The overbearing majority of Nigerians, including my good self, have cultivated an ambivalent attitude to policeman. A good number of them, most of the time, you don’t know what to think, you don’t even know how to relate to them. Are they your friends or your enemies, armed robbers or attackers of armed robbers.
The Nigerian Police has mounted a serious public relations campaign to bolster the image of the paramilitary force that will give them our confidence. You can sight their bill boards and other media presence in strategic locations in our major cities proclaiming the current status of the Nigeria Police Force.
In illustrating the new civilness, if not the civility of the reorganized force. The authorities from the high command have hitherto removed the intimidating word “FORCE” from their name.
The massage right now is that the policemen and women are your friends in deed and not your foes, considering the trouble they have been encountering to proclaim their innocence and amity with the public. You will want to show sympathy and agree with then that indeed they are your good friends and not your enemies.
When they are successful in dislodging armed robbers, assassins and marauders operating in our neighbourhood in the dead of the night, the people will thumbs up for them. But in the case of late arrival to such distress scenes, as they invariably do, after the terrors have had their fill and left, the victims can never be persuaded to regard the policemen and women as friends and protectors.
If you witness the horrendous hassles the police subject motorists and their passengers on the highway, extorting and harassing them, sometimes at gun point and shooting to maim and kill when they seem not to be making headway with recalcitrant motorists. Definitely, you’ll come to the conclusion that the Nigeria Policemen and women are not the kind of friends you would invite to your place of abode for a lunch. As much have learnt with bitter experience, with this type of friends you might as well run to gun men for protection. The problem with the Nigerian Police is basically the problem with the society. The society goes for the police that it deserves. From dependable records, it is glaringly clear that the Nigerian Police men and women are not properly treated in commensurate to what is obtained in very close other climes. It crosses the rank and file, from top to down. The central government that is their employers only pays lip service to the welfare of policemen and women. With poor salary, bad housing and haphazardly mobilized to do their duty to the populace. This is at the government level, at the other way round, the police authorities, the superior officers, it has been alleged time and time again have been most unfair to the rank and file. It is either that they are not taking up their cases properly or they outrightly misappropriate what is due them.
Although the overbearing public may not agree with the explanation offered by the rank and file of the Nigeria Police for corrupt practices by their man, but they should feel some sense of revulsion at their story. The majority of Nigerians are of the belief that the Nigeria Police receive gratification from them to augment the operational costs they incur while battling to protect lives and properties.
According to them, without the toll collection, they cannot effectively perform their duties of protecting lives and properties because not only are they poorly paid and ill-equipped, the officers and men of the of the Nigeria Police in some occasion use their personal budget to fuel operational vehicles, even treat the wounded and bury the dead, those who lose their lives in active service don’t enjoy the pleasure of decent burial and nothing left for the family in the lurch. The litany of inconvenience.
We source our uniform from the open market because a policeman or woman leaving the training college gets only a set of uniform but if not satisfied, you’ll purchase from the market, where there’s an easy assessment to police uniform from the open market, do you need to wonder any more how hoodlums get the police uniform that they are using during some of their operation.
The re-engineering exercise going on in the Nigeria Police of today is a big testimony, that Nigeria Police-men and women are your friends indeed. In the Nigeria Police, it has been action and focused leadership for the past six months, the Mohammed Adamu (IGP) lead New-Nigeria Police left no one in doubt as to the direction and policy thrust of his administration when they redeployed some Commanders across the Police Commands. One of the sensitive Commands that required the injection of a pro-active Commander was the international gateway to the ECOWAS neighbouring states, Seme precisely.
One gallant police officer whose impressive performances in his various bits endeared the heart of the Police high command is Mr. Ogechi, Moses Udu a chief superintendent of Police. The Nigeria/Benin enhanced joint border patrol outfit under the leadership of CSP OGECHI, M.U despite the inherent perils associated with border policing has pursued the extermination of these social ills with vigour and determination. It is a fashion to give or take bribe or officers of the Nigeria/Benin enhanced border patrol to go out of the official details.
The Nigeria Police have a lot to do to improve the welfare of those employed to protect lives and properties. They should get on with an urgent measure of refurbishing the Nigeria Police, until this is done, otherwise motorists and innocent citizens and visitors should not be held captive on the nations highways
By Kalu Okpo (PMW Magazine)