Caveat: This piece isn’t aimed at excusing the irksome irresponsibility of some officers of the Nigeria Police Force. Kindly read with some iota openness.
I just finished a chanced visit to one of the Police barracks in Nigeria’s southwest.
My experience….hmmmn, how do I put it?
Picture a broken but buzzing market in the barbarian Era.
Yeah, that’s it.
It’s a situation of dirt, dilapidation, deprivation and noise.
These same dilapidated buildings are the ones stretched in use by an overcrowded population of police officers and their families.
I couldn’t point to one building that isn’t blighted by either plumbing, structural, and/or roofing mishap.
Every space there looked too small, too scattered and too old, and everything short of decent.
I didn’t take pictures, I couldn’t.
It is bad. Very Bad.
I was in company of two colleagues, and they insisted the situation is same with most barracks all over the country.
People can’t be made to live adaptively in conditions similar to an unmanned zoo of ill-fated animals, and we expect them to act human,…or sane.
Forgive me, but damn, I just can’t stop my mind from drawing a direct relationship between these living conditions and the rabid reactions of most of those police officers we encounter and hate.
Forced by what my eyes was being tormented with, I had to engage few of them around.
One who looked late 40s, said that the barracks has not undergone any renovation and/or maintenance since he was recruited;
1997.
That’s 22 years ago.
All I saw and heard were saddening. But it’s one thing to be saddened and another to be scared. One particular thing scared the hell out of me as they spoke.
These men aren’t bothered. They are “okay”. They didn’t see much need to my wincing and wonder about their living conditions.
And that was scary – The fact that they have accepted this barbarian, underhuman situation as normal.
Scared that yes, these police officers who have been made to see normalcy in living in these underhuman conditions will never readily possess the mental acuity needed to rate human life.
That yes, any of the police officers here can see the need to shoot a civilian over a ₦20-worth squabble.
If what I saw is what’s truly obtainable in most Police barracks across Nigeria, then yes, declaring a state of emergency about it is necessary.
From all I saw, it is needed as soon as yesterday.
Human beings, especially law enforcement officers recruited to protect humans, can’t be left to live like inglorious scoundrels, live this dirty, and then be expected to act immaculate.
NB: Do you know any Nigeria Police Barracks that is averagely humane enough to live, recently renovated, well-maintained and/or decent-looking? Please, kindly share about such in the comments section.
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