Only God can judge my ordeal with the police!

Each side of its wall carried a countless number of inscriptions that expressed feelings of worries, disappointments, loss of hope, betrayal, and innocence. They must have been written by suspects. Among these inscriptions on the walls of this Police Cell, that caught the writer’s attention was: ‘Only God can judge.’   Devoid of ambiguity, such […]

Each side of its wall carried a countless number of inscriptions that expressed feelings of worries, disappointments, loss of hope, betrayal, and innocence. They must have been written by suspects. Among these inscriptions on the walls of this Police Cell, that caught the writer’s attention was: ‘Only God can judge.’  

Devoid of ambiguity, such inscription denotes loss of hope, a feeling of unjust treatment against this anonymous suspect either from his co-suspects, circumstances that led him into the cell, or at worse the unfair and unprofessional conduct of those who themselves, wear the face of the law. 

Also, it sends a message of hopelessness and weakness of the weak in the crushing hands of brutal might; but the anonymous suspect seemed consoled by the fact that God, the Almighty would judge every creature for his actions on this earth, from makers of the law to the interpreters of these laws and enforcers of such laws including police officers who wrongfully arrest innocent people that committed no offence, as was in this writer’s case.

For clearer insight, I was suddenly grabbed and handcuffed together with a friend like ‘wanted criminals’, thrown into an unlabelled Hilux vehicle as these men zoomed off with us. 

Of a truth, the police and other security agencies are empowered by law to arrest suspects anywhere and anytime, within the dictates of the law. But one wonders if people get arrested in the manner we were; I got a response, streams of slaps, and several hits while demanding to see their I.D Cards since they were not on uniforms. ‘Only GOD can Judge’.

When eventually we got to the police station, one of them, whom we later discovered was an Inspector, said: ‘we are men of the Special Tactical Squad (STS) but we had no business with you both’; pointing at my friend with a charged rage. However, the Inspector continued: ‘you know our ‘soft-target’ through whom we would get through our main-target.’

He however said (in paraphrase) that punishment for my initial refusal to arrest and demand to see their I.D cards was to dump us inside the cell that fateful evening till the following morning before our release. 

According to him, such was a ‘big offence’. Again, before he matched us to the police counter, he smashed my cheek with another thunderous slap which made me slip.

Muhammad Danjuma Abubakar,

Minna, Niger State