Covid-19 and Matters Arising; What is it with the “Nigerian Police Force”? -By Hussein Adegoke

“Daddy! Daddy!” they chorused. I was wondering if I had fathered any child I did not know of. I looked around in search of this lost “Dad” earnestly waiting to be found and I realized it was no other than this gentleman who was yet scrambling for a “change” to give his commuter. I was thrilled, in much the same way Nigerians abroad would be if addressed gentlemanly by the mobile police. My callers were a hybrid of underlings with facemasks to sell. I was hesitant to buy at first but their passionately plea and tenderness were almost irresistible. More persuasive it was for me as they announced that I won’t be granted any access into the Masjid without the facemask on. “Lobatan!” I announced, wondering if it was not to hear the Friday Khutbah (sermon) of the vibrant Imam-Scholar I had come, from faraway. I purchased the facemask, washed my two hands adequately from the bowls handled by the waiting misters and mistresses on the gate side of the mosque, then I sauntered in. There was no sanitizer truly, but I commend the efforts of this Mosque to improvise and put little measures in place, obeying the government laws in their best way, to forestall the pandemic. Only few worship centres are any wary of these.

Recently, the news of a bike man who died in the hands of a Nigerian police officer for the crime of not using the facemask was heralded to us. I have not fully grasp that gist yet, but I thought there would even be no need to. These are concomitant challenges with Covid-19, and tragedies we suffer daily.

Our “law enforcement officers” would be in a fracas with a pedestrian or a motorist whom they have “sworn” to protect—just for one breach of rule or the other. It is difficult to apportion blames here, since the fault of these many brouhahas may lie with either of the two parties always involved. But in the first place, we should ask of why it would be necessary for any law enforcing agent to point the gun at a fellow human being for the trivial “crime” of not wearing the facemask, how much more killing him in the end? I have only managed to call it a “crime” that one didn’t wear the facemask (where it has been legislated) because to flout any rule at all is an offence, and so “incriminating.”

What most men in uniform and authorities in power lack is discretion. I have recounted here how the mobile police in the more advanced world—save for their brutality on, butchery and massacre of, George Floyd at Minneapolis, USA—are humbled by their actions to redress you for your culpability of the statutes (of law) you disregarded. They don’t just do “gra-gra” like the typical Nigerian forces do. I don’t know for sure but I think these lessons should be a part of the “Fundamentals of Police Force”, PLC 101 perhaps, taught in police colleges. So, why do Nigerians and their Police Force disobey these the same etiquettes they learnt to qualify as officers? Why do they boil with aggression at the slightest provocation?

You see, what most people lack knowledge of is that “respect begets respect”, as the old English cliche would go. No sane person is received with a calm gesture and yet, would be stone-hearted, not feeling under any obligation to reciprocate your kindness. But when you barged into people’s premises, relegating them to nothing or in fact, objectifying them, they would most likely be inclined to treating you that way. A solid picture is at hand (if this post would not stop here).

Just this morning, as I write this—and like writers are wont to do—I went to seek a solitude in a secondary school around my neighbourhood. While fervently engrossed with the keyboard, I looked up once and my sight fell on two individuals heading in my direction. “Young man,” they beckoned. I looked at them with closer attention. “And what are you doing (over) there?” the man amidst the two queried. I was lost for words at first, so I was silent for awhile as I bowed my head. When I looked at them again, I declared I was browsing. In between the moments of my silence, I was scrambling for ideas on whom those individuals— with no formal introduction of themselves and in no security outfits—were. I was ruminating on whether it was adequate for me to field questions from any audacious stranger.

“Browsing?” the man exclaimed. “And how many people has it been that you see around, doing what you do?” There was truly no one in the premises at the time—of this early morning—but I thought that was all the more reason no single soul would be seen around, save a “writer” with a urgent quest.

A desolated place on no school days bustling with town youths who are mostly sportsmen and women on a weekend like this, I was quick to wonder why and when a new rule had come in place to scare people away. It had been some time since I visited the school so I didn’t hesitate to share my thoughts with the questioner. “But when was it that a new rule was in place that I didn’t know of?” I vocalized. I was becoming as livid as him, for his beguiling guts and former condescending gestures but I yet posited a calm mien. “You’re very stupid!” he responded, becoming more enraged by the passing minutes. The woman next to him would most probably have been his wife, and maybe he was the “school principal” or some “constituted authority” within the school. I saw the woman calming him and pulling him back from an impending duel. “But sir, you shouldn’t address people that way” I braced up again, offering that in a combined English and local language, and waiting not to be silent anymore with my thoughts. “You are very rude!” he declared again.

In my head, it was all ecstasy; I was becoming happy for having had my mission accomplished. I had made this uncourteous man experienced my fate; his terrifying harassment of a boy who was a “daddy” to some upstarts and was only guilty of a crime he was ignorant of the statute that binds it. Truly, a legal maxim has it (in meaning) that, “ignorant of the law is not an excuse” but if we can reconcile this with the forethought of the Bard of Avon, I would be borne shoulder high by anyone who chooses to listen. “Virtue turns vice when misapplied; and vice by action is dignified” Author William Shakespeare had presaged.

Well, that matter was settled “out of court.” The man who threatened brims and stones if I would ever return was left to his rants and empty threats. I left the premises of the school with my head up high, after I made my mark. This “school principal” could have succeeded in ruining my day if I allowed him, to have opted for a total silence and withdrawal when it would matter that I prove my point. An ordinary civilian, his absence at “PCL 101” classes was all written over him when he could not just warmly introduce himself as “Mr school principal” before pleading his wish. Who knows? That could even have sent cold sweats down my spine and fetched him more honour in return. But no, the peculiarity with the Yoruba elderlies and their quick escape plans out of every argument they fear loosing to the young— to scorn and pronounce him to be “rude”—would not let him.

You would be disrespectful for being opinionated, and lampooned seriously for proving your point, here. You would not speak in English when Yorùbá is lush on your tongue. You are uncultured if you talked back at an older individual in these premises and would yet be barbaric to repel his ideas (of tormenting discernment). Of all these, I was must informed as a Yorùbá boy, and the indepth comprehension I had taught me the how best to suture a festering wound with the same “ethos” that serated it.

I remember telling this story to a friend, he smiled and declared that I was lucky. “Haven’t you met Nigerians—our police officers, particularly—who would threaten to kill you, saying they would only declared they misfired?” Hmmm. I reasoned them he was right. Such does happen. The point my friend intended to underscore was that there are people who make an outright denial of the truth in the face of the law. Were I to have been rounded up by my “audicious questioner”, this man, a “school principal”, he could frame me for unpleasant things were he nonreligious and lacking conscience.

As I weighed in the suppressed voices of the George Floyds of this world still, their hesitation to speak and prove a point before getting rounded by the cops, I forbade dying their ways. I thought that the average citizenry in Nigeria should at best, stay out of trouble. And when matters (like mine) that they had least envisaged erupts, they should yet resist the urge to “ṣàláyé”—or be tempted to explain their roles. But when it hurts to be silent and if it mattered to anyone that he was assaulted, he should speak up his worries. We should keep safe and out of troubles.