Predators in uniform!
Cruelty to the weaker sex is as old as time. From the very beginning of recorded history, society had tended to favour brawn against beauty. Laws are made that discriminate against women, sometimes reducing them to playthings as if their humanity was suspect. Last week, Lagos State made the headlines for all the wrong reasons […]
Cruelty to the weaker sex is as old as time. From the very beginning of recorded history, society had tended to favour brawn against beauty. Laws are made that discriminate against women, sometimes reducing them to playthings as if their humanity was suspect.
Last week, Lagos State made the headlines for all the wrong reasons as its so called Task Force on Environmental and Special Offences Unit descended heavily on women for no other ‘offence’ than that they were found outside their homes at night. When men crawl the night it is assumed that they’re out having fun, but when women are found outside at night, simpletons such as the members of the Lagos task force under reference tag such women ‘prostitutes’.
Imagine going out to have fun after work on Friday at a time when there is no curfew, only to end up being manhandled, sexually harassed, thrown into a van and detained in a cell without knowing your offence.
The account of one of the victims was typical of what all those abducted went through: “I am a chartered accountant by profession. I was out on the 2nd of September with friends and colleagues at “Maroccaine Restaurant” in Akin Ogunlewe, off Ayorinde, Victoria Island, Lagos… At about 1am, I decided to go to my car and change into a pair of comfortable slippers. I had just done that and was in front of my car, about to cross into the restaurant when I was apprehended by two men. My immediate reaction was fear of kidnappers because of the way I was grabbed. “Security men and friends tried to stop and intervene when all of a sudden, other men in police uniforms came and started beating them, the police/task force told the guys that if they should try again, they would shoot these men and would label them as armed robbers. I struggled and pulled up a fight so as not to be grabbed. “While I was struggling, I was beaten, dragged on the road and was put into a van that read: ‘Lagos State Task Force’.
While I was struggling, another two men joined in and one of them put his hands on my private part twice. I was in shock and was bundled like a criminal into a “black Maria” truck. I saw lots of women and some men in this truck. I was so scared and asked what was going on. Nobody had an answer. They were all picked randomly from The Place at Ikeja, The Place in Lekki 1, Sip on Akin Adesola and Eko Hotel suya spot. Shots were equally fired at The Place in Lekki 1, when resistance was met.”
The news stayed on the front pages for some days. As fuller details of what happened were revealed, everyone was horrified that good old ‘civilised’ Lagos had regressed to medieval depths. The raid was purely a misogynist crusade. Anyone could have been a victim as long as the person was female. And to add salt to pepper, some of the thugs in uniform groped their victims. One of the victims posted photographs of the horror on social media – dozens of brutalised women crammed into a small dingy room with a latrine bucket in one corner. You have to pinch yourself, this is 2016 Nigeria, not stone age! Now, what mutant wearing the garb of homo sapiens would brutalise women in the dastardly manner described above?
Psychological deconstruction of the dramatis personae will probably show us that these are otherwise timid low-lifers who ordinarily ‘toast’ a woman in the normal run of things. Put such a character in uniform and you unleash terror on the land. The purpose of the raid? To collect ransom money from the victims! Task force officials demanded N10,000 per victim to secure release. All this in a democratic Nigeria governed by laws. And to think that these are police officers maintained with tax payer’s money. In other parts of the world, all those involved in that show of shame would have been made to face the law by now. But see how backward our reaction is?
The Lagos State government issued a statement saying, “The conduct of the affected officers is not in tandem with the vision of Lagos State Government and is therefore condemnable. Their conduct is also unbecoming of officers who are expected to protect the citizenry and ensure that citizens and visitors find every part of the State safe and conducive enough not only on Friday nights but every day.”
Governor Ambode has requested the Commissioner of Police to replace the offending 104 officers with a fresh crew. Commendable as that is, it begs the real issue. The governor ought to be demanding the scalps of those men on a platter. To simply replace them and unleash them on another sector is to recycle insanity. Certainly Governor Ambode can do better than that. He must insist that all those involved in what has now been conformed to be an illegal raid must be brought to book. They don’t deserve being in the police force. Indeed the Inspector General of Police ought to seize the initiative and use those thugs as scapegoats to send a message to others bullies that the police force has no place for them. It is bad enough that we are buffeted whichever way we turn by either Boko Haram or other religious terrorists in the North, kidnappers in the Southeast, pipe-blowing terrorists and private armies in the South-South and abductors or gbomogbomo in the Southwest. Now we have to add the most dangerous of all these: the armed, uniformed kidnapper operating as an officer of the law. Happy Sallah Best wishes for a happy Sallah to all my readers.