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The treatment security personnel give to citizens ought to be of concern to all persons of goodwill in the country. This is because what some of us see happen almost on a daily basis across the country question our humanity. There is the obvious debasement of our humanity.
I agree with what someone once said: «When one man is in chains, everyone of us is indeed in chains.» When citizens are brutalized and their humanity desecrated, it is not about them essentially, it is about the dignity of the human element. I recall listening to Pastor Otabil Mensah preach in Nigeria and heard him wonder if the black race attaches any importance to the life of the black person. With what we see and hear happen around us almost on minute by minute basis, do we?
We take few examples before we return to ask very critical questions. Last weekend I was returning from my village in Ukwa West Local Government Area of Abia State to Umuahia, the state capital, and caught up by avoidable traffic jam on the Enugu/Port Harcourt expressway, which has been essentially turned into a trailer park. I had arrived the popular Umuika junction around 800pm. Soldiers have a major checkpoint on the spot.
Amid the gross darkness the vehicle headlight lit up a scene that traumatized my soul. I don›t know about the other Nigerians passing through the corridor. At the exact spot the military boys had a stonewall barricade, where they hung a young man, legs up, head down, and kept still by two outstretched hands pinned firmly to the ground. His eyes bulged menacingly. He was obviously in great pains. If you have attended the high frolic parties of idle but very rich Nigerians and seen how goats are barbequed, then you will understand what a human being in the first place and then a bona-fide citizen born free was put through.
Nigerians have become truly unshockable as late literary icon, Dele Giwa, once observed. Nothing, no matter how bizarre and nauseating is repulsive to our minds. The horrible has become for us the normal. We all saw the ugly sight of a full human being turned into an animal. All we do is to take a look at the sight and continue our journey. I remember Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Great Zik of Africa, had warned: “It is foolish to engage the man with the gun.”
Perhaps many of us were worried by the sight but who in his right senses would dare to park his car at such a time in Nigeria of all places, the Southeast, to go confront an army that has turned deeply tribal and partisan. Only a mad man would consider taking such an action. So the brutalization of a citizen by those paid to protect and ensure his dignity continued. No one could tell if the victim survived the act, who knows if he was taken away with no chance to phone and tell his people what fate had befallen him.
We take yet another example. I had wanted to do a discourse about two weeks ago with the title, «Lesson a police officer taught me.» I traveled by road in my car on one of our express roads in the Southeast. A special police squad had waved me to stop, ordered me to park off the road for a detailed search. The first order was very frightening, «You I say come down», the tone connoted a country at war. I was very afraid that a security personnel possibly very high on drugs could pull the trigger for no reason whatsoever.
I opened the booth and he saw a beautiful conference paper bag. The question was: «What is inside this?» «Conference papers» I replied then began the unsolicited lecture. ‹You big people that is how you keep spending our money with nothing to show for it. They gave you money, you have got to give us some, you can›t eat all the money alone». I ceased from uttering a word. It took the intervention of a saner colleague of his to regain my freedom and right to continue my movement.
I will not add the experience I had recently going to a security centre to secure the temporary release of an arrested brother and what I saw trying to get a bail. A disagreement over land matter for which reason a citizen’s home was invaded at about three am with doors broken? The wife told me: “They would have seen my darkness, if hadn’t screamed that I was naked in the bedroom.” What were they looking for? What level of criminality was involved to warrant an invasion?
Is bail really free? Or has a racketeering been added to our crime fighting strategies? Last Wednesday I drove through a police checkpoint in front of their station. Personnel on duty after stopping me began to ask, “Sir welcome, we in sun anything for the boys?” The boys from Kano and Kaduna arrested and released recently have told us of their ordeal in detention. Are those stories normal tales of an entity of human beings?
We come to the question thrown up by these reckless actions of personnel who are supposed to lift us and cover us with dignity but whose daily operational methods end up debasing us. What is the vision of our leaders for the country? When they look from their inner minds what kind of picture do they see of Nigeria of their dream? Do they see a country with citizens full of dignity, very proud to own up as true citizens of the country?
What is their vision of security, especially with regard to protection of life and property? Would citizens have to be brutalized and even killed before we can have a state of peace and adequate tranquility? At what level do we place the human element? The civilized world would go to any length to ensure the dignity and then safety of just one citizen. The world has become a global village. So, daily we see how great countries pamper their citizens. We have seen citizens waylay presidents and despite huge security around them succeed in throwing objects at them.
The leaders look at them and laugh while the security continue with the business at hand. Persons have said to me severally “try that in Nigeria and see if you will come out alive.” It is true security personnel are special bred, men and women, who have chosen to sacrifice their lives for the good of the rest of the people. The vocation is a unique calling. This is why much is expected from them. No nation intends to create a monster when it recruits people into the security forces. It rather desires to see angels of help. We see these outside our shores.
Truth is nothing great just happens by chance. Beautiful things take place at the instance of man. The issue is training. Training to be tough also go with infusion of humanity, compassion and regard for the human element. There is need for the authorities to reevaluate the training curriculum. It should start today, not tomorrow.
