The Nigerian Police Force is the principal law enforcement body in the country. The body is saddled with enforcing laws, protection of lives and property and maintaining peace and order among others. Whether we like it or not, the police are an integral part of our society, fortunately and unfortunately for us, we have to deal with both their positive and negative demeanour.
The loss of trust in the Nigerian police is not a neoteric occurrence that just betide them, it is a long time battle the body have had to deal with for years, this is not because there is anything wrong with the establishment of the agency but because overtime, the body have been unlucky to be infiltrated with men who find it difficult to perform their duties according to the oath of service, men who see the uniform as a means of amassing illegal wealth and a tool to oppress and suppress those they should protect.
While the rank and file of this body have not seized to collect “roger” on our roads, those above them have not done better in liberating the body from its abysmal image. Bribing, physical assault and all other vices are still the order of the day that lingers among the men of this body which continues to dirt our national image. It is so odious to see that while the body is still battling to free itself from all this vices and build an integrity that will gain public trust and promote democracy; some of their men have chosen to inculcate another basket of skillful vices called lies into the terrain.
On Friday 31st of March 2017, some student activists were arrested at the University of Lagos during a protest against the rustication of a recently rusticated student of the same institution, Lawrence Success Umezinwa, a visually impaired student. On Saturday morning, the police arraigned thirteen (13) of them before a mobile court in Lagos excluding the visually impaired who was kept behind for whatever reason known to them and detained till Sunday before releasing him.
The police charged those arraigned before the mobile court of engaging in “riotous invasion” of TVC, a television station based in Lagos. However, the management of TVC has refuted this claim by the Nigeria Police. According to Abisola Agbaje, the legal manager of TVC, the student conducted themselves in a peaceful and orderly manner “The protest was peaceful which we have on record and the students left our premises peacefully.” She also stress that they did not at any time report or lodge any complain to the police.
With this rebuttal by TVC, one wonders why the police have to diminish the pride that the police stand for by cooking up lies in other to implicate these students. Is lying against citizens the new order of policing? If anyone brings an accusation against another, it is the duty of the police to investigate and dig out the truth, but with the order of the police coming up with false accusations against the citizens, then, what is the extent of our hope as a country? Your guess is as good as mine.
