By Fredrick Nwabufo
It was sweepingly wet evening at Adebayo road in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State.
The rain had pulled dark clouds down in torrents of piercing water. It was
customary of the rain to be violent at this time of year. It was April 15,
2009.
Kingsley having been indoors for very long, and starving, succumbed to the
dictates of his belly, and took a walk down the road to the obtrusive
corner where Mama Bimbo sold “Efo and Iyan”.
However, he did not get to appease his protesting stomach. On his way, he
was pounced on, and merrily abused by men of the Special Anti-Robbery
Squad, Ado Ekiti.
Kingsley’s offence was the rhythm of his gait. He walked too confident to
be a law-abiding citizen. His strides sound the cymbals of a criminal.
At the police station where he had been treated to a smorgasbord of lowly
torture, it got to his ears that there had been an assassination attempt
on a prominent chief a day before, on the road he trudged on. It now made
perfect sense to him. The police would look for any lamb to feed their
wolf of irresponsibility and impotence. It is all a perfect cover for
their gross inefficiency.
Under interrogation, Kingsley revealed in nervous gasps for breath that he
was a corps member, and the head of the Legal Aid Community Development
Service Group, (NYSC). He had to flash an identity card to prove that, and
thank goodness, he had it on him. Afterwards, he was released without an
apology.
“You dey lucky, we for don kill you sef, and even pour acid for your
body”, an unrepentant policeman who gave him the most uncharitable blow
said.
Kingsley being a lawyer left the police hovel with a firm determination to
sue, and to write about his ordeal so as to get the authorities to
structurally slither into garrotting police irresponsibility and abuse of
power, but he did not, he was convinced by a family of traducers that it
was bountiful waste of time. Again, time put soluble wool on the wound. It
was in the past, he left it right there.
On the night of 29 January, 2014 at Awka where Kingsley now lived and
worked, he was returning home crestfallen because of the defeat of Nigeria
by Ghana in the African Nations Championship semi-final match. The entire
ambience seemed complicit in grief; giving off sombre vibes and wailings.
Kingsley espied a tear-draining scene. A young man had been beaten to
unconsciousness. His own blood watered him. It was a cold scene of lavish
violence. Also, on the dreadful scene were fourteen young men in handcuffs
bemoaning their unkind fate.
Kingsley in a surge of empathy stepped out of his car to the scene forged
by violence. He went about like a good man asking questions. His
“querulous” querying brought him an effusive outpouring of bone breaking
beatings from men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad Awka, the thespians of
the show of violence.
Afterwards, he was taken to a cold, rotten cell along with the fourteen
young men. The other young man who was beaten to unconsciousness died.
They were all christened “armed robbers”. Kingsley’s money and phone were
“policepriated”.
By a flip of sacred coin, he was released after spending one hell-day in
detention. The police got to know he was a lawyer, and that he had some
weight at Awka.
The fate of the other boys dangled in a tenuous balance. They were
nameless, and as such they could be “SARSRIZED”; that is, they could be
neutralised without a wince of conscience.
Kingsley would still not press charges. It is a bountiful waste of time.
Kingsley’s story is a splinter experience of many Nigerians in the hands
of the Nigeria police. And in most cases, hapless Nigerians do nothing,
not because they are emasculated of evidence, but because their feeble
voices are too puny to be heard in the midst of thundering roars of
oppression and corruption. The Nigerian system gives the pleasure of
oppression to the strong, but visits the iniquity of decimation on the
weak.
At least, what we can do is to raise our voices to a crescendo of
resistance; speaking out against every form of police irresponsibility,
abuse of power and brutality. We cannot subsist on a repast of police
violence every day. We must strive to bring humanity and sanity into the
system. Inasmuch as we seem impotent, we can use the potency of our
voices; God will hear us, and then salvation will come to Israel.
Have you been in the hands of the Nigeria police? If you have been, then
you know they are not your friend.
Cry out!
Fredrick Nwabufo is a writer and poet. Email:fredricknwabufo@yahoo.com
08167992075