question: what kind of Policemen do we have in Lagos State? July 12, 2008

My sojourn in Lagos State soooooooo faaaaaaaaaaa rrrrrrrrrrrr has opened my eyes to see a relationship between Policemen, bus drivers, and the Holy Spirit. I am still putting the pieces together on this one. It will roll out later, but every time I see a person in the Nigerian Police Uniform, the question crosses my mind by default: ‘is this one a real police or a fake one’.

I have come to conclude that Policemen in Lagos State are the legally and illegally Police Uniformed men and women who we come across on a daily basis. Note: Police Uniformed. Some of them are on the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) payroll, and others are just on their own, running their own show at our detriment. The following are the kinds of Policemen in Lagos State. MyPenMyPaper went to town and came back with this report:

- Police Escorts: they the NPF uniformed men and women who we see cruising around in 4-wheel drives as escorts to bullion vans conveying Naira notes from one location to the other. They are seen holding whips or clubs with one hand always hanging out of their vehicle’s window. They are either sitting in front and beside drivers of cars belonging to important Nigerians, and clearing traffic for such to pass by. They don’t mind blaring their sirens in a bumper to bumper traffic, even if they are not on a specific assignment. Police escort drivers are reckless, yes, and when these guys are coming, everyone runs for cover as the officer-driver puts his James Bond skills into use, especially on Lagos’ two lane roads. In Lagos State, please note that if a Police Escort bashes your car – regardless of who is at fault, you, as an unfortunate civilian will pay for any damage on their car.

-- Arrest Arrest Policemen: these are the arrest-trigger happy NPF uniformed men and women seen at the scene of a crime, accident, public argument or any issue that attracts the attention of many people, on a busy day, on any busy street? These group are never at the scene of the crime/accident or public disturbance when it happens. They usually arrive after the damage has been done, and their main responsibility is to arrest somebody. I repeat, their main goal and job description is just to arrest somebody, even if you are innocent. They know everything that happened in their absence at the scene of trouble, and they’ll always find someone to arrest, take to the police-station, create a case-file for, detain, charge to court or await the relatives of the accused to come for a bail, even before the accused doesn’t know what is happening. These group are actually sales and marketing officers for business centers around police stations usually owned by Police Officers Wives(POW) associations, where Police case files and stationery are sold at exorbitant prices(because you are in a police station), where statements are type written, where you can pay for a photographer to snap you a 2×2 for your case file etc.

- 20-Naira policemen: you can find them at every bus stop in Lagos state. These guys function as tax-collectors, collecting ‘as low as’ 20-Naira(lower-limit) from commercial motorists for no reason at all. The upper limit could go up to One/Two Hundred-Naira, depending on the ‘weight’ of the bus stop. Heavy weight bus stops in Lagos State include Ojuelegba, Ikeja, Ojota and co. If they(20-Naira policemen) are not the ones doing the actual ‘collecting’, they act as body guards to arial boys, agberos and other members of the clan, who are ‘on duty’, doing the actual ‘collecting’ and picking fights with bus-conductors and drivers in the process. When you find an agbero at a bus stop, holding a koboko, watch out, there is a police officer nearby.

- Torch-Light boys: these group are usually found in questionable street corners, one way roads and they come out into the open only twice a day. They are on their spots either in the early hours of the morning, between 6am – 8am, or at the late hours of the day 7pm-9pm, after which they just vanish into thin air. Two major characteristics of Torch-Light boys and girls: bright torch-lights and what I call their ‘hand-shake’ methodology.

The time is 6’O’clock in the morning, they are in groups of four or six at every stop – watch them as they’ll flash their torch-lights directly on the windshield of motorists, almost confusing the helpless drivers in the process, who are then forced to stop. With four watching, two of them will approach the side of your car and brighten up your face at the same time with their torches, until you are forced to look elsewhere or cover your face with your hands. The one who stands by the drivers side, with his gun pointed upwards and his torch pointed at you is called the ‘Good Morning sir Officer (GMO)’. GMO’s job description includes greeting you with a ‘good morning sir’ as instructed by the Nigerian Police HQ. He’ll then ask you where you are going to or coming from. The other guy, who will position himself on the other side(front passenger side) is the ‘Vehicle Checkout-Officer(VCO)’. The job of this guy is to brighten up the insides of your car and see if there is any bag, suitcase, gadget or anything that might be worth looking into – further. The GMO and VCO quickly make an eye contact to decide if you are free to continue your journey or not. If further investigation is to continue, you’ll hear a variant of ‘sir, please park your car; can we see your driver’s license? can we see the papers of this motor?’. You will be delayed for a short time: 20-30minutes depending on if you understand, decipher and can quickly respond to their language. They don’t speak English. They collect nothing less than two hundred Naira from private motorists. Commercial bus drivers who know the drill usually complete this exercise in 2-minutes with a left-handed handshake, which is definitely not empty-handed.

- Stop and Search Police: these team of men and women are the ones who appear at ‘spots’ after the morning exercise of Torch Light boys and girls. Their spots include major and minor roads, even right in the middle of traffic. Their call of duty starts at 8:30am and ends at 10am. These team of delayists stop each and every car private car passing for searching. They don’t greet you like GMO does. They would wave you down immediately and ask you to open your boot, bonnet, everywhere, as if they kept something there. The main guys here are the Vehicle Search Officers (VSOs), who does not mind pulling up and out the floor carpets or seats of your car in his ‘search’ process. Another one focuses on the car-engine and boot. He cross-checks your number plate, drivers license, chassis numbers, spare tires, fire extinguishers, scrutinizes your papers to find something wrong with it. If he doesn’t inform you about a document missing among your paper bunch, which you never heard of, he will point out a typographical error somewhere, even if the error is with the pre-printed part of the document and which has nothing to do with you. The conclusion of the matter is asking you to go with them to the station to sort things out. Now imagine yourself, all suited up on the way to work on an early Monday morning, and being asked to go to the police station to sort out a typographical error, which is not your fault, after spending 45-minutes with a strip and search.

- these guys wave down okada men and their passengers, to search the passenger from head to toe. Just in case you were just passing by such spots, you would be searched too. The CMS is a major spot for stop and search on the way to the Island. At the CMS, for example, these nuisances would approach you, wave some ID past your face before you could blink to look at it, and declare themselves as the Nigerian Police Force. Some others would declare themselves as Detectives. The first time I was stopped at the CMS and a man declared himself as a detective, I unknowingly burst out in laughter. It never occurred to me that Nigeria had detectives. It sounded kinda funny, especially in this wuruwuru democracy, so I laughed. Should you be carrying a bag, envelope or suitcase, they’ll demand to see whatever you are carrying. They are usually 4 – 5 in number and they would surround you while the questioning is going on. After your bag / suitcase, they’ll ask to see what you have in your pockets, while one of them will frisk you from head to toe. If you have ever been robbed, the way these CMS police guys will frisk you is the same way armed robbers will frisk you clean. These fools even ask to see your mobile phone, scroll through your text messages etc. I said fools, coz if you happen to be carrying an expensive mobile phone with some features that need some explaining, they’ll hand over the phone to you and ask you to operate it so as to locate the ‘inbox’.

Lets say you have an account with the GTB, for example, and you’ve got an account credit notification on your phone as a text message, ‘stop and search’ will ask you for your account number. The next thing is for them to try and make a case out of why you don’t know your account number offhand, or rather make a case of whether you are indeed the owner of the mobile phone, since you don’t know your bank account number offhand. How many digits can one memorize for God’s sake. These fools will go ahead and ask for the ATM card of your bank. Should you have any other gadgets on you, the next thing they’ll demand is a receipt of purchase. It doesn’t matter if the gadget in question is a rugged and ancient doll, they’ll ask you for a receipt. If you don’t have a receipt, they’ll either ask you to call your friend, wife, brother, sister, mother, father or neighbor who can go into your house and fish out the receipt while you wait with them at the CMS. Note: these fools will enumerate: “your friend, your wife, your brother, your sister, your mother, your father or your neighbor”. They’ll recite it as if it was an incantation. If you say there is no one that knows where the receipt is, their next question is: ‘do you live alone?’ Assuming you say yes, they will continue: ‘why do you live alone?’ You might be very surprised how these crooks will ask you a series of questions, leading into a mind boggling story which they would use later in a Police Station statement, and which would appear that you stole your own property, even after you produce the receipt.

Especially at the CMS, most of these guys are thieves and robbers, I mean official thieves in broad daylight. Sometime ago, two friends of mine were on their way to the Island, one had a laptop in his bag. ‘Stop and search’ stopped them, and demanded for the receipt of the laptop. The conclusion was that the laptop owner should go back home and bring the receipt of purchase, while his friend waited with ‘Stop and Search’ at the CMS. Before the laptop owner could return to the CMS, because of early morning traffic, a fire-for-fire car had come to take the Stop and Search officers away. Wherever they were going, the waiting guy did not know. One of the police officers gave his name and station to the waiting guy who was frantically calling his friend at that moment, informing him about the departure of the police officers from the scene. The conclusion of the matter is that the two friends went to the Ikeja police station, as per information given by the police officer who seized the laptop, however they were told that such a policeman wasn’t recognized at that station. My two guys described all the other self-claiming police officers, but their whole description fell on deaf ears as ‘they(officers) were not / could not be recognized/identified’. Up till today, the laptop has not been found. What a nice and official way to steal in broad day light. Beware of stop and search at the CMS.

Street smart:

- I had a not too gruesome experience at the CMS sometime ago. Advise: If you are stopped and searched at the CMS in the morning on your way ‘to’, kindly take another route back home after work, especially if you are carrying the same bag/suitcase/whatever that you are carrying in the morning, which was searched. Note: 5-eyes peered into your bag in the morning. General info is that these guys, especially at the CMS are official armed robbers. While you are getting searched, their other boys are watching to see if theres something valueable in your possession, which they could lay-in-wait/rob you of, if you are seen passing again. Question: Where is the real police to catch these armed robber policemen.

- Police station boys and girls:
these are the NPF clad men and women found at police stations around the state. Some of these peeps are permanent desk boys and girls who do paper work all day, sell biscuits, shoes, clothes etc. Go to the station and report a crime and see how these station boys and girls will look at you from head to toe. You might even have to look at yourself all over out of sheer surprise.

- before a ‘vehicle’ is located, before ‘fuel’ is sourced into the vehicle, before a ‘driver’ is found to drive the vehicle, before approval is taken, before traffic eases out on all of you, the armed robber would be on a flight back to base. This doesn’t mean that they(Police station boys and girls) won’t write a report, they will; this doesn’t mean that a case file won’t be opened, and this doesn’t mean that the problem is solved, in fact, this doesn’t mean anything.