How can our extortionist police officers overcome their terrific spirit of extortion?

Must we have an #EndPoliceExtorion protest before the police in Nigeria can stop maltreating and extorting innocent Nigerians of their hard-earned money?

I need your suggestion before a fatal nationwide civil disobedience protest like that of the #EndSARS protest erupts in our country.

Let me share, with you, the reason I asked the above question and sought your contribution.

The police authorities in Nigeria had, at different times in the past, gave orders to police officers on patrol and those at checkpoints not to involve themselves in any form of misdemeanour, but those orders were never obeyed.

Some of those orders were:

• Any police officer who made use of public transport, in any part of Nigeria, must pay for their fares;
• Police officers on patrol and at checkpoints must not search people’s phones; and
• Police officers must not, for any reason, extort people of their hard-earned money.

Unfortunately, these others, without an exception, were flagrantly disobeyed.

For example, bus conductors who dared to demand bus fares from police officers who boarded their buses, especially in Lagos, were given the beaten of their lives by those reckless and irresponsible police officers.

And anybody who dare challenge a police officer for extorting or searching his or her phone is either beaten or heavily extorted.

Is it that the Nigerian police authorities are afraid of punishing erring junior police officers who flagrantly disobeyed their orders or that the police authorities give certain lofty orders to their juniors merely to please or pacify disappointed Nigerians?

Each time I wanted to blog about these wanton anomalies, a second thought would advise me to give the police authorities more time to put their house in order.

But while Nigerians were still discussing the shortcomings of some police officers and waiting for the police authorities to do the needful, some policemen repeated one of those ugly habits that ordinary Nigerians know them for.

Continue reading to find out what really happened.

As I was returning home from work this evening (Tuesday, February 6, 2024), via the popular Konwea Plaza in Asaba, the capital of Delta State, to DLA Road, also in Asaba, I got to a point on Dan Ngozi Iyio Street and couldn’t go beyond that point because a truck belonging to the Benin Electricity Distribution Company, BEDC, was blocking the way.

When I alighted from the car that I was in to find out what caused the hitch, I saw a black car, in front of the truck, kissing a concrete electricity pole at a corner.

“Some police men, in their patrol van, were chasing the young occupants of this damaged black car,” volunteered an eyewitness, “and while the boys were trying to avoid being arrested by the police, they unluckily crashed into this concrete electricity pole.”

“Because the young men who were suspected to be Yahoo-Yahoo boys didn’t die, the police officers insisted that the boys must settle them.

After the police officers had been settled by the boys, they disappeared in their van, living the rattled boys to sort themselves with the residents of the neighbourhood who insisted that the suspected Yahoo-Yahoo boys must replace the damaged electricity pole.

The electricity pole, according to the residents, was among the ones bought for them by the owner of a nearby hotel that is still under-construction.

The boys had no option than to buy a new pole and engaged the services of some officers of BEDC to help them replace the damaged one.

I am not against the police bringing those they consider as criminals to book, but I’m against the way they go about carrying doing their job.

The police are expected to protect the people, arrest, and prosecute criminals, with a view to discouraging crime and making the society safe for everybody.

Unfortunately, this is not what happens in Nigeria, most of the times.

Majority of Nigerians can attest to this fact, to the extent that none of them can score the Nigeria police 3 on the scale of 10, as far as the discharge of their duties is concerned.

What if the boys and the people who were around that vicinity, at the time of the accident, had died in that accident?  

Is this not one of the reasons most Nigerians refuse to believe or accept that police are their friends?

Of what good is it for some police officers to extort money from suspected criminals and allow them to go without prosecution?

Go round our cities and watch most police officers do their work; most of the things they do is to search people, including the Yahoo-Yahoo boys, intimidate and extort money from them, before allowing them to go, but when it is night for them to come out and confront the dare-devil criminals, you won’t find them anywhere, except on rare cases.

When the dare-devil criminals attack you and you invite them to the scene, all you’ll hear is, “Do you want us to come and die?” and when they want to be a little bit civil, you’ll hear them ask you, “We don’t have a vehicle to come to your place,” among other flimsy excuses.

This is not to say that we don’t have good policemen. We do have, but the number of unprofessional police officers seems to outnumber the professional ones.

Most Nigerians are aware of all these anomalies, and they are getting angrier by the day, especially at this critical time of our economic difficulties.

Must we experience another fatal #EndSARS type of protest for the police in Nigeria to do the right thing?

The entire team of Naija News Blog is using this opportunity to plead with the government at the centre and the police authorities to check the excesses of some police officers who give the Nigeria Police a bad name.

This plea has become necessary because any further protest against the Nigeria police, after the disastrous October 2020 #EndSARS protest, may not be palatable for our dear country and people.

As a praying nation, I implore you to join millions of other Nigerians to pray for us to give us the kind of police that we can be proud of.

How can our extortionist police officers overcome their terrific spirit of extortion? THE END.

PS: Please, share this post until the Inspector General of Polices gets to read it.