Nigerians exasperated by the illegal activities of some members of the Nigeria Police Force must have been further horrified by the sad fate that befell Ogar Jumbo, an officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), last week. Having accused him of violating traffic regulations, a group of policemen attached to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) command of the force allegedly set upon the hapless paramilitary officer and beat him to stupor in the presence of his wife and children. Narrating the incident, wife of the deceased, Mrs Ada Jumbo, refuted reports that her husband was driving against traffic. According to her, the late Assistant Superintendent of the NSCDC, who was attached to the Sharia Court in Abuja, was taking her to the Gloryland International School, Karu, where she works as a teacher, when the incident happened.
She said: “We were going to Karu from New Nyanya, but on getting to the Catholic church, we diverted. A traffic warden stopped the vehicles on the other side and asked vehicles on our side to move, but when it got to our turn, he stopped our car and my husband pleaded with him that he was late for work. The traffic warden retorted that it was not his business, because he was not the cause of the traffic jam. He stood in front of the vehicle and said that my husband wanted to hit him with the car. He kicked the vehicle, went to the driver’s side and pulled my husband out of the vehicle. His colleague, Mr. Idoko, also joined him and they were beating my husband with batons. I alighted from the vehicle and pleaded with them but they dragged my husband on the ground to their station. If you see his body in the mortuary, you will notice that his fingernails were chopped off and he bled to death.”
According to Mrs Jumbo, by the time she got to the station, she found policemen insulting her dying husband, saying that they hated NSCDC officers. They refused to take him to the hospital, she said, because of an alleged lack of fuel in their vehicle. Instructively, during a condolence visit to the family of the deceased, the FCT police commissioner, Mr. Bala Ciroma, said the police had accepted responsibility for the killing of Jumbo. He also revealed that he had ordered the detention of the police personnel involved in the incident. On his part, the NSCDC commandant in charge of the FCT command, Mr. Solomon Iyamu, appealed to his officers and men to take the incident as an act of God. However, the acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, has ordered a comprehensive and speedy investigation into the incident. In a statement by the Force spokesman, Frank Mba, the IGP was quoted as reassuring the public that justice would prevail in the case and that it would not be swept under the carpet.
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Indeed, to say that the Jumbo story is a tragedy would be an understatement. The spectacle of a man being beaten to death for no just cause in the presence of his wife and children and dragged on the ground to a police station is chilling, abhorrent and distressing. To say the least, it portrays the men of the Nigeria Police as lawless. While this may not necessarily be the case for the majority of members of the force, the fact that tragic incidents like the one under reference occurs almost on daily basis casts blight on the image and integrity of the force and renders any effort to redeem its battered image practically difficult. Assuming but not conceding that the late Jumbo actually committed an offence, when did it become the place of the police or indeed any officer of the law to pronounce judgment on him? The case is even worse when the punishment meted out to the accused is far beyond what he would have got if he had been brought before the court of law. Besides, there is as yet no credible evidence to suggest that the deceased actually committed the offence for which he earned the death penalty, albeit illegally and extra-judicially, at the hands of errant policemen. Pray, is it standard police practice to drag offenders on the road, injuring them and doing violence to their dignity and self-worth? Besides, why refuse to take a dying man to hospital?
At issue, most crucially, is the inter-agency rivalry that exists between the police and the NSCDC. It is no secret that the average policeman sees himself as being inherently superior to members of paramilitary agencies like the NSCDC, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and others, angered by the unspoken yet loud feeling that the setting up of these so-called sister agencies was a slight on the police. Besides, the incident illustrates once again the defective training and orientation of members of the force who carry on like overlords over the civil populace. As we have said time and again, the time has come to reform the Nigeria Police in real terms. To say the least, members of the force are not the people’s friend and they do not ‘serve and protect with integrity’, to use a slogan popularised by Mr. Sunday Ehindero while in office as the IGP.
Tragic though the Ogar Jumbo story is, it is still worthy of note that the FCT command and the police headquarters acted swiftly in arresting the perpetrators of the dastardly crime. Regardless of whether or not this is the case because the person involved is a paramilitary officer, we think that such prompt response to issues, while not bettering the estimation of the police in the eyes of the public, can certainly not make it worse. The IGP must keep his word by ensuring that the killers of officer Jumbo get the punishment prescribed by the laws of the land. We commiserate with the family of the slain officer and the officers and men of the NSCDC on this tragic loss.
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