all categories of police officers by over 100%. Yet, the scourge persisted. The new scape goat is this warped analogy: the Nigerian society is corrupt. Police officers are extractions from the society; hence they are incurably corrupt. And as the most visible agents of government, they mirror the enmeshed corruption in our system. But I beg to differ! Not all Nigerians are corrupt. The police as a remedial institution should comprise the unsullied so they can be on a higher pedestal to combat crimes and criminals. Hence they should mirror the ideal society, not the decadence in the society. I stand to be corrected. The roots of our problem are defective recruitment standards, slipshod orientation, poor training programme, polluting leadership model and politicized promotional requirements.
Lest I forget, my main object is to call attention to the need for adequate security of the lives of Nigerians and a total stop of this unethical, uncultured and unpatriotic conduct of harassing Nigerians. The police should not be terrors but friends! The next IG will and should hold his office at the pleasure of Nigerians. He must rid the force of corrupt elements and that will require him to be a model of integrity, discipline and probity because he that comes to equity must come with clean hands or risk ending up like a former IG of ignominious memory. President Jonathan must be scrupulous in his choice.
Nigerians should also wake up and begin to speak with one voice. Fear is our greatest challenge. We cannot speak against injustice and corruption. How correct the late Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti was when he sang: ‘my people self dey fear too much, we fear the air around us, we fear to fight for liberty, we fear to fight for freedom, we fear to fight for our rights….’ If when a driver refuses to ‘grease the palm’ of a public officer we all join him, then we are on our way to rebuilding Nigeria. We don’t need to rebrand, let’s rebuild! He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
And as a policeman reading this, where is your conscience? All religious leanings teach against bribes and kickbacks, so how true are you to your God or god? Yes, you may say the shenanigans in government are bigger thieves, then that makes you a self-confessed thief and hence unqualified to be in that sacred uniform meant only for special breeds adopted into the prestigious knighthood of the police force. How do you feel when you detain that poor man for a flimsy excuse and when he finally succumbs to your threats, he gives you a sad and sorry look that reflect his deep revulsion for you? I put it to you that you’re just one of those bad eggs contributing to the rot and bad international image of the country and you lack the merit and moral justification to arrest social delinquency. Quit or change!
By Folarin Samson
Just graduated from Mass communication Dept, University of Lagos
childofdkingdom@yahoo.com, 08030572852
