By Omoh Giwa
Dear Sir,
Let us dispense with pleasantries and formal greetings; this is not the kind of correspondence that requires them. My spirit is too agitated, my pen too restless and my tongue too bitter to waste energy on etiquette. I am here, not as a supplicant but as a citizen armed with words, to report your boys to you.
You know what our people say: when a handshake stretches beyond the elbow, it is no longer a greeting but the beginning of a wrestling match. Well, sir, the police have not only reached our elbows, they have climbed our shoulders, sat on our necks and are now chewing groundnuts there.
Permit me to ask: I am geninuely curious, infact, baffled, what went through your mind that infamous day you hid under a car at the footsteps of the EFCC agents? The mighty lion reduced to a frightened kitten! And how, I ask you, did you manage the miraculous somersault from a champion of operation fire for fire to a connoisseur for embezzling public funds? Was this your version of career growth?
Or were you considering a change in career path to Nollywood when you performed that gimmick of collapsing and convulsing in court like an epileptic patient? Theatrics worthy of an AMVCA nomination, if nothing else. Honestly, Nollywood owes you a Lifetime Achievement Award: Best Performance by a Former Inspector General.
Anyway, let’s not flog a dead horse. After all, our people say, nothing concern agbero with overload. My real grievance today concerns your prodigal offspring, the Nigerian Police. Sir, who on earth started that catastrophic lie: the police is your friend? Was it you? Was it one of your delusional disciples? Whoever coined that line should be tied to an anthill at noon in Maiduguri and left there till soldier ants conduct proper deliverance.
A friend, you say? Since when do friends waylay you at checkpoints, rifle through your car as though they are customs officers and then demand a bribe with the arrogance of a landlord collecting rent? Which friend forces you to prove you bought your own number plate by ordering you to provide the receipt, irrespective of how long ago you bought the car? No, sir, not friendship. What we have here is hostage-taking in broad daylight with government stamp.
Do you know, sir, that mothers teach their children to run to churches, mosques, hospitals, morgues or even herbalists in times of crisis but never the police station? Because, truth be told, entering a police station in Nigeria is like entering a slaughterhouse. The odds that you’d make it out alive are zero to none. How absurd that in a supposed democracy, citizens feel safer running towards fire than towards men in uniform!
Shall I continue? Let me remind you of their extracurricular atrocities. That time your boys raided nightclubs under the pretext of moral policing and in their custody raped women, improvising condoms with sachet water nylons. Or the countless cases of trigger-happy officers who shoot unarmed civilians over refusal to offer bribes. I am still haunted by that incident that Christmas morning when a drunk policeman murdered a young lawyer under the Ajah Bridge, staining a day of joy with blood. Or Ismaila Akapo in 2019, gunned down like an animal because your men carry bullets as though they were chewing gum.
And what of SARS? Do not get me started! That unit of your children trained in sadism, extortion and psychological torture. The one whose legacy birthed a nationwide protest and international outcry. I need not repeat those horrors here; the graves are still fresh and the scars on young Nigerians still tender. But let me simply say this: things have fallen apart and Yeats’ falconer no longer bothers calling the falcon.
Lest I forget, let us discuss fashion. What is the latest style among your men, refusing to wear uniforms and instead dressing in ripped jeans, black t-shirts and baseball caps while brandishing AK-47s like a fashion accessory? Honestly, they look less like police, more like bouncers or extras in a low-budget YouTube action film.
At least armed robbers wear masks; your men now move in plain sight, indistinguishable from the very criminals they are supposed to fight. How do you expect citizens to know who is who? It’s like telling us to spot the difference between akara and bean cake. Help us beg your men. At the very least, let them return to their uniforms. A thief in uniform is still a thief but at least we know who he is.
Now, before you accuse me of exaggeration, let me assure you I speak not from rumour but lived experience. Every Nigerian has a personal chapter in the epic tragedy called “The Police and I”. Let me give you one gist. Around 5:30 am one morning, I nearly drove straight into a robbery attack.
At first, I thought it was a police checkpoint. After all, who else blocks the road with guns at that hour? Then one of them smashed someone’s head with the butt of a rifle. That was when my adrenaline turned me into Tom Cruise. I escaped, yes, but the trauma left me sitting in my car for 30 minutes, shaking like a faulty generator on its last leg.
Sir, I am not so naïve as to think the rot began with you. No, this rot was woven into the very fabric of Nigeria long before your time. Yet I write to you, for who better than you could serve as the perfect cautionary tale? Think about this: if the police are our friends, then Boko Haram must be our extended cousins and armed robbers our long-lost brothers.
So, here is my humble request: whisper to your boys from the spirit world. Tell them that the uniform is not a mere cloth but a symbol. Remind them that guns are not walking sticks to balance drunken feet. And please, above all, ask them to retire that cursed slogan: police is your friend. We know better now. Our friends do not kill us at checkpoints. Our friends do not extort us. Our friends will not rape women in custody.
And so, in the great tradition of writing letters that may never be read, I end this one here. May you find this report useful. Or worse still, provoke you into finally carrying out your ancestral duties.
Can’t be yours,
Omoh Giwa
Department of English, University of Lagos