The police chief and reproductive organ of the fly

I am referring here to the incident in which our no nonsense, bribe-hating, dirty-house-cleaning, corruption-averse and indefatigable Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Dahiru Abu-babar, dismissed with des-patch a police officer who took bribe at a road block. This IG of Police, like his predecessors before him always did, keeps asking for evidence for police misdemeanour […]

I am referring here to the incident in which our no nonsense, bribe-hating, dirty-house-cleaning, corruption-averse and indefatigable Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Dahiru Abu-babar, dismissed with des-patch a police officer who took bribe at a road block. This IG of Police, like his predecessors before him always did, keeps asking for evidence for police misdemeanour so he can punish any guilty person and he was helped in this particular incident by citizen video evidence that the man had committed that offence.
But there are millions of Nigerians who wager that no IG needs any amateur video evidence before he can act against impudent and flagrant cases of bribery and corruption among the police. Many Nigerians can swear that our police men and women are a personification of bribery and corruption. But since the IG’s action was carried out in a blaze of publicity, allegedly signalling his new resolve to address misbehaviour by his men, so great was my expectation to see if that resolve has been effectively communicated by the dis-missal of that officer.
I regret to say that from what I saw with my two naked eyes in the course of my travel to Asaba and back, that officer was no less than an unfortunate fall guy or scapegoat. I saw the police actively doing what they know best how to do: harassing, intimidating and mischievously delaying impatient traders and other travellers in order to compel the drivers to part with some money. The soldiers and road safety officials on that busy road have taken a queue from the police and from what I saw them do, it will not take long before the soldiers in particular outsmart the original actors, the police, in the art of bribe taking. A soldier manning a road block somewhere in Yahe, Cross River State, stopped our driver and asked why he has not been able to fulfil his promise to bring him a bunch of plantain. The way he demanded this was as if he had a constitutional right to the item he was asking as passage bribe from the motorist. The level of impunity on the part of our security officials has simply become unbelievable.
IG Abubakar should be wondering to himself why instead of saluting him, many Nigerians are rather filled with ridiculous laughter over his action. The reason is not far to seek. The evidence of our uniformed men’s misbehaviour, especially that of the police, is too abundant for anyone to take the IG very seriously. Nigerians think that what the IG has done is as ridiculous as the man with an entire leprous body cutting off one finger and beating his chest in self-congratulation that he is indeed determined to cure his ravaged body of leprosy. The entire body of the Nigerian police is filled with leprosy. In the eyes of millions of Nigerians, the police force is rotten through and through and any cosmetic approach will fool no Nigerian. If the IG thinks that what he has done in dismissing that officer should be taken seriously as a sign of his anti-corruption war, then it means that he does not appear to understand the magnitude of the challenge facing him.
Our police require a radical programme of restoration. This should include re-training and re-orientation of not only ordinary policemen but also of the top hierarchy. The senior officers, who embezzle informants’ money; who embezzle the various allowances meant for junior officers; who are rumoured to encourage toll collection at checkpoints; and who ask for bail before even innocent accused persons are granted freedom, all need to be re-trained to change their evil ways that have done so much to lower the image of the police.
It is a kind of monumental non-achievement equivalent to what my people, the Bekwarra people of northern Cross River State, will use in describing a man who spends a long time trying to discover the vagina of a female fly! The idea behind this saying is that the fly is so miniscule that when you eventually get to see that part of its anatomy you will break into a sad laughter. Apart from probably the male fly, seeing the reproductive organ of the female fly cannot certainly be a worthwhile thing. You cannot see it and exclaim, “Wow! This is fearfully and wonderfully made”. It SURELY will not present an interesting sight. It will not increase one’s heart beat and it will not take one’s breath away. It is simply a non-event. Some people are saying that this is what the IG’s action really amounts to.
Let no one accuse me of waking up on the sexual side of life this morning because what the IG has ‘achieved’ reminds me of yet another spectacular non-event being undertaken by a lecturer friend of mine in one of our universities, which has something to do with the sex side of life. He is working on a research whose grandiloquent title is The Amatory or Copulating habits of the Anopheles Mosquito.
It is just purely accidental that the examples of ridiculous things I can find to lampoon what the IG has done all happen to be sexually suggestive. The issue with this research interest is that of all the myriads of challenges facing our country, this researcher has found nothing worthier of his attention to contribute to knowledge than what the oga on top Mr Mosquito does in his bed with Mrs Anopheles! Some contribution there to our society!