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The President on police gun running
The world was shocked to hear
fromPresident Olusegun Obasanjo, the chief security officer as well as Commander-in-Chief of
theArmed Forces of the Federation, bemoaning, evidently with a sense
ofhelplessness, the fact that policemen are the main suppliers of the arms
andammunitions that armed robbers use in their nefarious activities of killing
andmaiming innocent people in the course of dispossessing them of
theirproperties. That, to say the least, is one accusation that is too
dangerous tocontemplate in any ordered society but, sadly, it is true.
Policemen in ourcountry are in active cohort with the men of the underworld to
lay robberysiege on the society.
The evidence that came out some years ago during
thetrial of the now executed DSP, Mr George Iyamu, who robbed, co-robbed, aidedand
abetted a series of fatal armed robberies in the country and the cases ofmany
other police men only confirm the accusation that the President just made.Our
only worry is that rather than give the nation a cause to feel safer,
thePresident has only just raised our fear level by making such an
opendeclaration without a follow-up solution to the danger he so
graphicallybrought home to millions of Nigerians who heard him speak about the
way thepolice has become our greatest source of worry. It is not only that they
tradein weapons meant for armed robbery; they also use them liberally to do
therobbery themselves. People who routinely open fire on bus drivers and
theirpassengers who refuse to give them as little as twenty naira bribes are
notthose we would expect to spare a life when bigger amounts are involved.
To the rhetorical poser of Mr President, �Whatdo we
do with law enforcement agents where a policeman will hire out his gun toarmed
robbers?�, all we can say is that, for all intents and purposes, noone but the
President himself and his security apparati that should answerit. They must know what to do as apart or
the responsibilities of government. The buck stops with him.
It is an unfathomable irony that the same people
thatwere employed, trained and kitted for the protection of life and property
arenow the very ones that are facilitating the destruction of lives and
theforceful dispossession of others� of their properties. These and manyother
strange developments combine to give this nation the unenviable rank ofbeing
the second most corrupt nation in the whole world. From what thePresident said
of the police, the only logical thing would have been for thepolice leadership
to throw in the towel and quit voluntarily.
It is even more telling that the President made
theaccusation in a gathering of security czars. The world must be waiting to
hearif the Inspector-General of Police and his team at the helms have all
resignedfollowing the allegation so graphically made by the President against
thePolice. But we know the sane world would be disappointed because our
publicmorality has not reach that level where people are sensible enough to
know whenthey have become liabilities to the system that they are supposed to
beserving. As you read this, and in spite of the strong allegation by
theCommander-in-Chief, the Inspector-General of Police under whose watch
theseabominations are taking place is still very much on his seat,
apparentlyoverseeing the gun trade as alleged by the President. If there is any
shameleft in the system, he ought to have resigned by now.
Even the police affairs minister, Broderick
Bozimo,who should have known better than any other person to quit his job had
theunusual temerity to refute what the President said before a BBC reporter.
Inhis words, the President apparently exaggerated the situation because,�You
invariably have the odd bad egg, and one bad apple has this tendencyof
polluting the whole basket of apples.�
If the culprits are that few why is it taking him such along time to
apprehend and separate the �one bad apple� from therest?
How do we explain that all what those of them who
arenot fortunate enough to be attached to top politicians as orderlies do
thesedays is to man illegal road blocks where they stop vehicles at gun point
inorder to extort money from them? Is the honourable minister saying that he
hasnever travelled by road to see the danger these criminals in
uniformsconstitute to the public?
There is a big problem at hand and the time to fix
itis now. We do not accept, as the President insinuated, that it is
intractable.It can be solved if we mean to do it. Unless the President did not
mean what hewas saying about the police force, then, the most natural thing by
now wouldhave been the rolling of heads in the police department that has so
tragicallyfailed the nation.
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