A Police Strike In An Unpoliced State (The Nigerian Police)

By

Prince Charles Dickson

Jos, Plateau Nigeria

 

I smiled as I read the conversation; it was on one of the national dailies, the first man claimed that he knew why the policemen choose February 20th for their planned strike-why the other man asked, the first man answered “they want to show us they have a great sense of humour”. How? Asked the other fellow. The response was “they have a special fascination for 20-especially N20.

 

After all the usual bragadoism (noise without action), the planned police strike has again brought to the front burner the failure that the present administration is. The President met with top police chiefs for over two hours in a closed-door meeting. The issues discussed for yet another time ranged from welfare, recruitment, promotion, training, reorientation and corruption. One cannot be fooled that the primary reason of the meeting was actually to see how serious the junior officers calling for the police action were and also to seek out measures to contain it come February 20th. The President as usual was raking at no one in particular, as one could say conclusively that after six years he had not made any significant improvement in the policing of the nation.

 

The Inspector-General of Police called the strike “a figment of the imagination of those who fermented it” while the National Union of Policemen, the group of junior policemen behind the planned strike tagged it the “mother of all strikes”. Before now the IG maintained that the threat of the strike was not real but the meeting with baba Sege gives a different story line. Funny is it not that the policemen are even coming under an umbrella to press for change…

This I must state is the second time if this strike holds that the police would em bark on an industrial action and before the man at the villa packs out or is chased out I am sure children would also go on strike.

 

Though our leaders have maintained the threat of the strike is someone’s crazy imagination, it is also important to note that serious underground efforts is being made to avert the same imagination. Even as Ehindero the police chief warned that anyone who participated would face arrest and prosecution. Yet I stand to be corrected the government has met to see how it can meet the demands of the junior officers. This same kind of meeting has been held times without count, we even have a presidential committee on Police.

 

On welfare, last week in a barracks in one of the formations of the Nigerian Police, they celebrated nine months without electricity. With mosquitoes on permanent night patrol duty, officers are companions to malaria and as such a visit to the police station, citizen is treated like mosquitoes. I honestly am not moved about police welfare because of the general apathy for the police in the nation; however it is sad to note that the Nigerian Police is the least paid among service personnel. These days a young recruit buys his uniform, buys batteries for his touch, buys fuel for his patrol van, coon they may be required to source for arms and ammunition from the open black market.

 

A typical barracks is an example of where not to live, and where everything called rot find habitation, the buildings are like left over of the kosovo war. The poor welfare and remuneration of the Police has made it dea d impossible for the N20 to be eradicated.

 

Somewhere between Kaduna/Jos boundary last week a mild drama occurred when a policeman shot at the tyre of a long vehicle because the driver refused to part with N50, the driver insisted he could only part with N20. The Policeman refused. On shooting the tyre, the driver in turn barricaded the entire road with his vehicle blocking traffic from both ends of the road and insisted that the police buy him a new tyre, his colleagues also joined in adding to the already tens e atmosphere through the support services they provided. Innocent travelers were turned victims as over seven hours went without any compromise, commuters had to resort to contribute money and give to the trailer driver for a new tyre before he moved.

 

The Nigerian Policeman is a poor man, but what difference would the proposed strike make…when most Nigerians have resorted to fate because trusting the Nigerian Police is like entrusting ones vegetables garden to a goat. Without the strike robbers are having a fre e day, with the strike it would be Uhuru. The Obasanjo adventure is one in pacesetting so therefore, this is yet another episode in his all-round failure called reforms. After the first strike, if this second one sails through no matter how partially, it would be difficult to break baba’s record.

 

I told someone that a hungry policeman is not an angry policeman but a thieving policeman and this is one thing that our leaders do not know. They just sit up there and loot the national treasury dry even to the point of pu blic disdain, because after all what can citizenry do… Nothing! A visit to the police station would be an experience in the learning curve of human existence, a place of anything and everything goes. Whether you are a suspect, complainant or witness, you will need to part with money for plain sheets and ink to scribble your statements, and you pay for bail. And then if you smile too much you may be arrested and asked to pay for breaching public peace at the police station.

 

A visit to a police station recently and I heard a senior officer ‘scold’ a junior “wait, I do not know why the impatience you time to ‘wack’ (to thief, collect bribe on large scale, time he will partake in sharing of imprests meant for routine expenses, sharing of exhibit items) will come”. What manner of reorientation can such a junior officer get? Reorientation indeed when in most cases the junior officers’ collection of roadside N20 toll is at the express command and permission of a superior officer who gets his own share.

Police promotions is an exercise in black magic as there are no set guidelines, it is simply based on who do you know and the pay for your rank style, where the officer seeking promotion must gratify superior officers. Even after the promotion and the salary reflected th e Police accounts Department does its own voodoo, as the more intensely you look the less probability of understanding anything.

 

I have vowed to disown any family member that puts on the black uniform of the police even in a movie production.

 

Recruitment, I know of a case where a policeman was recruited with a church baptismal certificate. There are cases of police man among the rank and file that do not know who the present Inspector-General of Police is and yet the picture is supposedly in place everywhere that has the sign police station. Area boys, street urchins and touts are recruited into the police and we expect them to deliver utopia. Like the Indians say Nahe…? Meaning No!

 

When you recruit policemen with Intelligence Quotient of minus 100, it is clearly exhibited in the lack of knowledge of the common rudiments of the art of policing. A complainant in the twinkle of an eye could suddenly become the accused, a witness becoming a suspect depending on who is willing to play ball faster and better.

 

When we recruit buffoons we get the kind of police we have now. A polic e that lacks the capability to settle two neighbours fighting without complicating matters and demanding gratification.

 

It is no surprise that apart from Obasanjo, the Nigerian Police rates among Nigerians top five hate list. When the men in black innocent citizens under the guise of being trigger happy and then run when they see the real robbers. What then do they expect from the police, even the former diminutive labour fighter Adams Oshimole who as far as I am concerned to all intent has lost steam is begging the m not to go on strike but to dialogue…funny how times change.

 

It seems almost natural that as soon as one wears the black police uniform the soul, spirit and body of the individual becomes black in thought and action. The orientation in the Police is faulty, it is dirty, it is simply a continuation of the old colonial police with their short knickers and short fused brains. Ever seen a policeman ask for gratification at a checkpoint. He barks like a dog on the loose. I have learnt not to argue with them for fear of be ing accidentally sent to my forebears at the wrong time for the wrong reasons by the wrong persons.

 

Some years back, a group of policemen from the bomb disposal unit went on training and came back the same way they went, after chopping estacodes in plenty dollars, they could barely defuse a Christmas knockout, how much more tell the difference amongst a red, blue and white wire device.

 

The present I-G is a Lawyer, however he has been an affront to the same law, under his watch the police continue to abuse citizens under every available flimsy excuse. I have requested that the Guantanmo Bay inmates be brought down to the Nigerian Police they would stop complaining after 24 hours at Alagbon Police Station.

 

The proposed strike whether it holds or not tells so much about the value our government places on the security of the lives and property of her citizens which is why local vigilante groups have more respect than the taxpayers’ funded police. The only area in which the Nigerian Police has succeeded is in being used as willing tools for selfish politicians... May Almighty Allah come to our rescue if there is hope?