Showing posts with label governance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label governance. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

THE MEN IN BLACK

Have you had a dealing with the men in black recently?

I did today, and like other times the encounter left a bitter taste in my mouth.

They are men of the Nigeria Police.

Shabilly dressed.

They screamed and shouted at people to get attention, where a modest “Excuse me I am a police man can I see the content of your bag?” would have done the job.

I stopped and he shouted again at me to open my bag and I concluded that he must think am deaf.

I opened my bag and he smiled broadly and asked for the receipt even after I told him the laptop in my bag is for my uncle who gave it to me on loan.

All he wanted was a receipt for the laptop any at all!

He didn’t listen to reason and when I asked for a deposit receipt for the laptop so I can leave it with him and thhe go to get the recipt from my uncle, he flared up and treathened to slap me!

His colleagues supported him and right there started to call me thief –when was I tried?

I wondered, where did we get these ill trained men from?*!

Why do we continue to entrust our security with these men who do not seem to know what they are doing?

Are the police men else where (other countries) like this too ?

Cann’t we do something about their deplorable state?

The questions could go on….

In all I feel pity for the nation that maintains such a poorly equipped, ill trained and corrupt law keepers-the police force.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

You are not patrotric...

You are not patrotric...
Screamed the Inspector General of Police IGP at the site of the explosion incindented on the 26th of December, by people scooping fuel from a vandalised NNPC pipeline in Abule-egba a suburb of Lagos.
His pronouncement was worrisome and I wondered if he knew what patriotism really meant.

Scooping fuel from a bust pipeline is bad in itself, but the act only brings to the fore the deplorable state of the people and the real issue at hand here is not patriotism.

NIGERIANS are poor though NIGERIA is rich.

Many in this country can not afford necessities as basic as a roof over their heads, 3 square meals a day, and clothes on their back….

This people read and hear of the several billions of naira that is squandered by the leadership of the nation.

This impoverished people see those they have entrusted with their destinies rob them of their future in the prime of day.
They watch haplessly as what belongs to them and their children is confiscated by a few others for themselves and their children.
That fateful morning, they saw an opportunity to take back part of what was theirs.

They are hungry people and not necessarily greedy people as they have been made to look, trying to make the best of an opportunity they believed was god sent.

When and if the issue of patriotism arises, people like the Inspector General of Police (in my opinion) do not have moral grounds to blame anybody for he is as guilty of the crime as anybody else. If not, then where are the killers of Eng. Funso Williams and those who murdered the home-boy of Ekiti-Dr. Ayo Daramola.

Why are the men and officers of the NPF who had promised under the leadership of Mr IG to serve with Integrity still demanding N20 bribes from commercial transport operators?
Or is it an act of patrotism to create charges and offences on the spot in a bid to demand some form of settlement from ignorant motorists as done regularly by the men and officers of the NPF corruptly led by Mr. Ehidero.

I honestly think the sad occurrence of the “pipe-line fire” has once again brought to the fore the perennial problem of neglect of the people by the leadership they have so trusted.

The incident has shown clearly that the masses are hungry.

And an hungry man may not be patriotic.
So if Mr. IGP wants Nigerians to be patriotic then he should start with his men. – some example will be good sir.