Who will police the police, leaders & government

 It's ignominy a country that is so blessed can’t put itself together to harness their abundant potentials. We use our own hands to ruin everything. Perhaps if we remind ourselves of some of the problems again, we will think of ways of solving them. 

A day on the streets in Nigeria is the height of risk management with area boys, touts, terrorists and some group of people called themselves Boko Haram, hijacking the streets, and causing havoc in daylight while corrupt cops and leaders watch in amusement after having their palms “greased.” Your heart stops on the brink, imaging what an average Nigerian is exposed to after sunset on the streets. Where do we go from here?

Topmost on any sensitive nation’s priority list is the welfare of its people from the grassroots to the elites as this is a measure of the country in question’s economic stability. Unfortunately in Nigeria, the ruling “elite”, who ironically are labelled public servants by the constitution, do not see this. The leaders of the country embarrass its people in Diaspora with lawfully unacceptable character embezzling public funds and giving the crumbs of their spoils to the hungry citizens. The government has refused to invest in the youths who we all know are the future leaders. Even as the youth struggle to stay off the streets and get their lives together as entertainers and so on, the government is thoroughly unsupportive. Looking at the minimum wage in Nigeria, if the salary of two senators can pay the salary of four hundred (400) civil servants, how much is eighteen thousand naira (N18,000) that the government can’t afford. In the United Kingdom, the minimum wage for a worker per day is seventy-eight dollar ($78) while in Nigeria it is one hundred and eighteen dollars ($118) per month. The earlier the government realizes that focusing her attention on arresting the factors responsible for eroding the purchasing power of the workers income, the better off they’d be.

The police and the government have neglected their duties, so do the SSS. People are no longer interested in their duties; they are only interested in what they can have for their pockets. Most of our political leaders are only interested in their election and re-election [and] what they can get for themselves. They are interested in receiving titles, getting married, cross-carpeting from one party to another. Even when you want to cross-carpet from one party to another, you must first of all examine the security implication.

Now, the worst thing is, these sect leaders and their followers must have been used by some politicians to foment trouble. The police should have been forewarned of the danger of such people in our midst. Because these people are idle now, since there is no election for them to cause any trouble, they will have to turn at everybody. I expected the police to have been aware of the threat from Boko Haram. And that the sect stormed and burned down police stations is an indictment on the police authorities: they failed in their responsibility. If a group of people can plan and execute an attack on a police station, then the whole of Nigeria is not safe – everybody should device their own means to protect themselves since our police are not fit to protect even their stations, much less the citizens. They are not worth that uniform.

In every other country except Nigeria, call yourself a police man and you’ll command maximum respect because your job is as noble as that of an engineer, lawyer or doctor. Call yourself a police man in Nigeria and you command maximum fear because most police men here are worse than armed robbers. Is someone saying the government does not know this?

With the current state of the Nigeria police, who are supposed to be genuine servants of the nation, harassing citizens indiscriminately by means of thoroughly unnecessary delays in transit, shamelessly and forcefully demanding bribes from hardworking citizens on a daily basis, unlawful detention and battery of citizens who are either innocent or suspect of alleged crimes, somewhat light years away from a trial in court (if at all any arises), we ask who will police The Police? As they have become the greatest threat to social security in the country.

There is no comparison. Nigeria inherited an excellent, accountable police force from the British. What we have now is a home made [outfit] and this home made something is mass production and mass production has no value; there are some good ones but the good ones are very few. So long as we continue having the bad ones in the majority, police stations will continue to burn because the bad ones will always look the other way when they see trouble coming. They can’t report the trouble, at least not when they are part of the problem.

Police officers are responsible to look after the lives and possessions of citizens. They are appointed to make sure that the people are obeying the laws and regulations imposed by the state. They have the duty to maintain law and order situation, arrest the lawbreakers and work to stop the people from committing any crime.

We must become conscious about the future, next forty, fifty years. Let’s encourage youth corps members, industrialisation, manufacturing, creativity, professionalism of our nation. Think about what you can do to make it a better place, others did so much to get us to this stage, do something to take the next generation forward. I believe the time has come for us to settle for the change that we’ve all embraced and by that change, our language, perception, respect for law and order must change. No one else will build Nigeria for us; Nigeria will be built by Nigerians. I believe in Nigeria and I believe in our future.

September 01, 2011