The time was 7am and traffic was absolutely crazy on a fateful Monday morning at the popular Gate Bus stop, Iyana-Ipaja – Ipaja Road, Lagos. Mr. Olu Akinyemi was one of the Lagos residents trying to meander his way and see if he could get out of the terrible gridlock to get to his Ikeja office before the 8am resumption time.
Just as Akinyemi was applauding himself that he outsmarted other motorists in beating traffic, 3 men suddenly appeared from nowhere in front of his car and ordered him to pull over towards Federal Junction Bus stop.
Confused and angry at the same time, Akinyemi, who said he was already looking at his time piece, said he wasn’t going to pull over since he didn’t know who the people were or what their mission was.
But at the sight of the guns they pointed towards him, Akinyemi quickly pulled over, wondering how robbers could have the guts to operate that early morning in such a busy area.But stunned Akinyemi said he was surprised when the men started asking him for his vehicle particulars. In his words: “They were in mufti; black T-shirt and jeans, two wore shoes, and one wore slippers. They came to me and asked for my driving licence, vehicle documents and that I should open my boot all at once. I only saw the logo of the Nigeria Police Force faintly on the black shirts they wore, which was not conspicuous enough for identification from distance, and I didn’t want to assume who they were, so, I asked them to identify themselves.”According to Punch, Akinyemi never knew he made a costly mistake, as that question was the beginning of his trouble on that day.“I didn’t know that could spring trouble.
They told me to come down; they searched me and my two colleagues in the car, checked my papers, and more importantly, wasted my time, in the morning when I was going to my place of work. Later, they allowed me to go, even though they didn’t identify themselves still. I only assumed they were policemen, coupled with the way they spoke in rough pidgin,” he added. Such has been the testimony of many residents who have been accosted since some men of the Nigeria Police Force, especially those in the mobile unit, took to wearing mufti abandoning their official dress. It was also observed that the appearance of some of the policemen could make anyone doubt if they were indeed officers of the Force, as they sometimes wear bathroom slippers and dress in an unwholesome manner.
Even though it is common practice and acceptable for policemen and other men in uniform to wear mufti as undercover agents, and in such situations, they are not seen with arms, unlike the way the way Nigerian policemen parade their guns in spite of being in mufti, oft making it difficult to differentiate them from impersonators or armed robbers. A management and security consultant and President of the Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria, Dr. Ona Ekhomu, said the act of Nigerian police officers wearing mufti while carrying guns was very unfortunate and should not be tolerated. He said it was wrong for a policeman not in uniform to carry weapons.
“There is no condition under which a policeman on duty should be dressed in mufti and be carrying weapons. If you are under cover, then you should have concealed weapon under your garment because you cannot be under cover and carry a rifle. It should not be visible to people,” he said. He added that the situation was another indication of the indiscipline that has permeated almost every aspect of Nigerian system and that such things facilitate a lot of crime. Ekhomu said, “I have been a victim of it. I was attacked in October last year on my way to Edo State.
The people who attacked me had police weapons and vests on but they turned out to be kidnappers with some police elements among them. I had to fight my way out of that crisis.“It is also an act of cowardice on the part of the policemen. Because they say the reason why they are dressed like that is to prevent attack on them, but they carry weapons. That singular act provides a leeway and cover for criminal elements to operate and prey on innocent citizens. It is the highest form of indiscipline. It is subversive to the police agency itself. It shows that these police personnel do not regard their employer and the organisation they work for.”
When the students of the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State were abducted on April 14, it was reported that the abductors came in military uniform, thus suggesting to the abducted girls that they were in care of men of the Nigerian Army. Report also indicated that many other attacks by the Boko Haram insurgents in the troubled North East region were carried out by the militants in the official uniform of Nigerian Army, giving the villagers a false sense of safety, thereby unleashing terror on them. Investigations and close observations by Saturday PUNCH revealed that some police officers, especially in Lagos, preferred to wear mufti even on duty; carrying guns and intimidating both pedestrians and motorists in the metropolis. Respondents who spoke to our correspondent said the presence of the policemen was more prevalent around the Pen Cinema divisional police station, Agege, Lagos Island, Iyana Ipaja, Ogba, Oshodi, Obalende and other parts of Lagos.
It was further observed that apart from moving about with guns, some of them use commercial buses, popularly called danfo to patrol, harass the citizens and extort money from them. Saturday PUNCH observed that, sometimes, the policemen hide in the buses, waiting for offenders or gullible passers-by to interrogate.“They move around a lot, but they are usually not far from this Pen Cinema area, and sometimes, they harass and intimidate people with their use, extort motorists and do all sorts of things one would not have expected from those who are paid to protect lives and properties”, a trader around Pen Cinema confided in our correspondent.
It was alleged that they preferred to operate under the guise of being mobile police officers or men attached to the Rapid Response Squad. It has also been alleged that since the mufti dresses do not have name-tags on them, people might not be able to identify them, if there was need to, unlike the normal police uniform with name and number. A cross section of residents who spoke to our correspondent said that the only form of identifying such police officers was through their guns as, usually hanged on their shoulders.
Some respondents told Saturday PUNCH that when people ask the police officers to identify themselves, oftentimes, they refuse and even get angry sometimes. Mr. Elijah Ileojoka told Saturday PUNCH that it was condemnable to have police officers wearing mufti and carrying arms in the face of the insecurity in the country.“It is easy to take an armed robber for a policeman and a policeman for an armed robber".
How do you identify them. Moreover, when you realise that they are officers, there is no difference between the way they approach you and when you are being accosted by armed robbers. Because they point their guns at you, subject people to psychological torture, and when you remember the past incidents of extra-judicial killings which they have termed accidental discharge, you tend to shiver and obey them.
“I once asked one of them to identify himself when he stopped me, instead of showing me his Identity Card or telling me who he was, he got angry and asked why I should question him. I even looked around if I could see the vehicle they came in so I could identify where they came from, but there was none".
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