If we bathe and called a pig, “a peacock” it won’t stop it from rummaging through the dumping ground, by extension, having its skin soiled. If you rename “F-SARS, SARS, IGP- X Squad” without re-orientation and reformation, the bad eggs in it will still go about their roguish and despicable acts.
I have a number of families and friends in the police. I have a relative who is a Commissioner of Police, at the moment. I have a cousin who is an FIB— police— at the moment, I have friends— my agemates— who are Officers of the law. My relative who is a Commissioner of Police — especially despises police brutality. He once scolded a SARS officer and noted he would personally effect his being arrested if he’s found wanting of any offence(s). My cousin once fought an officer— before me— for trying to swindle a law abiding citizen.
These people, at various times, have lamented the decay that is rocking this respectable institution. Perhaps, they are people whose conducts and acts would fascinate you to join the Nigeria Police. As a matter of fact, I envy Messers Wale, Bola, Kayode, Olabimpe, Muyiwa, and Sunday. My relative who is a Commissioner once regale me with stories of his sojourn in that institution and how he was victimised by a superior officer because he refused to engage himself in some despicable acts. He got moved to some departments and places so that he could get frustrated— whereas, he eventually pushed him to his fortune where he was made the ADC of the then Commissioner of police. From that place , he became the ADC of the then governor of Ogun State and things became rosy from there. Today, he is a Commissioner of police with a number of garlands and laurels.
Above all, our policing system needs a complete overhauling. Human life is precious and legal means must always be adopted before it is taken. A situation in which a fly is hit with a sledge hammer as frequently demonstrated by men of the Special Anti Robbery Squad is a travesty of justice and a dent on the image of Nigeria Police- SARS. The words of that eminent American historian, Mary Frances Berry, a Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, are apt here, she thundered, “When you have police officers who abuse citizens, you erode public confidence in law enforcement. That makes the job of good police officers unsafe”. Little wonder many Nigerians have lost confidence in the protection of the Police.
Notably, I’m against “Igbati ati ifomu/ifonu for both law-abiding citizens and criminals”. Let anyone who must have gone against the law duly face the full wrath of the law in a competent court of law. You can’t be the catcher and dispenser of law at the same time. “S’Olohun ni e ni?!”
It is, therefore, on the pedestal of that, that it is needful for Nigerians who are learned in the letters of the law of the land, the NBA and people who understand the criminal justice administration system, need to sit down to save the Police— through reformation and the enactment of new laws and the amelioration of faulty laws that are guiding the system in order for us to have a lovable and laudable policing system in Nigeria.
Folorunso Fatai is a public commentator and writer.
