The duty of the police, all over the world is to maintain peace, law and order. In civilized countries the police organization is a very decent one anchored on sincerity, integrity, discipline and unchequered principles developed out of national patriotism, and a penchant passion for humanity rooted in thorough understanding of the nature of their job. The police in every country are seen as security agents or put it more succinctly, law enforcement personnel. To do this all important duty, a member of such a sensitive organization must be seen to be at least above average in terms of civility.
A police officer in essence should have his mind developed to actually withstand the trend of lawlessness prevalent in society and to fashion out a way of curtailing it through a civilized approach and methodology.
Indeed, there is no gainsaying that human beings are prone to anarchy, cruelty and unthinkable attitudes which in every ramifications can dovetail this universe into a contest of survival of the fittest and of course the end result will snowball into an elimination of the unfit game. The heart of man is desperately wicked, the good book confirms. So policing or monitoring the activities of a race such as humans is a task so enormous and demanding. It is not a thing to be left to babies or creatures whose minds have been destroyed by the perversity of the highest-order. It is not a job to be given to mere desperate job seekers who see everything as a game of survivalship or who understand life only as “a means to an end” It is an outfit for mature minds. In essence the issue of security cannot be bequeathed to fate.
Nigeria Police Force has indeed passed through the meta-physical rhyme of the bad, the worse and the worst and with events unfolding themselves, it is evidently clear that the worse of the Nigeria Police Force is yet to be discovered.
One of the incurable afflictions of the police in this part of the black race is ignorance. The AIDS of the police is centred round the circumference of ignorance midwifed by half-baked training, flowing from the tuberculosis of ineptitude and the malnutrition of under equipment which informs the Kwashiorkor of status of these men in black shirts.
Obviously anybody, a descendant of the above ancestor will certainly have corruption as a tradition and a celebrated culture.
Needless going into the pedigree of the corrupt posture of the Nigeria Police Force, gainless espousing their bribe friendly prospensity and time wasting explaining their thickly coated skin against humanity. A careful study of the Nigeria Police Force depicts a situation where members of the organization are mass-produced from a frustrated environment or will one liken their training to the type that Biafran Soldiers had during the heat of the Nigerian Civil War? Conscripting unqualified school dropped out, poverty driven and crime ridden youths into the organization.
It is on this note that one wonders why 90% police recruits cannot write a suspect’s statement in a simple English Language, how a police officer of 10 years standing cannot write a sound police investigation report or police findings, the slightest and basic requirements he needs to know on how to treat suspects in accordance with the law. Is it not the Nigeria police that violates the sacrosanct provisions of the hallowed constitution as given to us by the police elder brother, the Army in 1999? At times one finds it difficult to accurately ascertain who is more brutal between the Nigeria Police and the Nigeria Army. The malaria collecting as pital as N20 on the high ways, the crime of equipping armed robbers to rob and even kill fellow police as disclosed in the person of Inspector Iyamu in the Lawrence Anini and Monday Osunbor’s Saga of 1986, the collection of illicit sums from people under the guise of bail or bond at the police stations, the abating of other heinous crimes against humanity, the secret pacts with bunkerers in the Niger Delta? This concise episode cannot really contain all the many woes of the people who should protect and who have by their actions constituted a major road blocks to the protection of lives and property. Was it not the police that stood Akimbo watching the insane operation on Anambra State, when those hoodlums set ablaze the Government House at Awka and the Anambra Broadcasting service station at Enugu Ukwu? Is it their membership of Boko Haram or cultism? The Deficit, delinquencies deficiencies, ineffiencies and a complete impropriety of the Nigeria Police Force was further exposed in the killing of forty (40) students of the Federal Polytechnic Mubi and the killing of Four (4) UNIPORT Students in Aluu. Truly, the Police Organization in Nigeria is very sick if not bed ridden. This is quite unfortunate.
You need to see the police man giving evidence in the witness box as an I.P.O. in a criminal case in court. The evidence is so disorganized, the way of the speaker or witness (policeman) is disorganized. He will always talk aggressively, not knowing what to say as though the court is a warfront; giving a posture that the lawyer is an enemy. And sometimes the lawyer will ask himself, what is wrong with the police?
As to their Wahala with the legal practitioner; one can understand police frustration; complex. Inferiority complex. His mind is not developed, he has given to himself laziness, laxity, rascality, submitted himself to too much drinking and smoking of dangerous composites, including cannabis sertival (Indian herms) allowing himself to always look helpless, frustrated, haggard and dirty. The typical Nigeria Police does not want to improve in education, civilization and human development. He wants premature enjoyment particularly in beer parlours and among wayward AIDS destroyed ladies. To a Nigeria policeman, this is the boundary of life. This is self-destruction and mental slavery.
A police officer does not want to hear a suspect in detention mention his lawyer because the lawyer is not oblivious of the fact that the police had committed a series of unprintable crimes against the person of the suspect. He knows the lawyer would awaken the already tormented consciousness of the suspect and he does not want the suspect to know about his rights that he has used the cover of uniform to violate. He knows the lawyer’s ability of dismantling his usually very weak and patched case full of cock and bull story that has no credibility, no bearing and more worsened by his lackluster investigations performed on the threatre of the highest bidder. He knows that legal practitioners will never heed to his high way demand for a “gate pass” fee of N50 or “pay according to your kind of car”. Frankly speaking, the police in Nigeria does not like anybody that knows his right and who can challenge them on all the crimes they commit in the name of their uniform. This is the cradle of the police hatred for a lawyer as both of them are supposed to be in business of maintenance of law and order and helping the court to do substantial justice.
However, the police, according to the testimonies of every Nigerian, has failed the public, the people and the masses. Instead of being benevolent to the citizenry, they are malevolent to the same people they should protect; they have become a threat to civility and a great risk to humanity. This is the lot of the Nigeria Police who goes on a routine international peace-keeping mission and who only comes back to rig elections, kill in the name of stray bullets or accidental discharge etc. The latest development is that the police is now used by Shylock-Landlords as tax collectors (it is disheartening to note that the police is now used to collect rents from tenant or eject tenants at the behest of landlords for a share in the rent or used by money lenders to enforce strict compliance with load agreements of settlement of loans). These are purely civil in nature and do not fall under the purview of criminal jurisprudence or within the regime of the jurisdiction of the police as laid out in the Police Act or any other law or statute. The police only shops or scouts for jurisdiction in these matters when non exists. This is pure greed or avarice.
However, most officers of the force or organization are beginning to see reasons and then getting educated or enhance capacity building and to give the force or the organization a face lift. This is encouraging and good image laundering. This is why I throw my weight behind the policy of government to establish a Police University that will be an equivalent of the Nigerian Defence Academy. But will this effort of government sanitize the police force? Or is it the change of Police uniform that the Inspector General of Police feel is the best way of Police Reform? Your guess is as good as mine.
Sure, very sure, our police are too prone to negative propensities. Their problem is one, to many. ###
Barr. Gideon Kpoobari Girigiri
08036784327
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