I write because I am desirous of bringing certain home facts to notice. Perhaps, who knows, through this, we may have a well deserved redemption. I want to note that Enugu State is no more the safe and peaceful haven we the people of the state used to pride about.
Car snatching, mobile phone lynching, petty thievery, cult activities, armed robberies, broad daily light robbery, acts of vandalism and various other anti-social activities are all orders of the day here in Enugu now. People are no more safe and don’t know who to turn to even though the police are still our best friends.
Governor Sullivan Chime has a good record of always providing the enabling environment for a peaceful execution of police duties. So many patrol cars, vans and SUV’s have been supplied by the state government. This is direct evidence that the governor wants a crime free coal city state. In recent times the Governor donated brand new patrol cars to all road junctions in the Enugu metropolis that one now observes police cars with such labels as “IBB Flyover,” “Abakpa Junction,” “Chris Chemist,” “O’Connor Road,” etc, indicating different locations that each of the over 100 vehicles keep vigil.
Even with this security wherewithal, on a Sunday afternoon of February 2, 2014, a Toyota Sienna with its passenger doors open rushed downhill from NOWAS junction of Trans-Ekulu and drove into the NOWAS filling station. From the opened passenger doors were gun totting armed men, with gruesome looking machine guns. From time to time a machine gun barked into the air, causing commotions as pedestrians, drivers and local people ran for dear lives.
They made into the filling station and grabbed all the monies they could and drove downhill and made a quick exit from the newly constructed Agulu Street, which afforded a gateway to the Onitsha Expressway but not before snatching a car from an unfortunate road user at the Amurri Road/Agulu Street junction. The alarming thing about the operation was that a few meters up the hill is the permanent spot where the NOWAS police patrol car donated by our proactive governor Chime stations to collect N50 from buses and Keke NAPEP drivers.
Less than a week later, on a Friday evening, an armed group made another entrance, this time at the NOWAS filling station. There was great pandemonium and chaos as pedestrians, vehicles, buses, Keke NAPEP and taxis all swerved off the road and all tried to make a U-Turn around NOWAS. People dashed towards Nomeh Drive and the two arms of Nike Lake Road as the armed men were shooting sporadically in the air.
After the shooting spree at NOWAS they headed towards Abakpa Nike, still firing with reckless abandon. An unfortunate man who did not know what was happening was caught up in the shooting frenzy. He realised too later what others knew before him. As he got off his car to flee, a spit of bullets lacerated his guts and disembowelled him.
The big man continued running until another well aimed bullet snuffed out his life. The pandemonium spread like wild fire. Traders abandoned their wares at the nearby Abakpa market and fled. People ran into their homes and for more than one hour, there was a state of anarchy and fear in that part of the city.
This writer passed by the crime scene same time in the following evening and saw the police in their police post near NOWAS causing a road traffic while collecting their usual money from drivers, without a care in the world.
The Irony of the Matter and what puzzles everyone in Enugu is that between NOWAS Filling Station and Nike Road in Abakpa, there are two Police check points. Governor Sullivan Chime donated one patrol car for NOWAS and another one for Texaco down the hill in Abakpa. Where were the police men who were supposed to be manning those police posts when these incidents happened? There are possibly two theories.
On the one hand, people deduced that the police men disappeared into thin air once they got wind of the commotion. On the other hand, people deduce that there was a pre-knowledge of the operations and hence the patrol cars were conveniently not in their duty posts during the crimes. Why people are puzzled is that once the operations are over the police appear and make a show of trying to figure out what went wrong, pick up the unfortunate casualties, like in the case of the man that was gunned down in NOWAS. Sometimes innocent people on the streets are arrested and taken to police stations. Every Nigerian knows that “I no follow plea” at any police station attracts a fee of between N3000 and N5000, depending on the level of kindness of the IPO and his cohorts. People are also puzzled because the police cars are always in the check points collecting money N50 without argument or more when you are asked to park your vehicle from commercial drivers and begging private vehicles for money, on a daily basis. Then whenever anything sinister is about to happen, they would conveniently not be available until after the crime.
As nothing is impossible in Nigeria, perhaps the police use black magic to know when there is danger and disappear before the danger comes to them? We would like the Inspector General of Police, MD Abubakar who declared Enugu as the safest state to look into this matter and come out with reassuring results that the general publicwould be proud of. The public should have confidence in the Police who are there for the interest of the public.
There are also a lot of reports of police intimidating road users, especially the bus drivers. It is not hidden secret that the police dothat. The proactive and thoughtful donation of the brand new patrol cars for the Enugu metropolis ironically has made the public more of victims, instead of benefactors.
Before one can travel from one end of town to the other at night, you must stop at least six times. In each of the police stops, manned by officers in the new patrol cars, the bus or Keke NAPEP driver must pay N50. If the driver refuses to pay, he is asked to park his bus and an argument ensues between the driver and the officers. Most times the passengers start to shout on the driver to pay up and stop wasting their time. What this means that when a driver is planning his travel itineraries, he considers the police bribe along other essentials such as fuel, oil and so on.
Anywhere there is a police check point, they cause traffic congestions in their bid to collect money from road users. Many a-times one calls the police when there is a problem on the ground and receive such flimsy excuses such as “there is no fuel in the car,” “I am the only one available now and can’t go to you.” Whena crime is reported to the patrol cars in road junctions, they waste their time before going and even when they want to go, they use their sirens to alert the criminals to run away before they get to the scene.
This letter is not meant to be a lampoon, a parody or a bid to ridicule the Nigeria Police Force, but a way of bringing sanity to the system in particular and to the general public. There are lots of crimes committed in Enugu on a daily basis. Cult activities in our educational institutions, lynching, robberies and anti-social activities occur on a daily basis. I just used a few examples in this letter to paint a picture of what happens on a regular basis in the city.
People have lost confidence in the police because they have realized that the police are no more their friends. In fact, some can attest that the police have never been their friend, in the first instance. As such our security level has dropped. There is no fear of the police as is applicable in other countries. Why people don’t fear the police is because it is the function of what their money can do. If one get stopped by the police for a wrong doing, he gets away with it once money changes hands.
The fate of the Police system in Enugu rests on the shoulders the state Commissioner of Police. He can make a significant change to the rotten system if you so desire. May God bless Nigeria!
Mr. Nwakor, an environmental consultant, lives in Enugu.
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