Nigeria is a place where nothing is exactly working as it should – the media is a mere rumour mill, legal practitioners act like they read from Macmillan pages instead of the book of law, the health sector is unstable and needing urgent treatment, most other sectors are in terrible states but the level of mediocrity displayed by Nigerian Policemen is way beyond belief.

Oppression.

How do you explain that a man paid to maintain order and law, parked his ‘Highway Patrol Unit’ branded vehicle in the middle of the road, blocking hundreds of vehicles, to shoot twice in the air before driving off? No prior tension, no civil unrest, just a policeman who wanted to have his moment of authority to remind ‘bloody civilians’ that he holds the gun and in turn, ‘power’.

One thing is to oppress innocent citizens, brutalising them is another reason the conversation about the institution housing the men in black should not end on social media, particularly the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) officers who have become notorious for extortion, brutality that sometimes leads to the death of innocent young Nigerians in their search for yahoo boys.

Like the bulky spoilt kid who picks on his smaller colleague, Nigerian policemen bully and steal from people. Theirs is even worse because some of them go as far as killing innocent victims. A Police officer would bully a teenager and won’t even have a guilty conscience or loss of face.

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Harassment.

My neighbour who’s preparing for WASSCE told me the story of how SARS officials stopped him on his way to his weekend class. He was interrogated and searched down to his wallet. After the exercise, he was dismissed. When he would later check his wallet he realised his #1500 had disappeared. Where did the money go?

Only the SARS men would know. Comparing that to the experience of others, one would consider it a fortunate one. It could have been worse – he could have been wrongfully accused of a crime or brutalised. Like a drunk driver these officers wield their authority with no care for control.

Corruption.

I suppose police duties should involve protecting lives and properties regardless of age, religion or social standing but Nigerian uniform men are of the habit of choosing the lives and properties to protect - mostly people with money for bribe - what they call ‘something for the boys.’ Small Doctor might have popularise the saying ‘if you no get money hide your face’ but it has long been a doctrine of our policemen. To get them to do their jobs, you’re expected to pay them (outside of their official emolument).

The narrative of Music Journalist, Joey Akan epitomises the culture of bribery and corruption in the Nigerian Police Force. On Twitter, Joey told the story of how he was robbed of his car and how the police contacted him that his car had been recovered, inviting him to the station to claim it. The story was starting to sound like a testament for the Police - that the force is indeed making an attempt to be friends with the people; until Joey got to part where he was asked to ‘drop something’ before his car key is released to him.

Joey doesn’t even need to prove his story. It isn’t exactly different from the stories of Police excesses that has become a regular feature on Instablog. Nigerians can relate. They have had their own experiences with the force men. Those that haven’t experienced the extortive acts of police officers would have witnessed it on the highways where commercial buses are made to slip in payola into the hands of heedful officers or in the buses where officers refuse to pay the fare, claiming to be ‘staff.’

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Dignity & Respect??

To call a spade a spade, there’s no dignity in the Police force and respect for the uniform is lost. Acts like bribery, extortion and oppression by uniform men has eroded the respect for them and in fact, the general Nigerian institution of law is market place where justice is sold to the highest bidder.

Principles like justice, morality, diligence and professionalism have been buried in the force, leaving us with an institution that breeds everything it was built to stand against – corruption, fraud, oppression, brutality and innocent killings and more. We have bullies, armed thieves and killers walking the streets donning Police uniform. How do we trust these beasts?

The safest option is to avoid circumstances where one would need law enforcement agents and if that cannot be done, make it the option before you seek out the devil to involve the police because they are worse than the pick pockets or thieves on the streets.

They tell you ‘the police is your friend’ but we know our friends wouldn’t stand on the road, looking for ways to extort money from us. Like frenemies, Policemen hide their criminal intent behind the seal and the badge, a criminal with clear intent is less to be feared.

Like Joey, ‘I would rather handle my issues myself than involve the police. They are hungry criminals looking to make a quick buck. No sense of justice whatsoever. Whatever they are accused of, they definitely did that shit. End.’

Oluwatobi Ibironke is a writer.

Twitter: @ibironketweets