One ugly reality of the Nigerian state is that corruption at all levels of governance is almost official policy. It is perpetrated with such reckless abandon and mindless impunity that Nigeria is yearly rated by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and one of the most difficult places on earth to do honest business. It is a land where honest people struggle to eke out a living while official crooks daily siphon the national patrimony into their private pockets! There is hardly anyone who has had any form of business to transact with government at any level that does not also have stories of official shake down to tell. Today’s write-up is about the police only, and it is coming on the heels of Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s revelation of what he personally witnessed in his own state: that personnel of the Nigeria Police are collecting bribe and subverting the official lockdown and restriction on inter-state movement. Corruption is pervasive, but while civilians may be subtle in their approach, police extortion of innocent Nigerians is not only routine, casual, but often executed with reckless impunity and callousness, even extreme brutality. This is no exaggeration; it is the reality of daily existence. Drivers and road users are familiar with this. I am yet to come across any honest Nigerian who is not troubled, embarrassed and offended by the impunity of Nigerian police personnel.
In Ondo State, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s aide witnessed what Nigerians have always complained of, that the police is corrupt! He saw police corrupt behaviour first-hand where the officers that were assigned to enforce the lockdown converted state boundaries to tollgates for extorting road travelers and permitting them to enter into the state. (Punch 13/4/2020). This is not limited to Ondo State. During the covid-19 lockdown, several police personnel, including officers of the ranks of Inspector and Assistant Superintendent of Police, have been fingered and arrested for brazenly extorting Nigerians. They confiscate their vehicles, and then shake down, some being made to part with as much as 40,000 naira to secure release of their vehicles. This extortionist practice is the daily reality of Okada and Keke drivers, commercial bus drivers and private car owners.
Inter-city bus and car drivers experience the worst of it. Gun-wielding policemen brazenly extort them at the numerous unofficial roadblocks, neither minding nor being incommoded by the presence of onlooking passengers. Whenever a driver is carrying naira denominations higher than the required unofficial toll fee, policemen promptly rummage the bulging side pockets of their usually baggy trousers for the correct change. It is not considered shameful anymore, but the sheer impunity of it rankles. Forcible extortion is worse at night because one could be shot with the slightest pretext by these gun-toting psychopaths. Thousands of innocent Nigerians have been callously and extra-judicially dispatched to the great beyond, the pretext always being ‘accidental discharge’! No sane person argues with a deranged rifle-waving person who has been officially licensed by the state to kill in the line of duty.
None of this is news to the police high command and the Inspector-General. They cannot claim ignorance of this ugly practice. It has for them become a culture, an institutionalized way of life, and they have thus become desensitized to its ugliness and the horror these inflict on hapless citizens trying to eke out honest living. Police officers unashamedly negotiate extortion in plain view at police stations. Nobody secures bail without parting with something, no matter how small, even though “Police is Your Friend” and “Bail is Free” hang on the wall! It is unfortunate that the police have contributed significantly to many Nigerians voting with their feet. Armed robbers rob you, the police further extort you when you make a report, even frame you for a crime you never committed if you refuse to pay. This is no hearsay, I have been a victim of such police harassment and framing more than once, so I am talking from first-hand experience.
Truth be told, not many Nigerians would mourn if the police force was disbanded this moment. The nationwide anti-SARS protest is clear evidence. The institutional reputation of the police is rotten, and the daily experiences of average Nigerians with the police are generally unpleasant. People do not trust the police and are generally afraid to report crimes for fear of being framed. A friend once asked me what could be done to reform the Nigeria police, and my simple candid answer was: the police is irreformable! The institution is irredeemably corrupt and too far gone down the road to perdition to be reformed. It seems its personnel are trained, indoctrinated, inducted and socialized into corruption as a normal way of life. The daily extortion and oppression of Nigerians are done with such arbitrariness and alarming impunity they could only have been sanctioned by the state.
Worse still, the federal government appoints chairmen for the Police Service Commission from the ranks of retired Inspectors-General who had superintended over the same highly corrupt institution, and you wonder what magic they are expected to perform. It is always business as usual. Government has never been serious about improving the police; the IG’s position is more for political compensation and loyalty to regime than for professional competence. Every now and then, a new IG at the beginning of his tenure demonstrates some braggadocio (or gra-gra in our local parlance), bans roadblocks and warns officers against corruption, extortion, and other illegal behaviours. He thereafter settles into the routine he knows so well, giving meaning to the aphorism: the more things change the more they remain the same.
An elderly Nigerian once shared his view with me, that any country where daily brazen extortion by police and public servants is tolerated should never criminalize bribe-giving. It is illogical and unfair to accuse citizens of paying bribes! Such a state, in his view, has no business legislating against bribe-giving and that any such existing laws should be expunged from the books! This may be cynical, but it surely makes some sense.
Governor Akeredolu’s accusation of extortion against the police charged with law enforcement is true, but it not a novel practice. Can we honestly say the IG is embarrassed by the conduct of his officers? Is the police really sabotaging the Nigerian state or is it merely fulfilling its historic mission of oppressing the citizens and keeping them in check on behalf of the state which itself is predatory and unaccountable? Can Nigeria ever have a national police institution that will truly live up to the maxim of protecting and serving the people? Am I not being downright naïve to imagine we can actually have an institution of the state that is not reflective of the essential character of that state? Why should the police be an exception when all other institutions of the state are corruption-infested? Wouldn’t a honest and upright police force not be unthinkable, an aberration actually, when the state has officially institutionalized and elevated corruption to the status of national culture? Let’s do away with the silly pretence and empty sloganeering of police being our friends, we all know they have never been and incapable of being our friend even if they try.
Alade Fawole is a Professor of International Relations at the Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU), Ile-Ife.
The narrative is intrinsically rich having many revelatory insights about Nigerian state with regard to the subject matter. By any measures, the police is the most corrupt institution in Nigeria radically followed by the judiciary, the supposedly final arbiter of the people.Other paramilitary agencies could not be exornorated neither.
With regard Sir, the state of affairs in Nigeria in holistic terms has not gone beyond intrasigent. It is redeemable with cerebral statesman/men, driven by realpolitik and national interests, qualities inherent in your personality.