Police: To whom nothing is given…

She was a pitiable sight. The trauma real. The agony unbearable. The pain personal. The memory everlasting. Only God can stabilise her psychologically.

I’m sure she is livid with the country and those elected or selected to govern us.

To her, she doesn’t have a country because she has been betrayed by the ineffective system.

What she went through is better watched on the animal channel of Dstv. It was horrible.

Nobody will pray for his enemy to go through such an evil encounter. And hers is not an isolated case.
It happens every minute in the country.

Of course, there is crime worldwide. The only difference is that governments in other climes are not only working but seen to be working. That is why crime doesn’t pay over there.

To combat crime is a serious business. In Nigeria, you are on your own. If you complain, you will be told to go to hell.

This is a country that can afford to send 73 people to the United Nations on a jamboree to get international backing for an unnecessary Nudity Bill.

But, if you ask those in government what is being done to check the rising crime wave, they will become deaf and dumb.

If you complain in English language, they will tell you it is only Yoruba they understand. If it is in Igbo, they will tell you they only hear and speak Hausa.

There is maximum communication gap between the rulers and the ruled. Why are we like this?
On Tuesday night, I was in the office when I was called that there was a woman at the gate who had just been raped by some hoodlums.

I called other editors around and we went to the gate to see her. When we got there, she narrated her story, in pains.

She was in a commercial bus travelling to Ijebu-Ode when there was a tyre burst on the long bridge, right opposite the Nigerian Compass office on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

As the driver was trying to fix it, some hoodlums with machetes emerged from nowhere.

To, as we say, cut a long story short, two of them descended on her and raped her. Other passengers scattered in various directions. After the horrible encounter, they threw her down the bridge.

She had to crawl from under the bridge to our security gate.

Immediately, we calmed her down and took her to the hospital.

We placed a call to the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Ibafo Police Station and some policemen raced to the scene. I saw their determination and zeal but the encouragement is not there.

It is like sending someone who cannot swim in a bucket to the Olympics to win gold medal in the swimming competition. Obviously, it is a fruitless exercise.

Nigerians are surrounded by danger. And it is sad that the government is rubbing it in.
After the incident, I looked at the long stretch of that bridge. No street light.

And we all expected the police to move in immediately and perform ‘American wonder’.

Around 10.30p.m., her husband called me from Ijebu-Ode.

After telling her that her wife was okay, he insisted that he must come to Lagos that night.

Lagos ke? At that time?

I had to beg him to calm down and wait till the following day to avoid getting into the hands of more deadly hoodlums who probably may be gays.

To whom much is given, much is expected. In Nigeria, to whom nothing is given, everything is expected.

How do we expect the police to perform when the government does not even know that the force exists?

In the United States, patrol vehicles are not used for more than two years.

Here, you will see a patrol vehicle bought when Mungo Park was about going to the River Niger.

And the kabukabu will be used to chase robbers who are driving the type of futuristic vehicles shown in Sylvester Stallone’s movie, Judge Dredd.

How do you expect that husband to feel about Nigeria and the way we react to security issues?
The crime wave in the society is becoming unbearable. Nigerians are on the edge because criminal justice is failing them.

Nigeria is the only country that police officers are killed endlessly by robbers and nothing happens. Some might argue that policemen and criminals are the same but my position is that robbers must have put 10 Nigerians in their list before two policemen become victims.

What is being done to equip policemen?
Nigerians will continue to have an unsafe society and backwardness until the government adopts the right system of governance, including decentralisation of criminal justice system, most especially the courts and police force.

We have a federal policing system which will never work. If this is localised, residents of Arepo, Mowe, Ibafo on the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway axis will police that area effectively and know all the criminals there. How do you expect someone from Ondo to know the terrain in Sokoto or a loki (local) from Calabar to know Ilorin more than the indigenes?

In the New York police department, the first criteria for anybody who wants to join the force is that you must be a resident of the state. Do we think those who enacted that law are stupid?

Security is a basic human right and it is a major factor to the quality of communities worldwide. It provides an enabling environment for citizens to live and work in, and it stimulates social, economic and political development.

Police is the main determinant of security, safety, peace and justice. Without effective and efficient police or policing, there will be no justice. Where there is no justice, there will be anarchy. In such a society, it is bye to political, economic and social development.

There are some basic requirements for the success of intelligence gathering and crime control: effective communication, communication code, resources (personnel and modern tools) and motivation (good salary, allowances, retirement benefits, etc).

All these are dead in Nigeria and the Federal Government is sleeping.

The police, as it is presently constituted, structured and organised, cannot solve any crime.

Are policemen even ready to lay down their lives to fight crimes for a country that is not ready to take care of their next of kin?

On April 1, 2006, New York came out with a new salary, promotion, benefit and retirement structure for police officers.

• $50,374 - Starting salary (during Academy training)
• $61,525 - Upon graduation from the Academy
• $65,358 - After one year
• $77,218 - After five years

Salaries do not include additional location compensation for New York City and the following counties: Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk, and Westchester. This comes to an additional $8,000 to $12,000 added to the base salary.

Promotion
There are numerous promotional opportunities from Sergeant to Superintendent through competitive and appointive processes for both the Uniformed Force and Bureau of Criminal Investigation. A few examples are provided below:

• You may compete in the promotional process for the supervisory rank of Sergeant after four years. Salary: $90,795 base pay.

• You may compete in the promotional process for the middle management rank of Lieutenant after serving two years as a Sergeant. Salary: $107,967 per year

• You may apply to be appointed as an Investigator in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation after four years of service or after two years of service with a Bachelor’s Degree.

Salary: $88,444 (Salary does not include overtime.)
It is instructive to note that salaries do not include location compensation or longevity payments which will increase base salary by an additional $8,000 to $30,000 per year (depending on rank, location and service period).

Benefits
• 120 hours of vacation annually, up to a maximum of 224 hours, depending on length of service.
• 12 annually paid holidays.
• 24 to 40 paid personal leave hours based on length of service.
• Paid sick leave accumulating at the rate of 104 hours per year.
• Excellent health, dental, and optical insurance coverage.
• All uniforms and equipment are provided, including dry cleaning services for uniforms.

Retirement
• Retirement at half pay after 20 years.
• Vesting after five years.

Readers will notice that there was no mention of arms, patrol vehicles, communication equipment and other gadgets because it is unthinkable for policemen not to have the tools to effectively combat crime.

Dry cleaning services are even provided for uniforms. Interesting.

But what do we have in Nigeria? Boy scouts.

As long as the government does not take security matters seriously, the call for foreign investors will be similar to a python calling on a rabbit to take a walk with it.