The mayhem in Apapa

ON Wednesday July 19 when a mob visited its rage on two banks on Creek Road, Apapa, Lagos State and set their buildings on fire on account of the cold-blooded murder of a truck driver by a trigger-happy police sergeant, Dare Adamu, it merely underscored our perennial agitation about the poor quality of the country’s security apparatus as represented by the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). Neither of the two accounts rendered in the media could justify the murder of the truck driver by the trigger-happy sergeant who took to his heels upon discovering the horrendous implications of his indiscretion.
While a source claimed that the sergeant demanded a bribe of N1,000 from the truck driver which the truck driver refused to give, another source said that he requested the truck driver trapped in a gridlock to move his truck away from the bank’s entrance. The Lagos State police spokesperson, ASP Olarinde Famous-Cole, who said the trigger-happy policeman had been detained, apparently bought this version of the story. He said: “The incident has nothing to do with a bribe. There was a misunderstanding between the policeman and the driver. It was in the process that the incident happened. The victim was taken to a hospital where he gave up the ghost.” But what kind of misunderstanding could justify the use of a bullet on an unarmed citizen?
Other accounts of the incident by the affected banks however claimed that a mob had chased the fleeing policeman into the bank and disrupted banking operations. If the policeman had been professional, he would have eased the gridlock causing the disturbance in order to have a free space at the bank’s entrance, instead of shooting the victim and eventually causing such a needless damage to the banks’ infrastructure, as well as loss of property and hours of profitable service to the public.
We have had cause on several occasions in the past to agitate for a complete reorientation of the police force, insisting that, as currently constituted, it is an albatross to the Nigerian state. It is dangerous to have bloodthirsty goons watching over the lives of citizens. The seemingly unstoppable incidences of police brutality on the harmless citizens of this country are to be understood as backlashes of the pervasive colonialist orientation of the police force. The persistent extrajudicial killings of Nigerian citizens by the police who should protect them are a source of apprehension.
For an organisation that has refused to obey several court orders and injunctions, the NPF has lost the confidence and trust of the citizens. How then can it succeed in its statutory duty of protecting them and their property? We are persuaded that the time is ripe for those at the helm to do something decisive about the essence of the NPF, seeing that it has lost its mission and is clearly part of the reasons the average life expectancy in the country is low. There is ample evidence of desperation in the general attitude of the security operatives in the country to put the citizenry on red alert not to depend on them for protection anymore. But the obvious danger in this is the resort to self help which it suggests and the anarchy that is bound to ensue therefrom.
This is why the police and other security agencies must be urgently reformed, particularly in those aspects of their training and orientation which seem to compel abuse and aggression in their mien and disposition to law-abiding and defenceless citizens.