Connect with us

Graffiti

Beyond a glance at the Nigerian Police

Published

on

Beyond a glance at the Nigerian Police

By Funmilola Ajala …

Nothing suggests something unusual is in the offing. It appears all too perfect. Except that my female colleague (let me go by her acronym of JA) – originally penned to work in the afternoon – was in the office far ahead of time. The reason? We have a practice session scheduled for that particular Friday morning. JA, days earlier, bought a car (her first) and chose me as her traffic tutor.

With everything in place, we set out from our office location, Old Bodija, enroute to the Oyo State Government Secretariat, along the serene Agodi way, Ibadan. Having contributed a little more to the higy haga on the road, as one would welcome from a ‘Learner’, we managed to temporarily halt our adventure in front of Water Building, inside the Secretariat. After few steps away, she excused me to double check if the car doors were well locked. That done, we went upstairs to have few minutes of a tête-à-tête with a government official. In less than a quarter of an hour, the parley ended, and we descended the staircase, only for the parked vehicle to have disappeared into thin air!

With alarm raised, we attracted a sizeable crowd as the news of a car being stolen went round that very vicinity, confirming that security at the seat of power in Ibadan had been bridged by criminals. In the midst of the ensuing conundrum, I managed to ask: “Are there no CCTV cameras around here?” My query met a chorus of “No” from the onlookers, many of who work within the expansive premises.

Of course I blame the successive governments in Oyo State for displaying such crude level of awareness to security at the Secretariat. How can a car be driven away from such a purportedly organised environment without a clue as to what went wrong? The free entry and exit at the gates is, indeed, an open invitation to criminally-minded individuals who could stroll in and execute their act uninhibited.

Alas, we yielded to advice to register the incident with the police, who swung into action with assurance that the situation wasn’t beyond redemption. And since the car was only delivered to the new owner three days earlier, the auto seller (often referred to as a Dealer) became the prime suspect and was therefore arrested that same evening.

On Saturday, March 24, 2018, a day after the dramatic car theft, we resumed at the police station, one of the most notorious in Ibadan, to further help the security agents in unraveling the mystery of the previous afternoon. As uncertainties continued to permeate the cloud, I took a keener look at the state of affairs within that very space, and I was forced on a journey of the whole facility.

What I discovered wasn’t just shocking but equally discomforting.

First, what represents the gates at the entrance was almost giving way due to effects of old age. The paint on the obviously rotten and bent piece of combined metals was so faded, suggesting an impending divorce between the gates and the supporting concrete pillars on both sides.

Read also: Sweet sour notes from T.Y Danjuma

Secondly, the fence of the police station host a long line of shops with members of the public engaging in various forms of commercials. I must admit that this particular police station isn’t in isolation in this regard as checks would reveal same practice elsewhere. One of the most feared police locations is the State Headquarters of the CID, Iyangaku Ibadan; its fence is also clustered with shops.

My question: Who collects rent on the shops? After all, the police is said not to be a revenue-generating agency.

Thirdly, the precarious state of the barracks housing our policemen and their families across Nigeria was equally accentuated here, unfortunately in a very bad light. What we called an abode for these officers is only an amphitheater where families and rodents co-exist with little qualms. These structures would do with some paint retouching and fixing of nets to prevent invasion of mosquitoes on night patrols.

Of late, Nigeria’s Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has come for more public opprobrium than any other public servants in the country. Since the turn of the year, every mention of the Niger-born policeman had been for the negative as the age-long inefficiency of the force forced its way to the very fore of our national discourse. Policemen have become cheap targets of death merchants who now reign supreme in different communities across the country. The memory of how a team of mobile policemen was ambushed in Benue’s Tse Akpan village by suspected herdsmen, in February, remains fresh in our minds. After days of frantic search, one of the officers was found dead with some vital body parts missing.

But isn’t it shameful that, while Idris appears to be the scapegoat here, we seem to see nothing appalling in a Buhari-led government which has consistently failed to fulfill its promise of massive recruitment into the police upon assumption of power in 2015? More than at any point in time, the insincerity of the federal government in equipping the police is now more damning. The institutionalized corruption in the force has refused to go away since poverty has also become more endemic among the rank and file, thus portraying a policeman as nothing more than an object of ridicule in the society.

By now, it should add to our trepidation that sacking the under pressure police IG would change next to nothing, so long the arbiters of Nigerians’ collective destinies fail to shed their lip service to the provision of security. No one knows till date how much State Governors collect as ‘security vote’, yet they are constrained by extant laws from taking charge as far as securing people in their domains is concerned.

If Nigeria’s battered corporate existence would manage to embrace hope at the end of this dark tunnel, the authority must appreciate the need to recharge the dying patriotism among the police. To this end, sustained massive investments, targeting recruitment, training, adequate welfare, and effective collaboration among all tiers of government cannot be wished away.

And by the way, the ‘big boys’ returned my colleague’s (stolen) car, on Saturday night; parked somewhere on the streets of Ibadan. Again, unimpeded!

 

 

RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears

Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now