How to avoid getting killed by the police

FOLLOWING the barrage of allegations of extrajudicial killings levelled against the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and against the backdrop of security lapses in the country, the force recently came up with tips to help Nigerians to avoid being killed by its armed men on the prowl. These tips were offered on its official twitter handle, @Police NG. The tips include smiling, being polite and refraining from fighting with an officer at checkpoints. Motorists are required to slow down as they approach checkpoints, ensure that their vehicles’ interior lights are on (at night), and keep their hands visible to avoid startling police officers. Motorists are also expected to lower the volume of their  car radios. Goading a police officer is also not a good idea for any motorist who plans to arrive home in one piece.

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Usually, the men of the force are known to have summarily executed ‘erring’ motorists at their numerous roadblocks. For many years, the roadblocks have become sacrificial altars where the blood of innocent citizens have been spilled to propitiate the angry and vengeful tin gods of larceny. And so it is not surprising that the Nigeria Police, which prides itself on being the friends of Nigerians, offered tips through its twitter handle on how to avoid being shot at during encounters with the men of the force. Even before the tips were offered, a former head of the Police Public Complaint Rapid Response Unit, Mr. Yomi Shogunle, had graciously advised Nigerians on how to have better communication with policemen at the checkpoints. He said on his twitter handle, @ YemiShogunle: “For now, don’t go and be speaking Queen’s English with them on the road. For proper understanding: talk to them in Pidgin another way to avoid kasala.” Mr. Shogunle was redeployed shortly after this ridiculous post on twitter, subtly suggesting the statement’s disavowal by the leadership of the NPF.

Instructively, though, the police offered a 16-point manual which merely echoed Mr. Shogunle’s  thinking.  In effect, the tips request Nigerians to practically deify and pay obeisance to the Nigeria Police. In a way, the force deserves commendation for sparing some kind thoughts for the people it protects instead of just watching them being regularly mowed down by policemen’s angry and insatiable bullets. After all, the police in the United States also give such tips to save people, especially blacks, from their racial prejudices. Going by the latest tips, motorists are expected to literally genuflect in the presence of policemen if their safety means anything to them. It is quite befuddling that the implications of these tips are lost on the police authorities, as if Nigeria is no longer in a democratic dispensation.

The image that the Nigeria Police is portraying before the world is that of an extremely dangerous outfit creeping with psychopaths who, ironically, have been statutorily assigned the duty of protecting an unarmed civilian population. Why for instance should the tips include the instruction requiring motorists to expose their two hands? The police clearly assume that motorists could be armed in a society in which the possession of arms is still strictly restricted. While that assumption is not a problem in itself, the way the police treat their fellow compatriots is deplorable. Without doubt, the force is struggling with its very poor image. In any case, while in office at the outset of the current democratic dispensation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo noted that recruitment into the force was fraught with the inclusion of robbers and other felons. What the recent tips from the police just did, therefore, was merely to confirm the fears of Nigerians following the remarks by the former president. The caveat emptor issued to the country’s civilian population is patently gross, abhorrent and repugnant.

Sadly, the police statement came at a time when the acting Inspector General of Police, Mr. Muhammed Adamu, rolled out a plan, facetious though it was, to reduce the casualties of the police’s various tragic encounters with the country’s civilian population.  By its latest statement, the force has portrayed itself as one that is deliberately primed for mass murder at the drop of a hat. If the NPF is what the tips say it is, Nigerians should abandon all hope.