At about 9.00pm on Sunday, December 27, there was a serious traffic jam leading to the fourth roundabout on the Lekki Unexpressway, and strangely, the streetlights between the third and fourth roundabouts were not working. Armed robbers used the opportunity to descend on motorists, smashing mostly driver-side windows of vehicles on the innermost lanes and robbing passengers of personal belongings.
My belief was that the hold-up was caused by the usual traffic as a result of vehicles queuing on the Lekki Unexpressway to buy petrol at the Oando Filling Station at the fifth roundabout. To my shock, on driving up to the fourth roundabout which was some few metres from where the armed robbers were operating, I discovered the traffic was caused by strong police presence in their vehicles stationed at that point.
There were at least 10 well-armed policemen and the first two I approached to relay the armed robberies that were happening behind me gave answers that left me dazed and pondering whether it was not time to allow adult Nigerians to bear arms for protection. The two policemen told me that the area where the armed robberies were occurring on the Lekki Unexpressway fell within the jurisdiction of the police at the Maroko Police Station and was outside the jurisdiction of their own police station. When I told them their response was not tenable, especially as we were talking of the same stretch of road and just some metres apart, they told me their jurisdiction started from the fourth roundabout going forward and not backwards.
I was told that policemen from the Maroko Police Station had been radioed to take up patrol from the first roundabout to the point where the Lekki Unexpressway met the fourth roundabout. These policemen gleefully told me that they would get into trouble if they went and patrolled beyond their jurisdiction on the Lekki Unexpressway, and even if armed robbers were operating some few metres from where they were.
Left dumbfounded as I drove away, I observed that from the fourth roundabout onwards, there was no traffic whatsoever on the Lekki Unexpressway and that at the fifth roundabout, the Oando Filling Station had no vehicles queuing for petrol. I also observed that with the exception of the traffic lights between the third and fifth roundabouts, other streetlights on the Lekki Unexpressway were functioning fully and illuminating the road for both motorists and pedestrians.
I also thought it strange that armed robbers would have the temerity to be smashing windows of cars and robbing motorists of their personal belongings in a hold-up caused by police action, and worse, knowing armed policemen were some few metres away.
While the response of the policemen at the Lekki Unepressway fourth roundabout was bizarre enough, I would have thought the police even when off-duty have a responsibility to intervene in any crime situation, but it does not appear to apply to the Nigeria Police.
There are certainly more structural and systemic problems with the Nigeria Police that will not be solved by giving them even Bentleys and Rolls-Royces as patrol vehicles, as long as they do not understand their only responsibility is to protect all residents. If the Nigeria Police is unwilling to discharge that responsibility, it probably is time to amend the law in Nigeria to allow willing adults to bear arms for personal protection and save themselves from jurisdictional procedures that hinder the police.
KINGSLEY OMOSE
Omose writes from Lagos.
