The police is your boss

The police is your friend. That’s the slogan. An officer and a gentleman raised me in a barrack. I was only a friend to his son. One of the lessons he taught me was never to argue with the man with the gun. I have practically survived on that advice. So I feign no outrage […]

The police is your friend. That’s the slogan. An officer and a gentleman raised me in a barrack. I was only a friend to his son. One of the lessons he taught me was never to argue with the man with the gun. I have practically survived on that advice. So I feign no outrage that a policeman in Okpe, Delta State harassed a young man with iPhone X. It sounds true to type. He slapped the young boy, was reported to have smashed the phone and was heard saying that in 13 years of disservice to humankind, he could not afford a N13,000 phone. The latest iPhone is said to cost a handsome N200,000. That is more than some people’s entire pension!

Long ago before the Abuja-Lokoja-Kabba road became a den of armed robbers and kidnappers, going home to Okeagi every other weekend was a fad. At some point Aliko Dangote made the Obajana stretch a breeze. I was a privileged citizen with a press pass. The police and the press are not friends. They tolerate each other in a cat and mouse game. Only dreamers believe that the pen is mightier than the gun.

On one of my trips, this particular officer chose to detain me. Having asked for and obtained my vehicle papers, he perused and detained it for nearly an hour while harassing other road users. I wore my longest garment of patience. While the ordeal lasted, I refused to lose my cool and the urge to doze off. I also refused to make direct eye contact or to show interest in what was going on around me.

Before returning my car papers, he expressed shock that a young man like me was driving a Toyota Corolla with full air conditioning while he was left suffering under the sun. I jokingly observed that work makes me sunbathe too. He returned my papers and I gladly drove off watching to make sure that he wasn’t pointing his gun at me. Weeks later, there was a story that some policemen had killed traders at a checkpoint after taking their large sums of money and setting them and their vehicles on fire.

So I don’t find the video from Okpe incredible or any disturbing. It is a stark reality that we are citizens of the jungle. We elect ruiners who come to our homes to campaign but run us out of the road once elected. Curiously, we don’t find it absurd! Indeed, apart from the jumbo pay, one of the reasons most people venture into public office is to acquire what I have now called the siren immunity. With a siren, a man could do all things like cut through the worse traffic by destroying other lawful road users’ vehicles with impunity for defying a siren carrying a big man.

Community leaders have expressed dismay that a nouveau-elected official was shy to use his siren. When that happens, they remind him that a tiger without its tigritude is more hopeless than a domestic cat.

Our police force is a reflection of us. They know they could get away with blue murder and very often, they do. In the past couple of weeks, it has been further impressed on us that it is dangerous to live in Naija. In Lagos, an undergraduate was cut down in his prime for being around a television-viewing centre. He was the only child of his mother. First, the police tried to deny it, but later arraigned the murderers. We hope they get their just comeuppance.

The police have no code of ethics or rules of engagement. Officers bring their prejudice to the job. One recently declared that our culture dreads dreadlocks or tattoos. Imagine what happens if you wore either or both!

Carrying a backpack is inviting trouble. If the backpack contains a tokunbo laptop, your trouble is double. If you carry an iPhone, you’re a yahoo boy. One officer says the police have no right to check personal phones. If a Naija policeman demands to see your phone – you’ll be on a suicide mission to refuse him. It’s not the beating that scares people, it’s the finality of being murdered in cold blood and that dead men don’t win cases. Last March, policemen led thugs to disrupt elections – its on video!

There’s no need to ask for police reform. That was the purpose of the #EndSARS movement. The last IG promised to end SARS; he did not. The present one wouldn’t. If you’ve lived long enough in Naija, every new IG dismantles checkpoints and reinstates it with relish. Remember how we became victims of a violent Boko Haram? Until your elected leaders are subject to the same rules and laws that you are, you are at a disadvantage. In Naija, even non-state actors have police ‘protection’. You and I have no protection except you believe in miracles.

So, here is the end of the matter. In Naija, if you encounter a policeman anywhere, do as you are commanded. Put on your best behaviour – do not argue, be civil and hope they’re not drunk; perhaps, you’ll live to tell the story. Be a survivor not a hero in a casket because, the police is your boss!