Port Harcourt and the Nigerian police have been in the news in the past month due to the incident at the Special Police squad, known as E-crack.
As the story was told, a certain motor mechanic, Chima and his apprentices were arrested by the police for driving against traffic. Five of them were tortured and branded as cultists and armed robbers, but Chima unfortunately died in detention.
The news broke, and Nigerians are livid. The idea of the piece is not to recall the story. No! We all know it or we can search online for different versions of the story, but are we not all like the E-crack team? A violent people? Aren’t all Nigerians really violent people?
Violence and wickedness is in us, all of us as Nigerians
I was on radio some time last year and we were discussing the Nigerian football league and fans violence. The question was asked why Nigerian football fans think the only solution to what you call poor refereeing decisions is to physically manhandle the referees and I answered thus…
As a teacher what do you do when your student is recalcitrant or fails to get an answer right? You flog or beat
As a madam at home, what do you do when your house help does wrong? You most likely beat her.
As secondary school students in Nigeria in the 80s and 90s, why were we so eager to get to the senior classes? So we can begin to punish or torture the younger ones. Infact there have been cases where younger students have been killed in boarding facilities after severe punishment or torture by senior students.
When Nigerians catch a person on the streets suspected to be a thief, what is our default mode? We torture and most times kill him. We either beat him to death, put a rubber tire around his neck, pour petrol and burn him, hammer a six inch nail into his head or force him to drink a mixture of cement in water. These are every day Nigerians on the streets with violent tendencies.
Now is there any difference between us and the E-crack team who tortured and killed Chima the mechanic in detention? Or the men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS who kill innocent Nigerians every day?
We are all the same and while we point fingers at the E-crack team, let us realise that a few are pointing at us.
I am not a police apologist
Now this seems like I am here to make a case for the Nigerian police but it is way out of it.
The Nigerian police have failed the country. The rank and file see the police as a means of making illegal money for themselves, harass hapless Nigerians and kill those who they suspect to have committed a crime.
My own extreme should be to scrap the Nigerian police, or do away with every one that is not a university graduate and kick start fresh recruitment. Not like the graduates are all straight headed people but it goes a long way to reduce the number people in the force who have no business there.
Let us have fresh recruitment with stiff criteria of entry.
Having said that, the crux if the matter, is, “Are the police acting the way they have done because they wear the uniform or is this a typical Nigerian behavior?
A few years ago, we saw a video of four young boys at the university of Port Harcourt tortured and killed by a mob (none of them police men) because people thought they were armed robbers.
Now, whether they were armed robbers or not, they deserved, at least, a fair trial.
We saw in Bayelsa where a mob attacked two fellows in an SUV and after torturing them, burned them alive in their car. There was no police man involved in the attack. Just regular people like me and you.
We also saw videos of a female student at a University in the South West of Nigeria torturing a much younger female student because she suspected the young girl had sex with her boyfriend. We saw videos of the torture and she was not a member of the Nigerian police.
Let me ask you and you reading this piece…. If you are Nigerian and you grew up in Nigeria, what are the next words that come out of your mouth when you are arguing with a much younger person who is going beyond reason? Let me help you… “I will beat you o” or “I will slap you o.”
This is the default next statement from the majority. Are you a police officer? The spirit of torture and killing is in us as Nigerians and Africans and I will explain more here. It goes back to the 1400s and even beyond that.
A history of Nigerian people
Nigerians have had a history of violence and I will take you back, down memory lane.
An 1859 report of Badagri goes, “Besides some slave traders at Whyddah, some English traders at Badagri attended these rites and I am informed by one of them that 800 humans were slaughtered, that some 2000 was the number intended to be sacrificed, but it was impossible to obtain so many.”
A 1789 report goes thus, “The mouth of the (Lagos) river is very shallow and dangerous and many boats belonging to English vessels with their crews have been lost in entering it… At the eastern extremity there are a few large trees, which are covered with the heads of malefactors. The skulls are nailed to their trunks and large limbs and present a very appalling spectacle…”
1826 in Lagos, “The king and his courtiers take bites out of the hearts of prisoners and drink their blood.”
1829 in Lagos, “Oshiloku of Lagos died, and Adele with the help of Badagri tried to attempt to seize the throne, but he was defeated and Oshiloku’s young son, Idewu was adopted as heir. Bambani, Adele’s chief captain, was captured by Lagosians who nailed his right hand to his head, lopped off the other hand like a twig and after parading him through the streets, struck off his head which they sent to Adooley (the king of Badagri)”
A lot of these examples are from Lagos, but time and space would not permit me to give similar examples of beheading, capture and consumption of humans in the East and the Calabar/ Ikot Ekpene region or sometimes just plain brutality.
This confirms my assertions (MINE) that we are a barbaric and violent people whether we wear the police uniform or not. Wearing the uniform just adds impunity to it.
What then can we do about police brutality?
Asides reforming the police force by doing away with any one with qualification below a University degree, there must be quarterly psychological evaluation of all officers in the police and military.
The police and Armed Forces must have only Nigerians who are stable mentally or else they will kill us all some day.
It is not the fact that they wear a uniform and carry a gun that make them kill, but the fact that they are Nigerian. This is who we are. A violent and barbaric people.
As the story was told, a certain motor mechanic, Chima and his apprentices were arrested by the police for driving against traffic. Five of them were tortured and branded as cultists and armed robbers, but Chima unfortunately died in detention.
The news broke, and Nigerians are livid. The idea of the piece is not to recall the story. No! We all know it or we can search online for different versions of the story, but are we not all like the E-crack team? A violent people? Aren’t all Nigerians really violent people?
Violence and wickedness is in us, all of us as Nigerians
I was on radio some time last year and we were discussing the Nigerian football league and fans violence. The question was asked why Nigerian football fans think the only solution to what you call poor refereeing decisions is to physically manhandle the referees and I answered thus…
As a teacher what do you do when your student is recalcitrant or fails to get an answer right? You flog or beat
As a madam at home, what do you do when your house help does wrong? You most likely beat her.
As secondary school students in Nigeria in the 80s and 90s, why were we so eager to get to the senior classes? So we can begin to punish or torture the younger ones. Infact there have been cases where younger students have been killed in boarding facilities after severe punishment or torture by senior students.
When Nigerians catch a person on the streets suspected to be a thief, what is our default mode? We torture and most times kill him. We either beat him to death, put a rubber tire around his neck, pour petrol and burn him, hammer a six inch nail into his head or force him to drink a mixture of cement in water. These are every day Nigerians on the streets with violent tendencies.
Now is there any difference between us and the E-crack team who tortured and killed Chima the mechanic in detention? Or the men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS who kill innocent Nigerians every day?
We are all the same and while we point fingers at the E-crack team, let us realise that a few are pointing at us.
I am not a police apologist
Now this seems like I am here to make a case for the Nigerian police but it is way out of it.
The Nigerian police have failed the country. The rank and file see the police as a means of making illegal money for themselves, harass hapless Nigerians and kill those who they suspect to have committed a crime.
My own extreme should be to scrap the Nigerian police, or do away with every one that is not a university graduate and kick start fresh recruitment. Not like the graduates are all straight headed people but it goes a long way to reduce the number people in the force who have no business there.
Let us have fresh recruitment with stiff criteria of entry.
Having said that, the crux if the matter, is, “Are the police acting the way they have done because they wear the uniform or is this a typical Nigerian behavior?
A few years ago, we saw a video of four young boys at the university of Port Harcourt tortured and killed by a mob (none of them police men) because people thought they were armed robbers.
Now, whether they were armed robbers or not, they deserved, at least, a fair trial.
We saw in Bayelsa where a mob attacked two fellows in an SUV and after torturing them, burned them alive in their car. There was no police man involved in the attack. Just regular people like me and you.
We also saw videos of a female student at a University in the South West of Nigeria torturing a much younger female student because she suspected the young girl had sex with her boyfriend. We saw videos of the torture and she was not a member of the Nigerian police.
Let me ask you and you reading this piece…. If you are Nigerian and you grew up in Nigeria, what are the next words that come out of your mouth when you are arguing with a much younger person who is going beyond reason? Let me help you… “I will beat you o” or “I will slap you o.”
This is the default next statement from the majority. Are you a police officer? The spirit of torture and killing is in us as Nigerians and Africans and I will explain more here. It goes back to the 1400s and even beyond that.
A history of Nigerian people
Nigerians have had a history of violence and I will take you back, down memory lane.
An 1859 report of Badagri goes, “Besides some slave traders at Whyddah, some English traders at Badagri attended these rites and I am informed by one of them that 800 humans were slaughtered, that some 2000 was the number intended to be sacrificed, but it was impossible to obtain so many.”
A 1789 report goes thus, “The mouth of the (Lagos) river is very shallow and dangerous and many boats belonging to English vessels with their crews have been lost in entering it… At the eastern extremity there are a few large trees, which are covered with the heads of malefactors. The skulls are nailed to their trunks and large limbs and present a very appalling spectacle…”
1826 in Lagos, “The king and his courtiers take bites out of the hearts of prisoners and drink their blood.”
1829 in Lagos, “Oshiloku of Lagos died, and Adele with the help of Badagri tried to attempt to seize the throne, but he was defeated and Oshiloku’s young son, Idewu was adopted as heir. Bambani, Adele’s chief captain, was captured by Lagosians who nailed his right hand to his head, lopped off the other hand like a twig and after parading him through the streets, struck off his head which they sent to Adooley (the king of Badagri)”
A lot of these examples are from Lagos, but time and space would not permit me to give similar examples of beheading, capture and consumption of humans in the East and the Calabar/ Ikot Ekpene region or sometimes just plain brutality.
This confirms my assertions (MINE) that we are a barbaric and violent people whether we wear the police uniform or not. Wearing the uniform just adds impunity to it.
What then can we do about police brutality?
Asides reforming the police force by doing away with any one with qualification below a University degree, there must be quarterly psychological evaluation of all officers in the police and military.
The police and Armed Forces must have only Nigerians who are stable mentally or else they will kill us all some day.
It is not the fact that they wear a uniform and carry a gun that make them kill, but the fact that they are Nigerian. This is who we are. A violent and barbaric people.
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