THE POLICE AGAIN

My last article was about the men of the police force; now again, I am writing about the police. This explains why I don’t write so often these days. You are few minutes to go to press and another incidents hits the news stream either invalidating your about to be published facts or impressing the need to redirect your facts.

Sadly, I haven’t heard or read anything about the October 16 gruesome killing of Emmanuel Victor right in the presence of his mother. I must admit I haven’t been reading the papers or watching the TV lately; don’t ask me why! My last piece came as a result of my usual critic of the system where I thrive daily to make ends meet; my daily observations as policemen extort bike men and bus drivers.

This incident, unfortunately, not the first of its kind, further points to the fact that the government of Nigeria seem to have armed these officers without putting checks in place. Like I always contend, I don’t intend to outrightly right off all policemen; my father was once an officer of the Nigeria Police and I have every reason to give him a pass mark. Not because he is my father, but he did is best and kept a clean sheet all through his days in the force. Extra judicial killings were recorded back in those years truly but not as rampant as what we have today. What has gone wrong?

My father told me he had to retake a shooting course at the police college because his skills fell below the required average and I was marvelled. I am not sure if officers have that privilege of taking special courses before being churned out into the streets to protect civilians.

Back to Emmanuel’s story, the reason given by the erring officers for shooting him is that he was carrying a bible, a weapon and Indian hemp; isn’t that laughable. While debunking the claim, the commissioner of police, Bayelsa state command, Mr. Hillary Opara, said he doesn’t believe someone carrying a bible coming from the church, could be carrying a weapon and Indian hemp; that is also laughable. Before delving into the commissioner’s reason, I’d like to agree with the police officer that Emmanuel was actually carrying a weapon and Indian hemp, what about that instructs shooting at him several times? Did he resist arrest or made attempts to attack these officers with the said weapon? How come the next move was to shoot at him? He even held that he didn’t know the bullets were getting at him; that presupposes that the young man remained standing while he was being shot at which was against his reasons for shooting.

I can safely conclude he shot to kill. What in all of these paints the picture of a properly trained officer? Nothing I would say.

As for the commissioner’s reason for thrashing the killer cop’s argument; is it enough to reject that argument that Emma was actually carrying Indian hemp and a weapon just because he had a bible with him? Or the commissioner is just playing himself into the heart of the people of Bayelsa by standing on the popular side. For all I care, it is not the first time we have heard of people in church garments running arms not to talk of concealing arms inside bibles or even smoking hemp with pages of the holy bible. It would just be enough for that kind of officer to say it is impossible for a man adorning the turban to conceal bombs under his robe!

Police officers by all standards are human and I don’t intend to take that away from them. However, when such feelings of sympathy is overriding the sense of judgement in cases of public interest, I see them as imbalanced and unfit to hold such commanding positions.

Emmanuel Victor is dead today like many others who have been felled by trigger freaks; his killers are being said to be undergoing in house trials while the public is denied details of the proceedings, I hope it won’t end like the ones we have heard before.

A policeman carrying arms is saddled with a huge responsibility of trust; in my opinion, breaching that kind of trust should not be treated with kids’ gloves. Armed robbers who kill their victims are better off in this situation; it is who they are and what they do but for a man armed with our own tax and sweat, it is just unacceptable.

I hope the commissioner’s pro-people move would yield a true and balanced judgement in the final analysis. It is true that Victor’s family are bereaved but this is a crime against humanity and we all should be concerned. To this end, it doesn’t stop at his family believing the course of justice has been served, we all must see that to have happened before the case is finally put to a logical end.

Some have been killed years back, today, I am writing about Victor, we can’t tell who’s next; it could be me writing this or you reading or anyone else.

Against this background, we should at all time be seen lending our voices to matters of truth whether or not we are directly concerned.

When they came for the Muslims, you claimed to be a Christian; when they came for the Christians you claimed to be a Muslim. When they come for you, you can only be you and no one else.
May God grant the families of all victims true justice and grant them the fortitude to bear the loss.

Adieu Emmanuel Victor.