DENNIS OGU

Our worries this time is not so much on the inability of the Nigerian security personnel to fight banditry and terrorism to a standstill and apprehend the perpetrators of this evil against humanity.

Nigerians have seen the height of insecurity; they have seen terrorism in its different forms as a norm  -nothing surprises any citizen today as far as terrorism is concerned because even a child has seen on the videos circulating on the internet the worst forms of dehumanizing treatment and extreme brutality innocent Nigerians get from those terrorists.

What have Nigerians not seen? Villages are sacked, people are massacred, women and girls are assaulted in the bushes and in their residences, people are kidnapped from their houses or on the road and nobody sees them again and nobody asks questions, bandits walk the streets free and even hold meetings with government officials in some states and nobody arrests them or, at least, stops them from unleashing mayhem on the society. Every Nigerian has, therefore, developed shock absorber on his/her emotional bearing.

And in line with that, no single citizen can repose any confidence on the Nigerian Armed Forces and Police Force any more. There are only two things on the mind of Nigerians as it is today – hoping on divine intervention (which a number of senior security officials have severally told Nigerians to do) and planning on self-defence no matter how feeble.

The country has become so porous and the security architecture so weak and ineffective that different security breaches are taking place in different parts of the country unchecked, unreported and without any preventive measures by the authorities.

Now, the most worrisome aspect is the method the terrorists, human traffickers, sellers of human parts and ritualists are now using to access or apprehend their victims in recent times. There are disturbing evidence that they have resorted to using uniforms of police officers or other security personnel and even vans that look like the ones used by security officers to mount illegal check points on the roads and take people to unknown destinations. Others visit their victims in their houses in the guise of arrest for unspecified crimes that are supposedly to be made known to those victims at the “station”. And when those unsuspecting and law-abiding citizens yield in the hope that on getting to the said “station”, they would find out the allegations against them and then find ways of proving their innocence and bailing themselves out, they wouldn’t know could be the last time their families or anybody would ever set eyes on them and even hear from them or about them again.

Equally frightening about this form of security breach is that Nigerian citizens have been so intimidated, humiliated and beaten into submission by some security officers that now many people do not know their rights again while those that know their rights have been forced to forget or even forsake them for fear of being falsely accused of disobeying a law enforcement agent, resisting arrest or  fighting a security officer.

Sadly, this forced docility on the citizens has led them to fall victim to evil-minded security officers who forcefully access their phones and sometimes defraud them of their hard-earned money, others shot and disabled or led into the hand of kidnappers or ritualists. Also, there have been cases of people who have lost their lives or been permanently disfigured or languishing behind bars without any charges, just because they asked questions about the violation of their rights or resisted untoward attempts by some evil-minded law enforcement agents or refused to obey some unlawful orders or requested to know why they or their relatives were being arrested or treated unlawfully.

So, I ask: is there anything wrong in someone knowing and standing on his right? Is there anything wrong in someone resisting or disobeying unlawful orders? Do those law enforcement agents want every Nigerian to be gullible or foolish for the country to be good? Shouldn’t it be something of joy to the law enforcement agents that the citizens are helping them identify and even challenge fake security officers? Why would a trained security officer pull the trigger when he realises that the person he’s dealing with knows his rights? Isn’t a progressive society one that boasts of citizens who know their rights and responsibilities? Or are they trying to turn the polity into a jungle where survival is by might?

Some trigger-happy security officers have wasted the precious lives of law-abiding citizens just because they refused to part with their hard-earned money or they resisted an officer who dared to invade their privacy. What then is the value of life? Where is the place for human dignity? Shouldn’t security officers see it as their duty to educate the people on their rights and responsibilities, so that the citizens will know when they have gone against the law and when their rights are being violated?

All these unpleasant experiences have made many Nigerians to be afraid of asking questions whenever they are harassed or intimidated by some negative-minded law enforcement agents or those who look like them. And since in their crude way of approaching people some law enforcement agents have blinded some fear-stricken Nigerians from seeing the difference between the law enforcement officers and impostors or touts, those people now believe that whoever puts on the uniform can force his or her way into a citizen’s house or privacy without questions. And this has landed many innocent Nigerians into untold difficult situations or even death.

Presently, a man known as Mr Hillary Nkwaraonye from a village called Ndiuhu Chokoneze in Ezinihitte Local Government Area, Imo State, is no where to be found simply because he yielded to an unexplained arrest by supposed police officers who came to his house wearing police officers’ uniforms and with what the people around mistook for police vans.

As a good Christian, a catechist in his church, he had nothing to fear since he was sure he committed no offence. It was reported that he willingly and innocently followed them with the hope that he would find out the allegations against him and clear himself on getting to the “police station”. That was how the gentleman embarked on a journey of no return till this very moment. For over a month now his family has not set eyes on him again or heard from him.

Unfortunately, report has it that no police station in and around the local government knows about his disappearance or whereabouts.

But come to think of it, why would a real police officer not be polite to a fellow citizen? At least to show that he is trained and that he is different from the touts that pretend to be police officers. Why would a genuine police officer not explain to a fellow citizen why he/she is to be arrested? Why wouldn’t he first show his identity, provide his arrest warrant and state in clear terms the station he operates from? These will present him clearly as a real officer, make the citizens respect him and repose confidence in him and in the work he does for the country.

Imagine a situation where a mature citizen is not able to distinguish between a genuine security officer and an impostor in peace time! Is that not a cause for alarm? And these impostors are having their way even without the police trying to apprehend them! What is the fate of the ordinary citizens? Are we drifting into anarchy? If the police authorities are allowing such crimes go unchecked, do they still expect the citizens to continue to see them as friends, respect and comply with them? I doubt.

OGU, a public affairs analyst writes from Ogun State.