I do not pretend to know the origin or why they originated in the first place, but the slogans that ‘The Police are Your Friends’ and ‘Bail Is Free’ are two myths that remain only that in Nigeria.
The slogans may be true elsewhere, but certainly not on these shores, where they are only true when so-called big people are involved. The big man may be a politician, a wealthy person, or a prominent monarch; otherwise, forget the two if you do not have the money to pay for both.
A couple of years ago, this writer witnessed a situation where a ‘big’ man, a Very Important Person (VIP) in one town in the northwestern part of the country, simply phoned the Commissioner of Police for the immediate release of some arrested ‘political thugs’. The commissioner complied without even asking for the ‘big’ person’s whereabouts, who happened to be in his chauffeur-driven vehicle not far from the Police Headquarters, where the boys were being detained.
It is well known all over the country that a police officer who is regarded or seen as not ‘on the take’ is usually posted to a ‘barren’ post, where there is ‘nothing for the boys’, and the ‘girls’ too, nowadays. Such police officers come in the form of ‘Ustaz’s’, if they are Muslims, ‘Born Again’, if they are Christians, or just ‘Not On The Take’, if they appear not to be too religious. That is, not belonging to either of the two major religions in the country.
Cases of recent happenings are just too numerous to mention, but citing a few examples proving that the two slogans are mere myths in Nigeria may be enough to drive home the point.
Not long ago, there was a video clip on social media where some passengers in a Golf car on their way to Maiduguri from Kano complained of being stopped and extorted by the police, who allegedly forgot a gun in the passengers’ vehicle. The people in the vehicle vowed that ‘enough is enough’ regarding the many police ‘checkpoints’ (read extortion points) along the Maiduguri road.
A long time ago, my wife and I were stopped by the police along the Kaduna-Abuja road. When we stopped, three policemen came to our car and, after looking at us attentively, asked for my particulars. I produced them, and to the best of my knowledge, whatever they wanted was up to date. When they discovered the correctness of ALL the particulars, they demanded to see my fire extinguisher and my reflector stopper. They also checked the tires on the vehicle. Everything was in good shape, as the car was then a brand-new Honda Accord, popularly known as ‘Honda Hala’.
Apparently satisfied that everything was in order, the policemen still walked away with the particulars, ignoring me where I parked to attend to another vehicle. When I requested the particulars of my vehicle, I was told to see the ‘oga’, who was sitting under the shade of a tree some meters away from the road. The oga sent me back to his people to ‘sort it out between’ ourselves.
Realizing that they wanted to extort money from me at all costs, I called a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) based at the Police Force Headquarters. Luckily for me, he instantly answered my phone cheerfully and asked me what the matter was. When I narrated everything that transpired between me and “your people on my way to Abuja,” he asked me to give the phone to the leader of the team, and I hastily complied. After that, the team leader questioned me about what I had told ‘Oga at the headquarters.’ Before I could answer him, he added in pidgin English, and I quote, “No be dem send us out?” I retorted that the question should be directed to the DIG, not to me. I collected my particulars and drove away.
Another example of the police not being a friend of the common person in Nigeria was shown on the popular ‘Berekete Family’ programme very recently, where a ‘crying’ member of a bereaved family narrated to the audience how a policeman ‘cold-bloodedly’ killed a relation of his in the deceased’s Keke NAPEP.
The narrator alleged that the phone of the driver and owner of the Keke NAPEP was ‘stolen’ by one or both of the only two ‘passengers’ he was carrying at that time. According to him, the driver stopped on the way and ‘politely’ asked for his phone to be returned to him, insisting that it must have been taken by one or both of the two occupants.
When both girls protested their ‘innocence’, one of the two then produced her phone and asked the tricycle driver to give her his number. When he did, she called the number, and a phone rang in the well-hidden pocket of the other girl. Instead of the ‘thief’ returning the ‘stolen’ phone to its owner, she took out her own phone and called someone.
That someone was a policeman who materialized after a little while. When the policeman arrived at the scene, where the Keke NAPEP was parked, he asked the girl who called him to step out of, and get away from, the vehicle. When she got far away, the policeman, ‘calm but brutal’, used his gun and ‘cold-bloodedly’ shot to death the two remaining persons in the Keke NAPEP. After making sure they were dead, he moved some distance away from the vehicle containing the two dead bodies and stopped another Keke NAPEP, demanding the driver to take him to a certain police station.
However, the driver of the second Keke NAPEP, suspicious of the police officer, who was still holding his gun in the open, called the attention of some people who, upon finding the gory images in the abandoned first Keke NAPEP, went to the police station where the ‘guilty’ policeman was taken to. The officers on duty told the angry people that the policeman in question had gone home, and they gave them his address. Upon arriving at the given address, the people found the entrance to the property completely shut. They summoned the police at a nearby station and narrated what had happened, upon which the ‘new’ police officers broke open the door to find the accused policeman threatening them with his gun.
Still, another example of police extortion was again shown on the ‘Berekete Family’ programme, where the producer, popularly known as the ‘ordinary President’, publicly displayed a walkie-talkie accidentally left inside a motor vehicle by a policeman when he and his colleagues allegedly entered the vehicle to collect bribe money from the occupants.
In many instances, the police also assume the role of Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs), stopping vehicles on the road and asking for ‘particulars’. Anyone unlucky enough not to have any of the ‘demanded’ particulars automatically falls at the mercy of the ‘interrogator’, who would mention a price that MUST be paid there and then. Otherwise, it would be a one-way drive to the police station, where the victim may remain for a long time until he pays or is bailed out by someone else.
These and many other instances of hostility toward, or extortion of, the ordinary Nigerian continue all the time, despite the assurances of every new or incoming Inspector General of Police to address the issue of ‘extortion’ in the police, whether at the numerous police checkpoints in the country or regarding bail at the counters in the even more numerous police stations across the country.
And failing to do so is what they always do until a new IGP comes in to make more unfulfilled or apparently unfulfillable promises about the two and other issues. Many people believe that unless the salary of the police is greatly increased to meet or almost match international standards, the promises of stopping graft in the force in Nigeria will remain just empty promises that are unlikely to be fulfilled.
Let every affected citizen contribute to ensuring that our country gets decent police officers at EVERY level.
May God provide us with the sustenance that is legitimately our own in our mundane affairs.
Labaran wrote from Abuja.
