Though they’ve been around for so long, it still gets to me whenever I come across our police check points; when we’re not a police state. The same check points every newly sworn in IG promises to dismantle.
They come in threatening fire and brimstone to all officers of the law who flagrantly disobey this directive. Yeah yeah yeah…we’ve heard it all before. Please pull the other one. What annoys me more is that those in government, our supposed representatives do nothing to abate this menace. Please tell me.
For as long as the Police have employed this antiquated tactic, how many criminals has it helped them to catch, compared to the menace they cause to hapless motorists, most of whom are so obviously innocent? Instead, almost weekly, we’re regaled with stories of how human lives are pathetically wasted for reasons as mundane as a bus driver’s refusal to part with twenty naira. If you’re truly determined to catch criminals, don’t you think it might be more effective to just upgrade and revamp the police intelligence gathering unit? But before I condemn them too much, have you been so privileged to enter their living quarters? If you do, it will certainly assist you to understand where the oppressor mindset comes from. To put it simply, our policemen and policewomen are victims of chronic abuse.
Our political representatives, both backed by law and duty bound to represent the interest of the people are perfectly positioned to call the law enforcement agencies to order, citing the negative effects these road blocks, the oppression and the brutality they afford the police officers to inflict, have on the people. But they do nothing. Instead, they resort to sharing out grinding machines and purchasing JAMB forms for members of their constituency, few weeks to elections. Once they’ve successfully “acquired” their re-election, nobody sees their brake lights for another four years. And so the perfidy continues. Sadly though, they’re not the only ones. Our other big men in society, ordinarily expected to give a voice to the voiceless do nothing too and I’ve had to ask myself why? It then dawned on me. It’s typical of us to permit pretty much anything which appears to separate the men from the boys to continue unabated. If the big men can’t enjoy the “untouchable” status which we mere minnows can only dream of, then how will people identify that they are big men? What’s the point of sitting quietly in traffic in your bullet proof four by four? The joy of being a big man is that everyone must know. The Gangan effect must be there. Hence, the senseless blaring of sirens to announce your presence to those who otherwise would never have known you were there. Now, maybe you’re starting to see our conundrum. If the big man is merely living out what the rest of us (some secretly, others very openly) desire, because his wealth or position now affords him to, then it means we are our own biggest problem. The man on the street is no different to the big man in mindset. So where will the change come from?
This pushed me to attempt to trace the source of this problem/mindset and to be honest I don’t think I got too far until one day Pastor Wole said something which lit up a huge light bulb in my head. He said, the simple and unavoidable truth is, many Nigerians have been psychologically abused almost from the cradle and sadly, they’re hardly even conscious of this fact. I couldn’t agree more. As a result, they have grown up believing their anomalous behaviour is normal. To compound matters, we have also come as a people to erroneously associate vulnerability and sensitivity to weakness. We Nigerians are so incredibly proud of how tough we are. Able to take crap that we really shouldn’t take, if only psychological abuse over the years hadn’t hardened our own sensitivity. The unfortunate spill-over is the lack of sensitivity to the feelings of others, often times. Carelessly we run roughshod over people’s sensibilities. The boy whose mother repeatedly yanks him up with one arm, much like when a crane hoists up a container and it sways quite helplessly from side to side mid air; not minding the predictable discomfort this will cause the child, will believe that is normal. Even the subsequent pain or discomfort he’s subjected each time becomes his normal. So sad but that’s the way it is. Not until he sees one aje butter baby being carefully lifted up by his ever so doting mother does he realise there’s a difference between baby and pikin.
We find ourselves daily, in many cases, subjected to unpleasant sights of acutely deformed people on our streets. Some have been in that sorry state since birth, others as a result of disease or accidents. Don’t get me wrong, these people deserve help and love much like the next person. Maybe more. And to look at this from one angle, it may well help the rest of us to keep in perspective our own challenges vis-à-vis that of others. Perhaps even going as far as serving the purpose of enhancing our sense of humanity. To look at it another way though is to recognise the fact that they too deserve to be accorded dignity as human beings. The more so why governments have a responsibility to provide them with necessary help instead of abandoning them to their fate. By virtue of the binding social contract between the governed and those we voted to govern our affairs as a society, government owes a duty to do it’s best to make life meaningful and worth living for all. The critical point I want to draw from this is that while we are still lagging far behind in the index of those who value the lives of their citizens, oyibo has gone beyond that, to not only recognize the incalculable value of human life, but to also concern themselves with the quality of lives their citizens are entitled to, first as nationals, and second as unique members of the human race.
Changing the nation…one mind at a time
Dapo Akande
