It is no longer news that an apparent suicide bomb occurred at the heart of the Nigeria internal security system during the week. The act is condemnable but also brings to the fore again the stone-age approach of the Nigeria police in apprehending criminals.
It is no longer news that an apparent suicide bomb occurred at the heart of the Nigeria internal security system during the week. The act is condemnable but also brings to the fore again the stone-age approach of the Nigeria police in apprehending criminals.
It was reported that when a traffic police attached to the Force headquarter gate spotted the unusual car in the convoy of the IG or DIG, he got into the car and directed the man to a nearby car park. Anyone who is familiar with the working of the Nigeria police would know what it means when a policeman enters your car and asks you to find a ‘proper place’ to park. The ‘proper place’ is a convenient point to start the negotiation of bribery. That morning when the dead police officer saw that unusual car and he noticed that the man was a wrong person in a wrong place at a wrong time, what was running in his mind was that god (sic) has buttered his bread. A saying of gratification for the god of corruption by men and women of the Nigeria police force. I have no doubt in my mind that the dead policeman was directing the bomber to a safe place to collect BRIBE. But, alas! He did not live to tell the story.
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‘Park properly’ is an age-long method which the police use to corner an unsuspecting driver to a safe corner to fleece him of his money. Even if this method of asking for bribe is a course taught in the Nigeria police school curriculum, it is outdated and the Nigeria police need to review its curriculum as it is no longer effective. The last Thursday tragic event also shows that some danger is associated with it. Before this tragic event on Thursday, many policemen had to trek to their check point after some stubborn drivers would have taken them far away from the ‘proper place’ they asked them to park.
Assuming the original intention of the police authority of using this method was to prevent an erring driver from escaping the law, still using this method in the 21st century only demonstrate a failure of the Nigeria state.
Not long ago, I was in Saudi Arabia and had witnessed the working of police checkpoint. Every car in that country has its information in the National data base under the bio-data of its owner. Police check points have system from which they can browse the national data base. This makes car stealing a very rare occurrence in the Kingdom-it does happen. You would even need a police permit to have your car repainted or have a body dent repaired. Even as a car owner, when you think of the process you will need to go through before changing the paint of your car, you are compelled to live with original paint that comes with your car. A car-thief is only a suffer head. When you get to a police check-point and the police guy needs you to park for proper check, he collects either your driver’s license, vehicle registration card or residential permit (Iqama) and asks you to go and park in order not to obstruct other motorists.
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With one of these three cards in his hand, he has all the information about you at his finger tips. Of what use is the Nigeria driver’s license, by the way. A document you can purchase at Oshodi market. Most of the Nigeria things are done for their sake or because other world are doing them. To digress a little, when the country is making so much noise about sim card registration, I was hissing because I knew it is another project to rob the Nigeria state. Of what worth is a sim card registration for a country without National Data base of her citizenry.
A policeman will never get into your car in Saudi Arabia. Even where a motorist dares to run away, police officer chases him down and catches him. He could have been allowed to run away knowing that the car will be of no use to him and anybody else, if he had stolen it. But police chases down motorist for he might be a wanted criminal, drug peddler or illegal resident. You dare not try to run when you see a police vehicle because you certainly know you are beginning a car race you can never win. In the Nigeria case, motorists dare police for race because they know the police will never venture into it. Either the Nigeria police car is rickety or it has just enough fuel for between the police station and check-point of bribery.
Both the highest command and the rank and file of the Nigeria police force are steep in corruption and criminality. The financial corruption of the police knows no bound. From the time of the disgraced Tafa Balogun to that of thieving Sunday Ehindero , Mike Okiro, Ogbonna Onovo and the present IG Ringim, the high commands of the police are the worst looters of public treasury. While the low ranks of the police are left to do their corruption at police check-points or over the counter at police stations, the high ranks of the police have been co-opted by the politicians in the act of fleecing states of their resources. Police IG, AIG, DIG, Commissioners, DPO and Area commanders are recruited as the head of thugs for election rigging at the Federal, State and Local Government levels, a trade perfected by Tafa Balogun and Sunday Ehindero. In the police CID Abuja, some police officers sit their pretty fleecing people of amount ranging between fifteen and thirty thousand naira for a worthless police report usually demanded by foreign embassies from someone travelling to their home countries. Some of the police counters in Nigeria have seen more money than some bank counters have seen. In fact everything about police in Nigeria is a force to reckon with when it comes to corruption. The Police Equipment Fund scandal involving Kenny Martins and his accomplices is a good example.
Retired police officers are the highest criminal in public places: I don’t have Anenih and Akala in mind! The very few good ones should bear with me, pleases.
The criminality of the Nigeria police has made it a victim of itself. The police force always complains of the citizens not forthcoming with information regarding perpetrators of crime. Do these guys know that the Nigerian public respects and trusts the armed-robbers, kidnappers and the Boko-Haram more than them? That is, if Nigerians still have any modicum of trust for the force. In Nigeria, if an armed-robber tells you he is going to rob you, definitely you know he meant it. And for the Kidnapper, when they demand ransom and it is paid promptly, the victim is usually released unharmed (Mind you our policemen sometime act as middlemen in some of these ransoms negotiation act!). But if a police man tells a Nigerian that he/she is safe, the earlier he/she starts scampering for safety the wiser. Many people had met their untimely death in the hands of police in their belief that the police was a friend and a protector. Remember the slogan of the Nigeria police force is that: “The Police is Your Friend”. This one-line sentence speaks volume of the police. The Nigeria Police Force must be aware that it is more feared and loathed than enemy by Nigerians.
The Nigeria police force history is replete with day-light murder. The force is synonymous with murder, rascality and incompetence. In the Christmas/Eid of 2001, some policemen sent to contain crises in part of Kogi state mounted illegal road block extorting money from innocent passer-by and motorists. That not enough, three of them (Benjamin Oyakhire, Jimoh Michael and Gershon Soba) robbed, murdered and set ablaze a group of trader travelling to buy rams for sale in that festive period. Unlucky for the policemen, one of the traders was able to escape with gun injuries from them. The miraculous escape of this man was what saved the whole town the next morning, because already the police were bracing for brutality in the town the that morning in the guise of raiding to apprehend the criminals. I was in a police station in Lokoja in 2001 when some under-aged boys were brought by a police patrol team. When one of the officers who I thought still had sense and humanity in him complained of the age and impropriety of the police patrol’s action, the patrol team turned story around and said these under-aged boys were armed-robbers caught on the high way. The truth is that they were arrested at a film hall. A fellow was once detained for 29 days by the police under trump-up charges in December 2001. After collecting enough bribes by the police, they off-loaded him to a court of law and the police never came back for prosecution. Consequently, he was discharged by the judge for lack of diligent prosecution on the part of the police.
The senselessness and impunity with which the Nigeria policemen kill defy any logic. In November 2003, Ibrahim Musa, a gold-medal cyclist in that year All-African game was gunned down by the police alongside with his two friends along Okene-Lokoja road. Haliru Salawu Agaba was murdered in Kaduna by one corporal Rabiu Bello because he was too poor to buy him a cigarette. The P.M newspaper in 2001 reported that one Mrs Iroh was killed by the police while roasting plantain for sale in the street of Lagos. Dele Udoh, a promising Nigeria Athlete was fell by police in Lagos in 1999. The Apo-7 killing is another class A brutality of the Nigeria police in recent time. Many motorists and passengers were fell by Nigeria police bullets at check-point because a motorist refused to settle them the mandatory twenty naira toll invented by policemen at check points all over the country. This is not to talk of cases of impregnation of inmates and rape perpetrated by policemen across Nigeria. In August 2010 the dailytrust newspaper reported that a policeman impregnated a homicide suspect, Halima Abdu, in their custody in Borno state. Just in December 2010, three policemen were complicit in the rape 16-year-old girl in the North-western city of Kano. These are just the few cases that space allowed us to mention.
For an organization who has only professionalized in robbing, maiming, raping and killing of the citizens that pay the tax to fund it, it still expects them to dish out information to it when even armed-robbers are more trusted. The brutality, incompetence, corruption and criminality have made the Nigerian populace to see them as more an enemy than a friend. The police truly is a victim of its own tactics. Many people here in Nigeria vow that they cease befriending anyone the day he or she joins the police force. The Nigeria police are so despise that even a madman thinks he is better than anybody belonging that organization.
There is this story narrated by one police commissioner. He said one day he was coordinating the usual morning parade by police officers at a station in Lagos when he noticed a madman watching with smile and relics. After the exercise he approached the lunatic and asked him whether he wanted to join the police. To his shock, the madman face turned immediately and replied that his craziness had not degenerated to such a level for him to join the Nigeria police force.
And for the last one word, every cloud has a sliver lining, they say. The Police HQ bomb blast is dastardly and condemnable but it has brought with it some good news. No policeman/woman will dare enter into a vehicle again for ‘search operation’, at least for now.
Suleiman M Jimoh ([email protected]).
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