Nigeria has experienced a lot of bad times and seasons but one perpetually bad season she has continued to experience is called the Nigerian Police Force. While I would love to include all the Nigerian security/intelligence forces in this bad season category it would be a good start point to just consider the police force as one bad season too many and I would stick with writing about them.
The conflicting roles played by police officers attached to different characters during the day of the Rivers State House of Assembly mayhem is very telling and instructive of the lessons that should be learnt and taught to the police hierarchy.
In the video in which Chidi Llyod was seen “macing” a colleague, I saw a police officer join his SSS colleagues (guys with belted guns) beat up a lawmaker within the chambers of the RSHA and in another video you could see a mobile police officer accompany Evans Bipi and was basically assisting Evans and his thugs seeking to gain entry into the chambers.
In the first case I was shocked beyond words to see a policeman beat up a lawmaker. While assault and battery should be a crime, it becomes even more insane when the individual who should enforce that law preventing indiscriminate assault and battery and possibly broker peace take sides and unleash the same crime on a properly elected official of the state, a LAWMAKER!
In the second instance, the mobile policeman that accompanied Evans Bipi and his thugs was trying to assist them gain entry into the chambers of the RSHA. He was even being advised by his colleagues guarding the doors to back down and behave professionally but he would have none of it.
Those scenes tell tales of how unprofessional the Nigerian Police Force have become and the need to quickly nip this unprofessionalism in the bud. The willingness of members of the police force to do the bidding of their immediate benefactors has become too easy and to think they do it without shame is very worrisome.
Moving around Nigeria, you will observe how the mobile police unit of the NPF has become the private security of individuals, banks and other private institutions. As a Port-Harcourt resident, you see them minute-by-minute blaring sirens and flouting the state’s traffic laws as they create routes in traffic while guarding foreign nationals. One 4WD vehicle carrying an expatriate could have as many as eight (8) mobile policemen in two (2) pick-up trucks guarding him/her. Matter of factly, I now regard the mobile police force as the commercialized part of the force generating revenue for the pockets of the various Ogas At The Top.
The speeches, actions and inactions of both the Rivers State commissioner of police and the IG also speaks volumes of where allegiance lie and path they would kow-tow in a bid to perform their duties going forward.
I once read a Jeffrey Archer novel where the US attorney-general through the FBI was investigating the presidency for a murder and preparing charges to arrest the president before a breakthrough in the case revealed the Chief of Staff as the prime suspect who was then indicted and arrested. Here in Nigeria the body language of the presidency is one of “Above-the-Law”. You are seemingly untouchable once you get a presidential appointment.
Have you ever seen the NPF comb a crime scene for clues and evidence or even do something close to that like it is done in western movies? Here in Nigeria, the police appear hours or even days after the crime and then arrest anyone and everyone in sight so as reap bail money from them and their families. It is fantasy to ask for presidential investigation or that the police comb a crime scene properly in Nigeria because the mind can only conceive that in an environment where it is closely possible.
The other day it was revealed how decrepit and run-down the Ikeja Police Training College had become but instead of investigating how the funds for maintaining the institution was mis-managed and mis-appropriated, how the place for training criminal-catchers had become worse than where criminals are punished, the government (through the president for that matter) came out defending the police hierarchy and blamed the opposition for the revelation. That just trivialised the issues and showed us government-police relationship already skewed to ensure that the police doesn’t work independently, sincerely and with integrity.
In light of our “nascent” democracy and civilian rule what efforts have been made to ensure that members of the police force are trained on how to respect the rights and priviledges of civilian members of the society to whom they owe a duty of protection? Do Nigerian police officers and men know their responsibilities before and during elections and through the period of our democratic practice? Are they fully aware of the position they hold in society and need to be apolitical and unbiased when carrying-out these responsities? The response to these questions will be in the negative when you consider the examples of the two police officers described earlier as well as their bosses, the Rivers CP and the IG.
This sorry state of the Nigerian Police Force should be a serious bother to all well-meaning Nigerians who want to see a new, prosperous and truly democratic Nigeria. We can go no-where with this swinging, biased, ill-trained and un-professional police force.
A radical change needs to birth in the Nigerian Police Force and quickly too.
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