For the umpteenth time our security officers -Police Officers, Military Men and other paramilitaries in Nigeria are reminded of the need to show high level of professionalism in carrying out their duties. As law enforcers who are empowered to maintain law and order in our society, they are also to be seen as the bulwarks of the citizens and as the friends of the society. That explains why they always receive training and retraining just to have them remolded to be more congenial to the environment t. But alas! The opposite seems to be the case. Since the beginning of this dimension of insurgency from the last four years to date we are always inundated with vile commentaries on the activities of our security forces in relating to the civilians. The number of extra- judicial killings are countless, their brutality is well-known and the way they presumptuously arrogate to them selves an unquestioned powers is unspeakable.Cases of torture, harassment and all sort of brutalities meted out to the citizens by these law enforcers abounds. An innocent person might be killed on the guile of a suspect or a tiff between a security officer over minor issue for example on the observing the simple traffic rule and incidentally the security officer unprofessionally fired the person, they will just cooked up the story that such traffic offender was a suspect. On the account of that the unprofessional officer will never be questioned or brought to book. The highest is to be reprimanded. This trend has been happening and unfortunately despite the reproachful comments they receive from public and a constant warning from their Ogas to desist from harassing citizens and to always display high level of professionalism in carrying out their duties, but still we see them manhandling and browbeaten people in the check points and in the roads on the flimsy excuses.
On Tuesday 20th 2013, at exactly the time we heard an awful report of reckless killing of a motorcyclist by a police man in Ikorudo town of Lagos State with a four stray bullet at close range, that at that same time I witnessed an incident here in Kaduna. I was standing by the road side along Ahmadu Bello way by Ibrahim Taiwo road, waiting for our office driver to come and pick me around 11.30am I saw a van of “Operation Yaki” operatives -a code-name of combined securities in Kaduna state which comprises police, army and Civil Defense Corps. They came and packed on the other side of the road. The Plate number of the van is KAF255AAKAD. As soon as they alighted from their van, one military soldier started beating one young person haughtily on the – yet- to be proved claims that the hapless man did a rough driving. Passers-by became amazed at the scene and before you knew it the place caught the eyes of the people.The angers and bewilderment of the by-standers at the harsh treatment of this soldier to the harmless innocent person was further confounded when another hapless young man who was passing the pedestrian and unknown of what is happening, that soldier again called him and started beating him mercilessly. He asked him to do a Pin-Head – a sort of punishment where by a person will be asked to put his head on the bare ground and round his hands around his back, living only his toes to support his head. It is a kind of punishment we only heard in the military barracks if a training soldier breaks the law.His head was on the ground but still the soldier stuck the boot in his head, kicked him with his gun, and also gave him an endless punch in his cheeks. The hapless young man didn’t know and up till now does not know what he actually did to the soldiers if not that he only passed near their car in the pedestrian road, which of course is meant for the people not motorists. As the harsh, primitive punishment continues there was also a cacophonous noise of grumbling crowd but nobody can dare go and save the man because the way the soldier was squeezing the trigger of his gun he can shoot anybody that attempt to beg him to stop. It took the intervention of the senior officer who felt the punishment was unjustlymeted out.It is not surprising that people are not cooperating with the security men in fighting the insurgency which has bedeviled the country because they are not friendly to the civilians at all. How do you expect people to divulge information needed to the securities while they are seeing them always harassing their fellow civilians on the road? Their total attitude is incongruent to the international practice in treating civilians whether criminals or innocents. We use to see how Law enforcers treat civilians with uttermost restrain and professionalisms in other countries that places high premium on human dignity and respect. Here in Nigeria because of their hostile behaviors to the civilians over the years the respect our law enforcers earned and the charisma and the awesomeness they possessed especially Military Men, has surprisingly eroded. Unlike before people now no longer accord that respect to the security men. More worrisome is the fact the agency itself is increasingly been infested with a trigger-happy young officers who do feels the urge to shoot without reason and restrain. Itbehoove now on the authorities concern -both Military Police etc to do everything possible to redeem its image and the first test of that is by way of seeing that any officer found to be maltreating civilian without any cogent reason or going to the extent of killing the civilian just as the Lagos State case of last week, then that officer would have to be swiftly prosecuted and executed before the eyes of everybody. Since there are available evidence that he killed the innocent civilian, no need to drag the case beyond the collective anguishing memories of the victim’s parents, siblings and the general public. Not to be merely reprimanded or to be dismissed, but to face the full wrath of the law in the quickest time.
Mukhtar Garba Maigamo,Works with Unity Bank Plc, kaduna. and can be reach at justwe247@yahoo.com and also can be follow @mukyflx
