Of police, youths, phones and liberty
By It used to be the case that mobile phones were status symbols. That was at the dawn of the current republic when under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, the Global System of Mobile Communication (GSM) made a determined entrance into the Nigerian national life. Some phones, especially very expensive ones, are still status symbols, but phones nowadays increasingly only invite police trouble. They have become trouble symbols. They can get their owners in jail very easily. It seems that policemen have now been authorised to stop you on the streets, ask you to bring out your phone(s) and then fish for evidence that you are a fraudster. And if you are a youth carrying a backpack, well, you have just signed your arrest warrant. Welcome to 2019 Nigeria, a police state making mockery of the toils and tears of those who gave life and limb to send a compulsively corrupt and tyrannical military establishment back to the barracks in 1999.
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Only last week, a student of the Delta State University (DELSU) was beaten up in Okpe, Delta State, by a Sergeant attached to the state police command, not for committing any offence known to law, but simply for owning an expensive phone. The phone is reportedly worth N250,000 and in a video which has since gone viral, the policeman could be heard saying that in his 13 years in the police force, he had only been able to buy a phone worth N15,000. In anger, he smashed the phone on the ground. Thankfully, though, going by an update by the Nigeria Police Force on twitter, the sergeant has been arrested and is now being given orderly room trial. But even though the police authorities have taken in the errant policeman, the fact cannot be disputed that this is mere tokenism, as Nigerians, particularly youths, continue to get arrested on a daily basis not just for owning phones, but also for operating ‘suspicious’ applications. Perhaps the police will soon come up with a list of approved applications (apps) that you can install on your phone. After all, the country’s print, electronic and online media are suffused with stories of Nigerians traumatised by policemen intent on circumscribing their phone rights.
Almost on a daily basis, policemen flag down vehicles, ask the passengers to get down from the vehicle and then begin searching their phones. Surprised, angered and traumatised, the victims either become tame or resort to shouting, asserting their democratic rights. They are asked for their phone passwords and if they refuse to give or delay in giving that piece of information, they are beaten to a pulp and whisked away in police vans. Such actions, we believe, are completely at variance with the provisions of the country’s constitution which recognises the rights of citizens to move about freely and without hindrance anywhere in the country, and to be treated with dignity and respect. Sadly, these fundamental human rights are abridged on a daily basis, and there is no reprieve in sight for the victims. Pray, what kind of police force assumes that a youth is a fraudster because he/she owns two phones or has a foreign name listed in the contacts section?
To all intents and purposes, the police have become not officers of the law serving and protecting the populace with integrity, but also an adversarial force oppressing and subjugating them, and not even the rhetoric of the acting Inspector General of Police, Mr. Muhammed Adamu, on police reform can change this fact. Indeed, an inkling into the defective thinking among the police hierarchy was provided only this week by the head of the police Complaint Rapid Response Unit, Mr. Yomi Shogunle. In a statement on his twitter handle, Mr. Shogunle reportedly asked Nigerians not to speak Queen’s English to policemen whenever they are confronted by them, but to speak Nigerian pidgin in order to avoid trouble. He wrote: “For now, don’t go and be speaking Queen’s English to them on the road. For proper understanding, talk to them in pidgin, another way to avoid kasala.”
Clearly, in Mr. Shogunle’s view, speaking pidgin would stand Nigerians in good stead whenever they have to deal with police trouble, but the fundamental question remains why the police should become so powerful as to choose which language they can and should be addressed in, and whether or not a fellow Nigerian should be arrested purely for whimsical reasons. Implicitly, Mr. Shogunle is suggesting that no one should blame the police for their ordeal if they address policemen in Standard English. This is quite apart from the fact, saddening though it is, that the top police officer did not suggest to the rank and file of the force to improve on their English Language skills even though English remains the country’s official language. There is, of course, nothing wrong with using pidgin if you prefer, but that very linguistic preference is what the celebrity officer seeks to undermine by his infamous tweet. With this kind of thinking, it is no surprise that the force enjoys neither the confidence nor the respect of Nigerians. Worse still, should the longsuffering citizenry resort to self-help, the consequences will be dire for the country.
We condemn the police assault on liberty via the confiscation of phones and harassment and torture of their owners. That practice is not only against the law but also repugnant to natural justice and democratic tenets and portrays Nigeria as a lawless fiefdom. The leadership of the police must curb this practice and treat Nigerians with the respect that they deserve.
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