Who is the Nigerian Policeman?
He is not the clean-scrubbed PRO officer doing online image laundering. Neither is he one of the top hierarchy that holds the microphone on behalf of the force from time to time.
The Nigerian Policeman is not made up of the few well-educated or the even fewer scions of middle-class families who join in to show some sort of progress in life. Those are posted to Banana Island, Maitama, and _____(insert your local rich man enclave).
The Nigerian Police is the mass of ill-educated, poorly educated and mis-educated men and women who need to escape the killing poverty, hunger and helplessness we seem powerless to change in this country. At least, na job.
The Policemen you and I mostly encounter are just a rung higher than the agbero we would usually avoid. The rung is the authority of state and assurance of some sort of salary. Ill-equipped, poorly remunerated, deficient in training, they mostly find themselves unable to rise above mediocrity and bestiality.
How do you guarantee safety of lives and property when the politicians who call the shots encourage you to use brute force on whoever is in their way? How do you resist indiscriminate killings when "some boys" will shoot at you with arms that politicians supply them once in four years? How do you ensure bail is free and police report is free when your four kids have been sent back home from school over unpaid fees and there are no writing materials in the stations?
I once sat down with two Policemen in the course of some research work. Gist turned to SARS at a point, the funniest thing I heard was "if your mama no dey go coven and she no dey go to the Mountain for like 2 weeks every month, wetin you wan go do for SARS? No normal person dey join SARS o."
The saddest thing I heard was on their mode of operation.
"Where do you live?" One of them asked me.
"Mushin."
"Good. Would you walk on Akala Street by yourself?" I smiled and shook my head to say no.
"If you like, go there. You will call the station tire, we no go come help you. But if you call SARS, they will go and they must take captivity captive because they must see their families that night." He told of some terrible abuses but tellingly, he spoke of it to glorify them.
We all knew the magnitude of the extra-judicial actions he covered up creatively.
Search this hashtag (#EndSARS) on Twitter and you will say an extra prayer each time your male relative leaves the house.
I pity the Nigerian Police and revile them in unequal measure.
No, the police is not my friend. For now.
I vote to #EndSARS
Thoughts of Adebukola Mi
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