The Commonwealth of Angry Citizens

[With prayers and well wishes for Haruna Gajere; fellow citizen and friend whose life hangs in the balance on account of alleged ‘accidental discharge’ by a Police officer.]

I come from an angry country. Citizens are angry and so is the President too, it appears. When Gbenga Sesan said he is an angry young man, I thought it through and I have since formulated (and will soon patent) what I call the ‘Nengak Thesis on National Anger’ in Nigeria. I figured out that the nation is made up of different types of angry citizens. My first rubric broadly distinguishes those who are ‘crazily angry’ (angry like demented despots) from those who have ‘righteous anger’ (angry like Jesus-confronted-with-the-money-changers-at-the-temple). In the second rubric, I split the nation in 4 classes of angry citizens; first we have those who are angry at bad things happening in Nigeria; secondly, those who are angry that other Nigerians are angry; thirdly, those who are angry that others are not angry [enough]. Fourthly (you do well to avoid these ones) are those who are very angry but they don’t know it [yet]. If you or any other Nigerian you know does not fit into these categories, do let me know!

This is not an essay to recommend Nigeria for the annual Angry Nation trophy instead of our regular and well-deserved Happy Nation crown – maybe we can keep both. But, come to think of it, the speed with which Nigerians vacillate from being happy to being angry  and then to being happy again is really the undocumented eighth wonder of all times. The ninth is only our habit to get angry about the same situations many times over. Like our roads.

Well, for some of us who basically ‘live’ on the internet reading and sharing relevant information and periodically providing both suggestion and very constructive criticism, it is already ‘old news’ that President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria paid an ‘unscheduled’ visit to the Police Training College in Ikeja, Lagos on Friday 18th January 2013. Apparently, the tale began when Channels TV somehow mysteriously filmed and aired a documentary about the rot and decadence in the institution. President Jonathan wisely decided to visit the college and have a look for himself. Were you surprised that the President was surprised at what he saw in Ikeja? Well, then you are not the only one who is surprised.

Unfortunately, I didn’t even hear about the TV documentary until Mr. President went to visit the school. Apparently, police officials did not hear of, or watched the documentary either, so I am not the only unenlightened one. I mean, if the Police officials watched the documentary, the IG might go to check things for himself or called on the college commandant to make explanations, right? Or, wait – maybe they did watch and knew that it was indeed a factual account? Anyhow, it would have been much better if they had not waited for the President to come visiting before they tried unsuccessfully to figure out how the TV channel gained access to the rot and decay of the institution to make their documentary. It may be too appalling to look at, but the college is still a police institution and therefore a security asset of our country to which one does not just arrive with a press van and cameras. So how did Channels TV make their documentary?

If I could quickly pose a rhetorical and slightly digressive question on the table before we move on, I would ask: How could the President make a ‘surprise’ and ‘unscheduled’ visit from Abuja to Lagos and then be accompanied by others including “Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 2, Mr. Mamaah Tsafe; [and] the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command, Umar Manko” as reported by The Punch? Did they just happen to be at the college; were they passing by or were they on Mr. President’s scheduled trip?

My main concern could be summed up in a number of interrelated questions thus: First off, what did President Jonathan know about state of services in government institutions especially welfare provisions? I mean, what were his initial thoughts about the state of hostels and other facilities in the Police College (in Ikeja and elsewhere) before the Channels documentary went on air? Second, did anyone lie to the President about the actual conditions in that Police College as well as in other government institutions (such as hostels in tertiary institutions), I wonder? Third, why should the hostels in the school have been any better? Should they have been better because the President was visiting; or because the government has given certain guidelines and resources to guarantee decent welfare standards to which all agencies of government were thought to be complying? Fourth and finally, after the visit to the college, is the President of the opinion that Channels TV was right or wrong in their presentation of the situation in the college? If they are right, we ought to thank them for drawing this to our President’s attention for action. But if they are wrong, we should sue them for daring to mislead our nation and our President.

Obviously, I have been thinking about the massive currents of anger in our country. And, to be honest, there is a lot to be righteously angry about in the country. But it is clear to me that our anger is taking us nowhere near where we should be going. Periodically but annoyingly too often, we hear reports of ‘jungle justice’ being meted out by ‘angry’ mobs on our fellow citizens; these stories are often told by ‘angry’ or ‘crazy’ citizens through videos and pictures uploaded on the internet. And then an Angry Nation is quickly mobilised into an online frenzy. Soon however, there is great calm. ‘Pax Nigeriana’ comes once everyone has gotten the chance to ‘tweet out’ on the issue under the appropriate ‘hash-tags’ and ‘ccd’ the appropriate and relevant ‘twitter deity’ in obeisance; then all is okay. Get angry, tweet, feel alright – it is really that simple.

But unlike most Nigerians, the President and the people in his government do not have the luxury to get angry, criticise, tweet and then just go home. A little more than anger is expected from them. Transformation.

I am no expert on police matters (or on anything else). But I have seen, among many others, the report of the Civil Society Panel on Police Reform in Nigeria published by NOPRIN (September 2012). Since the report contained a letter addressed to the President, one could assume that the President has read the report. The report informed the President for example, that “public image of the NPF is extremely poor due to the decrepit, filthy and untidy presentation of most police stations, the slovenly and unfit appearance of many police officers and the slums that most police barracks have been allowed to degenerate into” (p.23). We as a nation cannot claim ignorance of the state of services in the police and we also have no right to feign shock when we saw on TV the images coming out of the Ikeja Police College. Before the documentary was aired, what did you think the college would look like if police officers were reported to be “sloven”?

I have heard commentators calling for the sack of Minister of Police Affairs and the Inspector General of Police. But I worry that this may not be a very funny joke. I mean, why should anyone be fired, did the Ikeja Police College turn into a cesspit a few minutes before the TV crews and then the President arrived and Mr. Minister had failed to prevent the sudden decay? Or do we seriously want to feign ignorance of the state of police services and imagine that we thought of the Ikeja Police College as clean, decent and lovely only to be rudely woken up by the Channel TV documentary? But away from the police, are we also waiting for TV documentaries to show us glimpses of a typical tertiary institution hostel and student accommodations ‘off-campus? Or the lecture halls? Or the prisons? Or the hospitals? Or the slums of our cities? No we are not. I think deep down we all do know that these eyesores exist but we are not willing to deal with them just yet – like the eczema that is well concealed by clothing.

Maybe it is in our nature to flex our angry muscles; that is something we all could do. But it is grossly insufficient. What we have not done so well is to draw up frameworks and benchmarks to govern the state of service delivery in our country and watch keenly to ensure that they are adhered to. We have to resolve not to get angry about the same things repeatedly too. More than sacks or pointing accusing fingers, I think it would be more useful for us to ponder how we want our police officers to be trained. If all the training institutions are unfit for human habitation and pose risks of public health emergencies, then we have to put a halt on all police recruitment and training while we build fitting places for living and learning. There is just no use training anyone in that sort of place; they will learn nothing. At least, not what is on the curriculum.

In Nigeria, we know too well the cost of ignorance. But it gets to be dangerous when we take an officer trained in such subhuman environment (as the Ikeja Police College was shown to be) and place a gun in their hands and charge him/her with the defence of human rights.

The line above was my last for this article until I heard the sad news that Haruna Gajere with whom I went to school was shot by a police officer. It is still not very clear what happened; what we now understand is that Haruna was shot by a police officer in Yarbung village of Kachia Local Government Area in Kaduna State and is now receiving treatment at a hospital in Zaria, Kaduna State. We will live under the fear of such trigger happy law enforcement officers for as long as we fail to pay attention to their training.

Daniel Nengak