Last weekend in the UnitedStates of America a video footage of the brutality and violence that went with the arrest of an afro-American, Tyre Nichols, 29, went viral online upon its release by the US law enforcement authorities. In the video the young man could be heard screaming in anguish as the five black police officers kicked and brutalized him. He could be seen being pepper-sprayed and shot with a taser as he sought to run away for his dear life. It happened in the city of Memphis, Tennessee. What made the case very revolting and devoid of racial undertone was because the irresponsible police officers involved were blacks themselves!
If white police officers were to have been involved in the organized mugging the matter would have since taken a racial tinge leading to explosive denunciations and demonstrations. Since racism was not attached to it, it beggars belief how and why black cops could have been such bestial and inhuman in the professional conduct.
Nichols died three days later in the hospital following the violent assault. An autopsy had revealed that internal bleeding led to his untimely demise! The mother, Row Vaughn Wells about whom he remembered in his moment of peril was inconsolable as every loving mother would.
I had watched the video myself and it was indeed an appalling pathetic show of unnecessary force or power. Even if Mr Nichols had flouted the traffic laws the rule of engagement stipulated civil engagement and not brutality and murder. Since it happened in the free world, a civilised advanced democracy like America’s hell must be raised nonetheless.
The Nichols murder sadly reminded one about other murders spanning generations in the States. Decades ago it was Rodney King in Los Angeles and a few years ago (on May 25, 2020 to be precise) George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. In both cases righteous indignation was expressed as street protests (some violent) took place across the American landscape.
Now, do black lives still matter? Well, it matters in America but back home in Nigeria the same cannot be vouched for. How do our lives matter here when we are daily terrorized by the state and non-state terrorists? How do they matter when poverty has reduced folks to miserable animals? How do our lives matter when fuel scarcity bites harder in an oil-producing country?
Despite the frequent mass shootings, gun violence and proliferation of small arms (and even institutional racism) in America compatring America with Nigeria in terms of police brutality or insecurity on the streets is akin to comparing oranges with apples. In Uncle Sam police brutality is punished accordingly. And the rule of law remains a fundamental democratic principle of state power. The same cannot be said of Nigeria!
In Nigeria blood flows everyday and no indignation or outrage is ever expressed by an oppressed population. It has become our way of life, bloodletting, that one could stumble on a headless decomposing corpse dumped along the way and carry on with life as if nothing abnormal had happened.
Now, Nichols was assassinated by a brutal police anti-crime unit called SCORPION which stood for Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. SCORPION was consequently disbanded. There is this similarity between the SCORPION Unit in the States and the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Nigeria.
The five police officers that violated the late Nichols’ fundamental human rights had been summarily dismissed from the force. They have been charged with second-degree murder. The white officer, Derek Chauvin, who used his knee to brutalize the late Floyd is still cooling his heels in prison.
Few years ago following a popular revolt against SARS the Nigerian federal government had scrapped SARS. The #EndSARS demonstrations had ignited the revolutionary spirit in Nigerians especially the young men and women. Before we arrived at its disbandment SARS had killed more innocent Nigerians than Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists up north put together!
In my beloved home state of Anambra SARS men operated as outlaws! High on drugs and alcohol and fortified by charms they went about killing, kidnapping, extorting and terrorizing the populace with impunity. Since the dismantling of SARS the criminals abusing their briefs had been redeployed to other units from where they continued perpetrating evil.
None of them had been brought to justice for the atrocities they committed! That is the striking difference between a lawful society like America and the very opposite that is ours. Impunity continues to reign supreme because the elite are not the victims of police brutality.
It is inconceivable that officers paid and maintained with tax-payers’ money could turn around to become their nemesis. Something must give!
Instead of fighting crime and preserving law and order (ordinarily its duty) the police in Nigeria, frustrated, poorly remunerated and equipped, often visit their bottled-up frustrations on the larger society. On Christmas day last year in Lagos, Drambi Vandi, a rogue policeman shot Ms Bolanle Raheem, a lawyer, at close range as she and several family members were driving home from a church service!
Their main preoccupation is lining up the streets in the cities intimidating and extorting money from motorists. Any refusal to part with cash could lead to the officer pulling the trigger towards your direction! Some even boast that they could kill you and nothing would happen! That is how rotten and broken our society has become under Buharism.
Reforming the entire police force in Nigeria would start with its decentralisation. It is abnormal professionally that a man from the north, IGP, would be heading a federal police force from Abuja. Reforming the force entails weeding out the bad eggs, the criminals and killers tarnishing the image of the force. It involves the imposition of sanctions upon commission of crime by the uniformed bandits.
Between SARS and SCORPION the trans-atlantic tragedy is one too many. Let the police force in Nigeria, America and elsewhere around the world reinvent itself.
The tragedy in Memphis demonstrated the professional irony of law enforcement or maintenance of law and order. Those we call warriors against crime have themselves become criminals in uniform! Police is still your friend? Well, we should henceforth, rather ironically, embrace terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, rapists and arsonists as our new ‘friends’!
The rule of law must prevail!
SOC Okenwa
soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr
