Imet this very rude and arrogant LASTMA official one, MR. ONITIRI S. I. Or was it, S. T, on my way to the office this morning.
He had arrested a private car owner, whose number plate is in the photographs herein. He had claimed the guy violated some traffic rules. I became interested in the matter because of the rude and discourteous manner the LASTMA official conducted himself, particularly to the passengers in the vehicle just because they attempted to beg on behalf of the driver.
I know some people would say passengers shouldn’t have gotten involved in a matter that solely concerns a law enforcement agent and a law breaker. But then, I will not blame the passengers because they understand that this country’s law or its agents are not meant to protect them. They are designed to protect the state and its handlers. What do I mean; experience has shown the law is usually fast and swift when it concerns a commoner, but slow and unattainable when it’s about a well-to-do in the society.
Take or leave it, those passengers swiftly moved to intervene because if they didn’t, the next thing they would have heard was an express order by the law enforcement agent, saying “EVERYONE, COME DOWN! THIS VEHICLE IS NOT GOING, AGAIN!” This usually happens even at the middle of nowhere.
I think handlers of the state affairs need to do something urgently about the conduct of law enforcement agents – Police, LASTMA, Nigerian Civil Defense, Neighborhood Watch, and even Man-O-War. Some of this people, I must say, are worse than the “Agberos” on the streets. They must be taught and told in very clear terms that the essence of their services on the road is the PEOPLE, and where the focus is grossly abused and bastardized by their conduct, the supposed service intended to be rendered losses its essence and importance, even to the state.
No one is saying they shouldn’t do their jobs, but carrying it out with so much quantum of DISRESPECT to the people and the state, which they claim to be serving, negates the COREESSENCE OF SERVICE. SERVICE is not when the people are at the mercy of the law or its agents. It is when the law or its agents are at the mercy of the people. One will agree with me that Nigerians have always been at the mercy of the law and its arrogant agents. They carry out their duties with a lot of disregard for the people they are supposed to protect. In fact, when a service preserves the dignity of human, which is fundamentally the essence of the society, it gives birth to a peaceful and prosperous state or governance. But where this is absent, things degenerate into lawlessness, from all ends.
This is why we see a policeman stops a vehicle at the middle of nowhere and discharges the passengers, because he wants to arrest the driver and the vehicle. This is why we see a LASTMA official, who is expected to guide motorists through traffic laws and directions, more interested in extortion than the service. This is the reason we see innocent Nigerians – petty and roadside traders, traffic vendors, ‘Okada’ and ‘Marwa’ drivers, being raided illegally around the state by the police. This is also the reason an operative of SARS will consciously point an AK47 at an innocent man or woman, who he is supposed to protect and open fire at him. This is the reason an operative of the Department of State Security Service will desecrate the sacredness of a court of law to wrestle out a man, who is assumed innocent until proven otherwise by a competent court of law. The questions that readily come to mind here are; who are these law agents serving? To what end are they carrying out these duties? Who are they protecting by these duties? These are questions that must be asked. But then, it’s obvious that these uniform men do not even understand that the core ESSENCE of their duties is the safety and protection of the people. It’s also not clear to them that while carrying out their duties, the people rights must forcibly be protected with every sense of CIVILITY, as much as the law is protected? Civility is what separates a human being from an animal, and some other synonyms of civility include politeness, courtesy, courteousness, respect, graciousness, consideration, good manners, and one antonym for all of these words is rudeness.
Believe it or not, the difference between Nigeria and countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada and even our neighbor, Ghana, is simply the level of civility that first, the public and political office holders, and second, the individual citizens, invented into the country’s SERVICE SYSTEM. Yes, there is something called the country’s service system, and in civilized climes, law enforcement agents understand that when arresting a vehicle with passengers, their first and primary duty is to ensure the safety and comfort of all passengers in the vehicle. They are also able to establish with every sense of politeness that their intended arrest is usually a secondary duty, because the primary essence of their service is the people, and when the people are dissatisfied or disgruntled with their services the state, and most importantly the law, has failed.
But then, the Nigerian experience has been a situation, where a policeman or a law enforcement agent disregards, disrespects and even violates the people or passengers’ rights while trying to arrest a vehicle for a traffic offence. All our law enforcement agents do is to discharge the passengers without making any alternative means for them. This is so because law enforcement agents have failed, or maybe I should say, refused to recognize the fact that even the arrest they intended to carryout was towards the safety and protection of the people or passengers in the vehicle, and perhaps by extension, others who are likely to be affected by the damage the vehicle should have caused, if it wasn’t apprehended in time. It follows therefore, that the law and its agents are designed to serve the people, and where the people now serve the law and its agents, lawlessness is obviously in the offing.
One evil vibe that the very act of not providing alternative means for passengers sends, after arresting their vehicle, is that it simply rubs the service, if not the deceit, being imposed on the passengers by the law enforcement agent on their faces. It’s easy to say “we are simply carrying out our duties, according to the law”. But then, such society that puts its people at the mercy of the law and its agents, and arrogate absolute powers, which corrupt absolutely to the law enforcement agents, who by their actions, consciously violate the peoples’ or passengers’ rights, is derelict. The Nigerian Police and other law enforcement agencies spend so much time trying to convince Nigerians that “POLICE IS THEIR FRIEND”, but act contrary to this confession. My father will always say even a child does not need to be told, who his or her friends are. He can discern, who is true friends are through their existing relationship. This follows why a month old baby can easily tell, if the person, carrying him is his mother or not.
Georges Macnobleson-Idowu is a professional journalist and a result driven media content analyst. He writes from Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
