My encounter with the police : Bribery becoming the order of the day

Nowadays, many Nigerians are taking laws into their own hands because of the negative attitude of policemen in our country. Sometimes I wonder if it's still possible for the police force to become truthful again, considering how badly they have made names for themselves. Ever since I was a child, I kept hearing how corrupt our Nigerian police are, and I grew up as an adult to experience it myself. Most times, if you have any issue that requires a police case, it will be better to seek an alternative, if any, because their approach here over the years has been bad. Once they find means of getting money through "bribery, handling cases the right way becomes a forgotten issue, and the victim will end up spending more money to retrieve his postage money.

Source

Some people with different kinds of disputes take it to the police force, only for the issues to keep lingering while the police keep looking for ways to extort more money from them. I had an experience with road safety, and they tried to handle the issue professionally. I have had nice experiences with the military men while working in the military hospital in Lagos State, Nigeria, but the one with the police was a bad experience that I cannot forget in a hurry.

The experience

It happened in the year 2018. I received an emergency call from a close friend of mine over domestic violence from her husband. On reaching there, I saw bruises all over her body, and as if that wasn't enough, I saw that her eyes were reddish and discomforting to her. It happened that the husband used tear gas on her eyes. I couldn't believe the level of hate the man displaced on her through his actions. I was wondering if he intentionally bought the tear gas for her sake. Domestic violence had been happening prior to that day in her home, and so my friend and I thought of reporting the man to the police. We quickly rushed to a nearby police station with the bruises on my friend's body and other injuries in the eyes, tabling our complaints to the policemen and women on the seat. So they asked that we write a statement, which we did. They requested the man's phone number and his home address, and we released them to them.

The next day, the police called the man and invited him to the station. After the call, according to my friend, the man laughed at her like a fool. He asked her how much she had to make a police case. He clearly told her that with his money, whatever case she laid before the police would become pointless. Obviously, he went ahead to bribe the police, and they closed the case. My friend and I visited the police station after 5 days to know if they were still interested in taking action, but they dismissed us without any tangible reason. It was then clear to us that it had happened again, just like it used to happen to others. These police forces are not truth-worthy. Most of them are careless about protecting victims, but only after getting the money in any case. It was a bad and disappointing experience with the police. However, human rights later stepped into the case after we were advised to try them. They did their best to resolve the issue to some extent.

This is one of my experiences with the police force, and I learned to direct issues to more reliable government forces since the police have proven to make bad names for themselves and are still making them.

Thanks for reading.

This post was inspired by the #hivelearners contest on the topic titled "Against the Force."