We miss the point a lot. We expect
police officers whose salaries can barely feed our own pets to be up and
doing at dilapidated rat holes called police stations. When they leave
their workplaces for the barracks, they stay in some of the
most demeaning housing projects you’d see anywhere in the world. We
want them to serve and protect with integrity but right from the point
they are hired, we take their dignity away from them. We can pretend all
we like, but the mess we see in our system is the mess we invested in
it.
Channels Television got knocks
from those who ought to praise it for bringing the state of the Police
College Ikeja under public scrutiny. They said it was done to discredit
the President, the same way anyone who points out the
way to make our country better is said to do it to discredit the
President. How can a President who hardly has anything going for his
government continue to assume citizens who want the best for him as
President would want to take away the little credit he has going for
him?
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| Nigerian troops patrol at Maiduguri, Nigeria, Saturday, Aug 1, 2009. Banks and markets reopened in this northern Nigerian city after five days of fierce fighting between police and a radical Islamist sect. The city was largely quiet Saturday _ the streets of Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, had been cleared of bodies and the blood spilled during gunbattles that left at least 300 people dead.(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) |
The flies which perch around the sugar
offered by power often forget that this is about our country first and
foremost before it is about whoever is running it. Power comes and goes,
countries remain for longer. WhatChannels Television showed of
the Police College, Ikeja was not an outlier, it is the normal reality
of filth, lack, hunger and penury that have bedevilled the force. It is
even getting worse now!
Many of us want our soldiers to help #BringBackOurGirls now and alive, in reference to the
abducted #ChibokGirls. While we make that much needed call, let us also
spare a thought for these men of the armed forces. Think about it; they
read newspapers, they listen to the radio and at times watch the news.
They know all about the trillions budgeted for security every year and
they also know all about the poverty that comes with doing what they do.
They know that cronies of our rulers are feeding off their allocations.
They are privy to the fact that children of their bosses will feed them
and their fellow soldiers for years with wealth accrued from denying
their rights as the defenders of the Nigerian people. They defend our
country with their lives, this while the country hardly pays attention
to ensuring each soldier lives a respectable life. Politicians steal
from us for decades, die and have streets named after them; our soldiers
die in battlefields like the falling of the branch of a small tree in
the forest, we hardly notice. No glory in life, no glory in death yet,
we expect them to chase glory for our country. Or, as in the case of the
Chibok schoolgirls, rescue them fast and now! Let us at least face it;
this is one difficult country to do good!
It is easier to see those serving today
and imagine how tough things are in a country where “corruption is not
stealing and stealing is not corruption” as long as you steal enough to
donate to powerful people for elections. If they were abandoned and
forgotten while they are serving, imagine what happens when age calls
and they must be retired? Retired officers are some of the poorest of
our country’s 54 per cent extremely poor population. We sing, “The
labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain,” and some of us
actually think that line of the national anthem only refers to the dead
ones who fought for our Independence. We should know better. Most of our
heroes and heroines are still living and the bulk of them are living in poverty
and squalour. Their labour has been in vain not only for the nation
they fought for and defended with their lives, that labour has been in
vain even for their personal lives.
We rightly or wrongly like to compare our officers with their United Kingdom or United States counterparts. A new police
constable in the UK receives about N5.8 million/year. This eventually
rises to about N10 million/year. Apart from this basic, the officers
receive a London weighting and allowances amounting to about N1.7m.
Added to these monetary benefits are annual leave reaching 30 days and
not less than 22 days depending on one’s length of service.
This is apart from public holidays and the average two rest days per
week. Other benefits include maternity, paternity and adoption leave,
special leave with pay, special leave without pay, parental leave and
career breaks of up to five years (See
http://www.metpolicecareers.co.uk/newconstable/pay_and_benefits.html).
When next you expect so much from our police officers, ask yourself, how
much has our system given into their welfare and livelihood?
As the benefits of being a police
officer in the UK are as far from that of being one in Nigeria, the same
applies to other service units including the Army, Navy and Air Force.
In our country, a few men and women are
feeding fat on the destinies and livelihoods of the majority yet our
so-called leaders are always quick to spout tales of patriotism and
dedication to service. Who wouldn’t be dedicated to service with the
benefits listed above? Mind that those numbers apply to the most junior
of officers.
It started from us. First, the military
overthrew the irresponsible civilians, then the military took over
power. Not willing to share the responsibilities of power with the
police, the military crippled the police and treated them like scum.
Today, the police are in a worse state than the scum left by the
military. When civilians took over power in 1999, one of the first
shots fired was at the military, some would argue rightly so, seeing as
the military had got so used to having political power for so long. Out
of fear of the military, successive civilian governments have found a
way to allocate enough money to the top echelons of the military to get
them fat and keep them fat while forgetting that the rank and file is
the fulcrum of military might. By our own selves, we have hurt our pride
and strength. A country that was once the saviour of Africa, an Army
that was once the pride of West Africa, now needs the support of Ghana,
to fight insurgents. We have come so far.
Ghana in 2013 allocated about N51.3bn to
defence while Nigeria allocated about N348.9bn in the same year. Based
on these numbers, Nigeria’s defence spending is about seven times that
of Ghana. That in itself is to be expected, what is not to be expected
is that we would be needing Ghana’s help to fight insurgents in our
country. We have come so far.
A time comes in the history of a nation
when it must look at itself and ask itself pertinent questions. At the
moment, our country is like an old man with many grandchildren, many
children poor and desolate yet this old man wakes every morning thinking
all is well and he calls his rich and not so rich friends to come party
with him. Our old man wants the world
to see he is rich and great but those who live with the old man know
that all his claims of transformation are lies fed to the most gullible
of his offspring. You have to fear for this old man. God bless every
soul serving this country, in the midst of plenty, yet, living on the
crumbs from the table of Father Abraham, sorry Nigeria
Japheth J, Omojuwa tweets via
@omojuwa. This article was first published in the Punch newspapers and
is re-published here courtesy the author. Views expressed are solely the
author’s
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