TABLE TALK WITH KCMOMOH - The Police Is Your Friend?

TABLE TALK WITH KCMOMOH

I had a real dose of what Nigeria feels like to the average Nigerian this week. Indeed, you will be wondering where I class myself, ( don't stress your brain - Kcmomoh pass average). At the beginning of the week precisely Sunday evening, some police men (maybe DSS inspired) went on rampage on Omojuwa Street in Ketu a Lagos suburb and eventually shot an innocent young man in the leg. 

The funniest aspect was when the shot guy was now labelled a gun man by the police who are "our friends". That act led the youths of the area to describe the police as not their friends. And it hurt me so much because the police has always been my family and not only just my friends; but this gun blasting guys like the Boko stars aren't my friends.

I have always advocated for level headed policing which can be achieved with better tactics. Anyway, that's by the way right? Even in the developed worlds, police brutality is a problem - A BIG ONE.  In the United states despite video evidences, the police can be your enemy so if they are described as enemies here, it may not sound so unbelievable. There is an age long saying that states that "every society gets the police it deserves". And hmm...is this the type of police we deserve?  The argument is maybe YES and maybe NO but the truth is that this is not the police we all desire. We desire more but does the society want a better police? I would say no! We created this police and we are the ones still pampering this same police that we have created to be the way it is today.

Just like most terrible habits, it didn't take the police a week to be in the mess it is today neither did it take it a decade. It is a result of years of neglect of the police that has now made it look like a sector of the country that can never be saved from all forms of vices.

The police has always been there. In the military governments, the police IG is always part of the supreme military councils (SMC), Armed forced ruling council (AFRC) and all the guises of highest decision making bodies of successive military governments in Nigeria. They are usually drafted into governments maybe because of the pivotal role of the police which the military would have loved to take over (but do not outrightly) so as to give their governments some human face. And thereby the police is used to hatch some agendas of the governments in power which overtime made them super humans in so many ways because of all the military and paramilitary organisations, the police is the closest to the populace. 

The hierarchy of the police has been very good at using the rank and file (the junior officers) to achieve their various selfish and wicked ways since the military governments used the leadership of the police to achieve their plans, there was no need to disturb them in the ways the ran the affairs of the police.

Most of the barracks are like poultries and pig pens; the major difference is that there are humans whose choices were between the barracks or some expensive accommodation elsewhere living in them. It is that same police officer whose toilet never gets flushed because he doesn't have access to water, poor health care, poor salary that is given weapons to go and save lives and properties when his life and that of his family wasn't. Many times when I hear of stories of police in America killing their fellow Americans, I remember a popular song with the chorus 'wahala dey oh oh oh wahala dey.."

The police in America obviously have all the things their Nigerian counterparts do not have which many think would have solved the problems of the police in Nigeria yet, the rate at which they commit extra judicial murder is scary. This brings me back to my earlier point that the tactics of policing should be different nowadays when compared to years back. The police in America are mostly accused of extra judicial killings but ours are more popular with kwaraption and some other irregularities. So, it means that we are getting our own police while a gun running country like America has their own police they deserve too. 

However, there is hope. did I just hear you say hope ke? Yes there is hope.

Hang on, my wife says I must eat this pounded yam now or else...

Have a fabulous weekend.