The entire Nigerian Police Force needs an urgent mindset change

Around 8 p.m. I dialled Sunday’s number for the umpteenth time and the call went through miraculously. I was about to harass him when I noticed his mellow, defeated tone. He told me that he had just regained freedom from a police custody. Officers of the Anti-Cultism Unit of the Lagos State Police Command operating at Eleko had arrested him on his way to my place that morning and held him since then! The charges? Cultism and criminal activities. The evidence? A conspicuous tattoo of Jesus Christ on his right bicep. In summary, Sunday spent Valentine’s Day with other tattooed and dreads-carrying ‘cultists’ behind a police counter stripped to his boxers. He is just one of the numerous undocumented victims of the stereotypical targeting by officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).

A history of killing without consequences

Like many before him, Sunday told me he bought his freedom at the price of all the cash he had on his person. Even if you factor in the hours of illegal detention and a business day lost, it was a cheap escape and he should count himself lucky to be among the few who went, saw and conquered. Many less lucky young Nigerians, arbitrarily arrested by officers of the Nigeria Police Force in the same manner, became fodder for bloggers and social media ghouls.

The well-reported murder of upcoming musician, Chinedu Obi, and the unfortunate death of Kolade Johnson provide fresh evidence. Police officers had reportedly arrested Obi for having tattoos. They later shot him inside the Sango Area Command on Friday, July 19, 2019, when he protested his arrest violently. The policemen left him to bleed on the ground while people took photographs of him. Obi died. Johnson’s case was even more pathetic. The father-of-one, one of those who returned from South Africa because of xenophobic attacks, was watching a football match when an officer of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) shot him in error while attempting to arrest someone else for sporting dreadlocks. Johnson too died.

In saner climes, police arrest tattooed suspects based on intelligence and identifiable cult symbols. A case in point is the 2018 arrest of 74-year-old Shigeharu Shirai by Thailand Police; He was a wanted member of the dangerous Japanese Yakuza cult and had been on the run for 14 years. It is different in Nigeria. Here, there is no need for intelligence gathering, criminal record, cult affiliation, or recognizable tattoo symbols, to become a suspect. You only have to be in a place where an armed police officer can see your hairdo or tattoo.

Tattooed, dreaded or bearded? You are a criminal?

It is important to note that the cases above are not isolated occurrences. They are, in fact, part of a trend that started many years ago and is becoming increasingly worrisome. As far back as 2015, for example, Benin City police officers brutally assaulted a young man, Jerry Guobadia, in an attempt to arrest him for his tattoos. He had resisted and nearly lost his right. In 2017, a traveller, Chioma Pius, was pulled out of a vehicle on the Bayelsa highway, arrested, detained and brutalized. Her crime was that she carried an evidence of criminal intent on her body: a tattoo.

Accounts of encounters with these police officers, published on social media with various types of evidence, will leave anyone fearful and tearful. In Lagos, they often do not wear uniforms or use marked police vehicles. Instead, they operate in the iconic yellow danfo bus to catch potential victims unaware. They will pull-up at an area and begin to arrest ‘cultists and fraudsters’ identified, strictly, by their hairstyles and tattoos. Ultimately, they physically and psychologically distress these ‘cultists’ without formal charges until they are willing to part with their money, like Sunday, to regain freedom. They even take some victims to ATMs to make cash withdrawals for buying their release. It is a well-practised style repeatedly described on social media and news interviews by former victims like Oluwasegun Haziz, Arinze Olejeme and many others like Delta State lawyer Bernard Oyabevwe who dared to challenge them.

EndSARS Is Not Enough Pulse Nigeria

The problem is the mindset, not the unit alone

Why has this gone on for so long when it is obvious that the officer’s actions are illegal and not in line with the ethics of the Police Force? Your guess is as good as mine is. Officially, the police authorities are against these unethical acts.

In a June 2019 interview published by Pulse.ng following Johnson’s killing, the Lagos State Police Command Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Bala Elkana, said it is “not acceptable” to be “harassed by police officers who are supposed to protect them simply because of the way they look” and “not because they are guilty of a crime”. He was very emphatic about the illegality of using hairstyles and tattoos as reasons for arrest or molestation. It was not enough, especially as many people expected the outcry would finally lead to far-reaching reforms.

Activists, like Segun Awosanya who created the #EndSARS movement, demanded legislation instead of protocols “that will be repealed by a new IGP”. Protests and online activism led by Awosanya eventually resulted in the renaming of the SARS to F-SARS, the arrest and ‘dismissal’ of Inspector Ogunyemi Olalekan, the officer who fired the shot that killed Johnson, and a reshuffling in the unit he worked for. In addition, Nigeria’s Senate passed the Police Reform Bill, 2019 (Senate Bill 683) in April 2019.

However, these measures, including the bill, do not seem able to address the true problem: the stereotyping of Nigerian youths. That is why it has carried on into 2020. On 3^rd February 2020, police officers in Rivers State arrested Ikwunado Chima, a vehicle mechanic, and others on suspicion of cultism. He was tortured to death in a cell at the Mile One Police Station. A court has declared the arrest illegal but the dead will remain dead.

Poor police welfare is a problem, but not 'the' problem

It is obvious that the problem is more than just about poor pay or poor working tools. After all, they seem to have enough weapons to execute abductions. No. It is a cultural and mindset issue: cultural in the sense of the orientation of members of the police force in Nigeria. Even DSP Elkana agrees. He asked in the Pulse.ng interview, “Is Police the least paid organization in Nigeria?” To him, the fact that police officers know about the pay before joining the Force and are not compelled to remain in it means, “they just choose to be above the law” and will remain so “even if you pay them a billion naira”.

Therefore, the real problem to address is the permitted and encouraged mindset that youths with certain characteristics are criminals by default and fair game for extortion. A bill, by itself, is not going to change a mindset long established in the entire force.

How does one rationalize the claim made by the former Lagos Police Commissioner, Imohimi Edgal that 60% of youths are cultists (as reported by Pulse.ng) or that of DSP Elkana that "tattoo and dreadlock dey strange to our culture” (as reported by the BBC)? Even more shocking is the 2018 statement by a former Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Emmanuel Inyang.

Speaking in his capacity as the Head of Training and Development, Inyang told reporters that, “The police will ensure that candidates do not have any tattoo marks because we do not want to take in cult members into the police force”. If the person who recruits our officers said this during a recruitment exercise meant to inject 6,000 new police officers into the force, that means an additional 6,000 police officers were socialized at the dawn of their careers into the tattoos-and-colourful-hairstyles-are-evidence-of-criminality culture of the Force, and armed to operate with this mindset. Ironically, a former Police Public Relations Officer for Zone 2 Command, CSP Dolapo Badmus, was once harassed online after she posted a photo of herself with a tattoo on her chest on her Instagram.

If the problem is the wrong perception and attitude, then the solution should seek to change attitudes and perceptions. Efforts like re-shuffling officers without changing their attitude is like replacing a flat tire with a well worn-out tire. In the same vein, creating bills like the Police Reform Bill, 2019 to improve welfare without changing attitudes will not yield the needed results. The people that matter do not seem to understand this. That is why Senator Gbenga Ashafa said the bill will improve the "welfare and the environment in which they work" and the then Senate President Bukola Saraki noted that the bill will give the police a “better condition” that will make them “more productive” instead of talking about the officers’ attitudes.

Of a truth, improving the welfare of our police officers is desirable, but what Nigerians urgently need is a behavioural change from the people their taxes remunerate. The bill is therefore welcome. If not for any other reason, the fact that it tries to address an important part of the problem with the targeting of young persons, which is the manner of arrest and unofficial prosecution, is a plus. It stipulates arrest procedures, granting of suspect rights, and suggests psychological tests for recruits and regular training for officers. However, it is a palliative measure at best, if the Force finds the courage to implement and monitor its proposals. After all, BAIL IS FREE in Nigeria but no suspect leaves without paying. Has it stopped? Why? Mindset: unchallenged, permitted, encouraged. As long as officers still learn from superiors that only criminals wear tattoos, they will behave irrationally in real-life situations.

It is, therefore, time to treat the disease to cure it. The real task is ‘how do we change these officers’? It is hard to change how people see the world. It is even harder where there are fixed group identities and group cultures. How can we educate officers of the police that cultural expression is a changing and personal affair and dreadlocks, tattoos and hair colouring are not-so-new and not alien cultural trends that youths have embraced, or that income could be generated without criminality? This is the real task.

I know the problem is the corrupted mindset, but I will not pretend to have the solutions. However, I am convinced that there is a pressing need to educate officers of the rights of people to cultural expression. The NPF can start by borrowing a leaf from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). In 2018, MPD decided to change public perception of its officers by launching a web series, “Beyond the Badge,” which they published on multiple social media platforms. The series captured police officers interacting with members of the community and showing their “passions, talents, hobbies and interests outside of their work-life”. According to the MPD website, the aim was to “bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community, while simultaneously showing humanistic qualities of MPD members ‘beyond the badge”. Some of the officers showcased in the series have full-body tattoos that they do not hide. This approach, if earnestly pursued along with publicized punishments for misconduct and recognition for exemplary community service, institution of community relations beyond policing, and, of course, implementation of the recommendations of the Police Reform Bill, 2019, we will have a reformed Police Force.

Nigerian youths, at least, deserve the freedom to self-express culturally and own assets of choice without fear of harassment by officers paid to protect them but our policemen are cultured to view them as criminals.

The youth have marched out to demand their rights and we all must support them to make tomorrow safer for everyone.