I do not pretend to know the origin, or why they originated, in the first place, but the slogans that : ‘The Police are Your Friends, and that ‘Bail Is Free’, are two myths that remain only that, in Nigeria.

The slogans may be true elsewhere, but certainly not on these shores, where they are only true when so called big people are involved. The big man may be a politician, money bag or monarch of weight, otherwise, forget the two if you do not have the money to pay for both.

A couple of years ago, this writer witnessed when a ‘big’ man, Very Important Person (VIP) in one town in the North Western part of the country, simply phoned the Commissioner of Police for the immediate release of  some arrested ‘political thugs’. The commissioner complied without even asking the ‘big’ person’s whereabouts, who happened to be in his chauffeur driven vehicle not far away from the Police Headquarters, where the boys were being detained.

It is well known all over the country that a Police person who is regarded or seen as not ‘on the take’, is usually posted to a ‘barren’ post, where there is ‘nothing for the boys’, and the ‘girls’ too, nowadays. Such Police people come in the form of ‘Ustaz’s’, if they are Muslims, ‘Born Again’, if they are Christians, or just ‘Not On The Take’, if they appear not to be too religious. That is not belonging to either of the two major religions in the country.

Cases of recent happenings are just too numerous to mention, but citing few examples proving that the two slogans are mare myths in Nigeria, may be enough to drive home the point.

Not long ago, there was a video clip on the social media where some passengers in a Golf motor car on their way to Maiduguri from Kano, vehemently complained of being stopped and extorted by the Police, who allegedly, forgot a gun in the passenger’s vehicle. The people in the vehicle vowed that ‘enough is enough’ to the many Police ‘checkpoints’ (read extortion places) along the Maiduguri road.

A longtime ago, I and my wife were stopped by the Police along Kaduna-Abuja road. When we stopped, three Policemen came to our car and, after looking at us attentively, asked for my particulars. I produced them, and to the best of my knowledge whatever they wanted me to give to them were up to date. When they discovered the correctness of ALL the particulars, they demanded to see my fair extinguisher and my reflector stopper. They also looked at the tires on the vehicle. Everything was in good shape, as the car was then a brand newly bought Honda Accord, popularly known as ‘Honda Hala’.

Apparently satisfied that everything was in order, the Policemen still walked away with the particulars, ignoring me where I parked to attend to another vehicle. When I requested for the particulars of my vehicle, I was told to see the ‘oga’, who was sitting under the shade of a tree some meters away from thee road. The oga sent me back to his people to ‘sort it out between’ ourselves. 

Realising that they wanted to extort money from me at all cost, I called a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP) who was based at the Police Force Headquarters. Luckily for me, he instantly answered my phone cheerfully, and asked me what the matter was. When I narrated everything that transpired between me and “your people on my way to Abuja”, he asked me to give the phone to the leader of the team, and I hastily complied. After that, the team leader questioned me what I had told ‘Oga at the headquarters. Before I could answer him, he added in pidgin English, and I quote, “No be dem send us out?” I retorted that, the question should be directed to the DIG, not to me, collected my particulars and drove away.

Another example of the Police not being a friend of the common person in Nigeria was shown on the popular Berekete Family’ programme very recently, where a ‘crying’ member of a bereaved family narrated to the audience how a Policeman ‘cold bloodily’ killed a relation of his in the deceased’s Keke NAPEP.

The narrator alleged that the phone of the driver and owner of the Keke NAPEP was ‘stolen’ by one or both of the only two ‘passengers’  he was carrying at that time. According to him, the driver stopped on the way and ‘politely’ asked for his phone to be returned to him, insisting that it must have been taken by one or both of the two occupants.

When both girls protested their ‘innocence’, one of the two then produced her phone and asked the tricycle driver to give her his number, and when he did, she called the number, and a phone rang in the well hidden pocket of the other girl. Instead of the ‘thief’ returning the ‘stolen’ phone to its owner, she took out her own phone and called someone. 

That someone was a Policeman who materialised after a little while. When the Policeman arrived at the scene, where the Keke NAPEP was parked, he asked the girl who called him to step out if, and get away from, the vehicle’. When she got far away, the Policeman ‘calm, but brutally’ used his gun and ‘cold bloodily’ shot to death the two remaining persons in the Keke NAPEP. When he made certain that they were dead, he moved to a distance away from the vehicle containing the two dead bodies, and stopped another Keke NAPEP and demanded the driver to take him to a certain Police station.

But the driver of the second Keke NAPEP, suspicious of the Police officer, who was then still holding his gun in the open, called the attention of some people who, upon finding the gory images in the abandoned first Keke NAPEP, went to the Police station where the ‘guilty’ Policeman was taken to. The officers on duty told the angry people that the Policeman in question had gone home, and they gave the address. And upon arriving at the given address, the people found the entrance to the property completely shut. They summoned the Police at a nearby station and narrated what had happened, upon which the ‘new’ Police officers broke open the door to find the accused (Policeman) threatening them with his gun.

Still, another example of police extortion was again shown on the Berekete Family’ programme, where the producer, popularly known as the ‘ordinary President’, publicly displayed a Walkie Talkie accidentally left inside a motor vehicle by a Police man, when him and his colleagues, entered the vehicle to, allegedly, collect bribe money from the occupants.

In many instances, the Police also assume the role of Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs), stopping vehicles on the road and asking for ‘particulars’. Anyone unlucky not to be with any of the ‘demanded’ particulars, automatically becomes at the mercy of the ‘interrogator’, who would mention a price that MUST be given to him there and then. Otherwise, it would be a one way drive to the Police station, where the victim may be there for a long time until he pays or bailed out by someone else.

These and many, many other instances of hostility towards, or extortion of, the ordinary Nigerian continue all the time, despite the assurances of all ‘new or in-coming’ Inspectors General of Police, to address the issue of ‘extortion’ in the Police, either at the innumerable Police checkpoints in the country or, in regards to bail, at the counters in the even more Police stations in the country.

And failing to do that is what they always do, until a new IGP comes to make more unfulfilled or, apparently, unfulfillable promises about the two, and other issues. It is the view of many people that, unless the salary of the Police is greatly increased to meet, or be almost at par with, the international standard, the promises of stopping graft taking in the force in Nigeria will remain just mare promises, that could hardly be fulfilled.

Let every affected citizen give their contribution to ensure that the our country gets decent Police officers at EVERY level.

May God provide us with what the sustenance that is legitimately our own, in our mundane affairs.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.