One of the merits of the New Media is the gradual engendering of a surveillance culture in the citizenry. Compared to Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and some other technologically sophisticated nations, Nigeria is a largely non-surveillance one.
But these days, thanks to technology, we the people are making up for this major infrastructural deficit with mobile phones and other accoutrements of modernity we can access.
Our citizen-journalism-cum-surveillance has produced some results. For instance, the Go-And-Die video starring Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, had him hurriedly eating his humble pie. The Ejigbo torture case caused the Lagos State House of Assembly to sit over an issue its members otherwise might not have been compelled to discuss.
Then, the idea of videoing policemen demanding bribes is another. So far, at least four policemen have been punished for “degrading” the institution that invested them with authority over the public.
Then, along came a fifth accused person, Corporal Aniyem Chiyem.
He was secretly taped demanding bribes in dollars from a group of people amongst whom was a Nigerian emigrant.
The video, I must say, depressed me in many ways. For a policeman not to be restrained by the sanctity of his uniform and to have descended to the level of an agbero to force a bribe is as painful as watching a god die.
Further more, his demeanour as he rejected the naira and demanded dollar equivalent is another embarrassment entirely. That, perhaps, is a manifestation of latent colo-mentality. Either the amount he was offered was small or the naira, as a means of exchange, was just not good enough for him.
As much as I detest the police harassing citizens for money (and I have been in that shaming situation a few times), I am wary of single stories of the videos that indict the police “officers” ultimately are. The Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar, was quoted as commending the unknown whistleblower for exposing Chiyem, and also enjoined other Nigerians to emulate “this noble and patriotic action which will certainly go a long way in checking crime in our society.”
I say, not so fast.
The IG cannot pass off Chiyem as an aberration or a deviation when the Nigerian Police is not reputed for high standards.
For one, would it be too much to ask the whistleblowers why Chiyem stopped them in the first place? Did they commit any crime? If no, why was the policeman in their car and why were they offering him N700 as a bribe (and which he cynically refused saying he would rather have dollars)?
While I am Nigerian enough to understand the kind of violence that happens at checkpoints when people refuse to bribe policemen, I also think that since these guys were videoing Chiyem, they could have also put it on record the offence they committed (or not) and that they were not merely inducing the story they were going to report. And we could have been told the end of the story. Did they eventually offer him the bribe in dollars or they negotiated their way out with a bribe paid in naira? If they did pay the bribe, I hope they know that they are just as guilty as the policeman?
A four-minute video does not say much and one reason this fails to move me is the reductionism: it is configured to appear as just one thing wrong rather than that the whole system needs refurbishing.
Consequently, Chiyem’s superiors will make him the fall guy; the one to be crucified for the sins of the Police past, present and future. As we have seen in previous situations, he would be pushed out of the Force –without benefits. In the next couple of weeks, he would have been forgotten; his name only to be Googled when we need to make a reference to another policeman caught on camera demanding bribe (because it will happen again soon).
Yet, the bribe problem will not go away because Chiyem is a candid reflection of the contraption called Nigeria. He is simply one out of the 168 million things ailing Nigeria. His conduct can neither be divorced from the society that produced him nor should his sins be deemed worse than those of other Nigerians just because he is a policeman.
Chiyem’s story is analogous to the story of the adulterous woman in the Bible who was brought to Jesus by a band of self-righteous men who not only sought to make a scapegoat out of her but also wanted to use her to deflect attention from their own moral failings. Those who will lapidate Chiyem should, before gathering stones, pause to ask themselves if they are without similar sins.
They should ask themselves why Chiyem deserves punishment when far worse atrocities are being committed by “Vagabonds in Nigerian High Places” on a daily basis and right under their police noses too.
The police honchos should also ask themselves whatever happened to the scandal of the Police Equipment Fund and how many years jail term are those behind the magomago currently serving.
They should wonder why a federal lawmaker, Mr. “Integrity” Farouk Lawan, who was filmed demanding his own portion in dollars, is still a sitting-allowance-collecting lawmaker in a supposedly hallow chamber.
They should pause and query themselves why Ms. Stella Oduah of go-and-do-the-needful fame not only retained her job but, now dons a victim toga and boldly claims she is being hounded by some enemies only her eyes can see.
They should ask themselves why a policeman will not demand his own bribe in dollars when he lives in a country like Nigeria where billions of dollars disappear through the gluttonous mouths of elites and political leaders daily.
They should ask if Chiyem is paid a living wage; if he has decent equipment to work with and if his career guarantees his future. They should examine the Police’s working conditions and then ask if it is possible to consistently dehumanise people, push them into the society as law enforcer and expect them to behave like complete gentlemen?
They should ask if the tales of mind-bending corruption Chiyem is suffused with daily as a Nigerian is not enough to make him demand his own share wherever he can get it.
These – and many more – are the questions the police top-brass should ask themselves. And after they have regained their impartiality, they should fire Chiyem.
Copyright PUNCH.
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