On the 31st of March 2010, I was hit by a motorcyclist, to my greatest astonishment; it was a policeman whom I undoubtedly believe was from the Ikotun Divisional Office located near the Mr Biggs eatery in Ikotun. He merely looked at me with a great sense of ruthless dictatorial power reminiscent of the military days and sped off. He was wearing the uniform, and till now I wish I had gotten his name, but the pain shot at my leg by the effect of his bike did not let me plan any strategy whatsoever.
I am writing this not to find out people to prosecute the ‘police-criminal’ because this will lead to another societal confusion. Shouldn’t the police in conjunction with traffic wardens be the one safe guarding me from the terrible wheels of the known impatience of motorcyclists by controlling traffic effectively? Shouldn’t a police bike have a horn? Should a Policeman be the one breaking traffic rules for no just cause? Shouldn’t a reasonable and people-conscious police force be humane enough to find apologies from their throats or is it stuffed by the many twenty naira notes they are wont to collect?
I had just submitted one of my articles for publication for an international journal that evening and the incident made me wonder. The policeman almost turned me cripple. The Policeman was about to further shatter my already shattered dream; I mean every youth had his dreams for a better tomorrow shattered by the government and their unfriendly, selfish policies. You can see us (Youths) on the streets looking for jobs for donkey years after some National Scheme of doom (NYSC), You can see us (Youths) reading Newspapers, Finding words on facebook and filling profiles on Naijajobs, Jobberman, et al. So the reader can imagine what the policeman wanted to do to me. Who would employ a cripple?
In addition to my anger, I immediately began to think ‘what if I had died?’ ‘What would I be known for?’ ‘How many lives have I affected?’Surprisingly I did not think of the much touted eternal destinations; either heaven or hell. This was what came to mind, ‘Here lies the grave of Morgan Oluwafemi, author of a good, intellectual, promising but largely unsuccessful collection of Poetry, due to the Nigerian Market and the loss of values. The co-coordinator of PacesetterPoets.org; an organisation for promoting promising and award winning poets in Nigeria and One of Nigeria’s many unemployed but promising youths. A fearless, thorough and venomous journalist (during his University days), who survived all odds until he was hit by a Killer Policeman in Ikotun. He survived by a shelf full of books from other renowned and unpopular authors, many published articles, but more importantly far more unpublished articles, an uncompleted collection of Short Story and an uncompleted collection of Poetry. He was not able to touch lives and affect his nation as he wanted to due to this incident. Rest in Peace.
If I had been crippled, I really felt it will be unfair to begin to think of looking like Chinua Achebe when my greater mentor had always been Soyinka. What if I had a chance to put up a fight, I could have been shot and paraded as one of the criminals killed in a shootout. I could have been arrested and blackmailed for being one of the boys who murdered Bayo Ohu; the late News Editor of the Guardian, at least Ikotun was not really far from his Egdeda residence. They (The Ikotun Police Force) could say I was the one used by the military junta to murder Dele Giwa, who I had not met in all my life. Trust the Nigerian Police with their fictitious stories worthy of the Nobel Prize in literature. There was really no need to put up a fight but I would have enjoyed headlines like Youth Kills Policeman after Accident or Irate Youth Kills Policeman in Ikotun.
I have decided to make this simple so that even the less wordy encumbered could see what has befallen the Nigerian Police. The Nigerian Police is not your friend; you can at best call them ‘zombies’ in the exact words of Fela.
I must say in all my writing years, this faithful day of near death experience made me want to own a gun so that I could have caused some havoc. I had walked with all sense of patience at a filling station, quite off the main road, before the idiot in Police garb decided it was my turn to die. I have no apologies for these harsh words of mine, I only plead with the Editor that it be published that way, because with all the facts at my disposal (courtesy news reports) I am made to believe the police decides who lives and who dies. A myriad of Good examples are the murder of the Akpo six, The shooting of a obviously MAD POLICEMAN who kills a bus driver for 20naira, The murder of 6 butchers recently in one of the South Eastern States, the interesting and novel conspiracies they propound that can only be fit for The NNLG Prize for fiction, The parade of innocent victims as armed robbers, the unsolved murders and to cap it up, the rampant and rapacious appetite for 20naira which has increased to fifty, even hundred. It would be fair to policemen to say that they are largely in equal competition with armed robbers, cultists and militants whenever one is really on a reflective journey on the lost souls of Students at protest grounds shot by policemen and the many stories of stray bullets.
There was no need to raise alarm; at least I was alive; largely unharmed to tell the story.
However, there is need to call the Lagos State Superintendent of Police to call his boys to caution, to dismiss any irresponsible policeman as a deterrent to other policemen. I must also call on the Divisional Police Officer of the Ikotun Police Station to engage in high handedness with his boys, that is if he wants to prove to the community that he is not part and parcel of the obvious bad policing in Ikotun; the failures of the unsolved credit card scams, the armed robberies and the unjust actions of his boys. Sir (to the DPO) your boys are a disgrace to the Police force. They are masters at bribes and manipulations and it is high time you act.
Femi Morgan
femimorgan@gmail.com
I am writing this not to find out people to prosecute the ‘police-criminal’ because this will lead to another societal confusion. Shouldn’t the police in conjunction with traffic wardens be the one safe guarding me from the terrible wheels of the known impatience of motorcyclists by controlling traffic effectively? Shouldn’t a police bike have a horn? Should a Policeman be the one breaking traffic rules for no just cause? Shouldn’t a reasonable and people-conscious police force be humane enough to find apologies from their throats or is it stuffed by the many twenty naira notes they are wont to collect?
I had just submitted one of my articles for publication for an international journal that evening and the incident made me wonder. The policeman almost turned me cripple. The Policeman was about to further shatter my already shattered dream; I mean every youth had his dreams for a better tomorrow shattered by the government and their unfriendly, selfish policies. You can see us (Youths) on the streets looking for jobs for donkey years after some National Scheme of doom (NYSC), You can see us (Youths) reading Newspapers, Finding words on facebook and filling profiles on Naijajobs, Jobberman, et al. So the reader can imagine what the policeman wanted to do to me. Who would employ a cripple?
In addition to my anger, I immediately began to think ‘what if I had died?’ ‘What would I be known for?’ ‘How many lives have I affected?’Surprisingly I did not think of the much touted eternal destinations; either heaven or hell. This was what came to mind, ‘Here lies the grave of Morgan Oluwafemi, author of a good, intellectual, promising but largely unsuccessful collection of Poetry, due to the Nigerian Market and the loss of values. The co-coordinator of PacesetterPoets.org; an organisation for promoting promising and award winning poets in Nigeria and One of Nigeria’s many unemployed but promising youths. A fearless, thorough and venomous journalist (during his University days), who survived all odds until he was hit by a Killer Policeman in Ikotun. He survived by a shelf full of books from other renowned and unpopular authors, many published articles, but more importantly far more unpublished articles, an uncompleted collection of Short Story and an uncompleted collection of Poetry. He was not able to touch lives and affect his nation as he wanted to due to this incident. Rest in Peace.
If I had been crippled, I really felt it will be unfair to begin to think of looking like Chinua Achebe when my greater mentor had always been Soyinka. What if I had a chance to put up a fight, I could have been shot and paraded as one of the criminals killed in a shootout. I could have been arrested and blackmailed for being one of the boys who murdered Bayo Ohu; the late News Editor of the Guardian, at least Ikotun was not really far from his Egdeda residence. They (The Ikotun Police Force) could say I was the one used by the military junta to murder Dele Giwa, who I had not met in all my life. Trust the Nigerian Police with their fictitious stories worthy of the Nobel Prize in literature. There was really no need to put up a fight but I would have enjoyed headlines like Youth Kills Policeman after Accident or Irate Youth Kills Policeman in Ikotun.
I have decided to make this simple so that even the less wordy encumbered could see what has befallen the Nigerian Police. The Nigerian Police is not your friend; you can at best call them ‘zombies’ in the exact words of Fela.
I must say in all my writing years, this faithful day of near death experience made me want to own a gun so that I could have caused some havoc. I had walked with all sense of patience at a filling station, quite off the main road, before the idiot in Police garb decided it was my turn to die. I have no apologies for these harsh words of mine, I only plead with the Editor that it be published that way, because with all the facts at my disposal (courtesy news reports) I am made to believe the police decides who lives and who dies. A myriad of Good examples are the murder of the Akpo six, The shooting of a obviously MAD POLICEMAN who kills a bus driver for 20naira, The murder of 6 butchers recently in one of the South Eastern States, the interesting and novel conspiracies they propound that can only be fit for The NNLG Prize for fiction, The parade of innocent victims as armed robbers, the unsolved murders and to cap it up, the rampant and rapacious appetite for 20naira which has increased to fifty, even hundred. It would be fair to policemen to say that they are largely in equal competition with armed robbers, cultists and militants whenever one is really on a reflective journey on the lost souls of Students at protest grounds shot by policemen and the many stories of stray bullets.
There was no need to raise alarm; at least I was alive; largely unharmed to tell the story.
However, there is need to call the Lagos State Superintendent of Police to call his boys to caution, to dismiss any irresponsible policeman as a deterrent to other policemen. I must also call on the Divisional Police Officer of the Ikotun Police Station to engage in high handedness with his boys, that is if he wants to prove to the community that he is not part and parcel of the obvious bad policing in Ikotun; the failures of the unsolved credit card scams, the armed robberies and the unjust actions of his boys. Sir (to the DPO) your boys are a disgrace to the Police force. They are masters at bribes and manipulations and it is high time you act.
Femi Morgan
femimorgan@gmail.com
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