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                           THE AUDACITY OF ABNORMALITY.(2)
By Dolapo Aina  

“WHAT is the attitude of Nigerian cops towards reporting a suspicious scene and a crime scene?” The mode matters: Do you report like you are talking to your girlfriend or like it is an SOS call? Armed robbers have been shot dead, they were suspects before their death, innocent or not how strong and effective is a standard procedure to check if the tagged law enforcement hero wasn’t just trigger happy and wasted some innocent lives?   To the government of my great country Nigeria, “What is the state of the art technology in terms of communication to send Rapid Response calls in the Law Enforcement System?” Who monitors the time of Response? “Air response vehicles (Helicopters with trained sniper personnel) for situations like this? How many Police Posts and Stations have state of the art gadgets to operate from a remote location? Paper mapping systems not to talk of GPS.   Obagwono Oghomone went further, “What maintenance culture effectively monitored would be put in place to continuously manage this system?” Do you give a man a fire arm to protect people when he has a family at home to feed and expect him to do the job successfully when his salary can’t even take care of him alone? What benefits and incentives are in place to ensure this system doesn’t fail? How come such a sensitive section of a government employed persons of poor understanding of their objectives in our system?

So many ideas in my mind, but the question is, does my government (NIGERIA) care? Why allow untrained personnel (Area Boys and Hoodlums) carry out Police duties in the guise of vigilante? Because if my government really cares, so many and more of the issues with the law enforcement system would have been taken care of and probably Ugonna, Llyod, Tekana, and Chidiaka; and many others who have lost their lives in this barbaric manner would have had an equal opportunity as the murderers who are going to be tried in some court and probably given some years sentence.   Furthermore, Obagwono Oghomone said: “In a similar manner our educational system should be simulated for improvement not till when there is a fault that has never been fixed, because on the average in the eyes of our parents any child can be a saint, but behind their backs who knows, Like my father would always say, “I can only vouch for a child who is in the womb, the moment he steps out, he is capable of anything, so I have to watch and monitor him”.  

 I can go on writing, but I don’t have the power to do anything, so I’ll manage the pain in my heart after digesting that video, knowing that my fellow Nigerian can hit a man who is not proven guilty with a stick and say “You don pay your school fees abi?…..” That statement has a meaning, I would think that the fellow hitting with that stick and saying that has a good knowledge of the situation; he knew they weren’t thieves, he knew the real truth, sounds like an intimidating statement truthfully misused considering the situation it had escalated to.   Beef as a result of imbalanced circumstances some murderer in Aluu community found himself in. How come about the significant imbalanced system, abject poverty instead of a system where people should blame themselves for not going to school because of flexible opportunities given to tax payers by those who collect and control taxes?   Obagwono Oghomone went further, “I’m urging every Nigerian who is against this act to scream justice that is if justice has the right murderers in custody, not some random arrest of innocent people to pay the price of the real culprits. 
We have printed our fingers on ballot papers for the Nigerian government to serve us, in fairness, they should give Caesar what is rightfully his.”   Someone said, “So four boys suspected of stealing handset and laptops were caught, beaten, stripped naked, paraded round the community for 3hours and eventually burnt to death, and everyone is blaming the community and the killers, well, lets ask ourselves this question, what was the response of the police when the incident occurred? There is no way anyone will tell me that the police were not called or informed of the happenings; they turned deaf ear.”   A lady commented, “Some commentators above claim that in response to the killings, Uniport students have gone on a rampage of the village where their colleagues were killed; burning houses etc….. Does that in any way make the situation better? Would more innocent lives and property not get destroyed by this? It just shows that at both ends of the stick, people are angry, frustrated, deprived and naturally, are venting in the only way they can…. Violence!” 

Another commentator posted this on the BBC Facebook page, “It is disappointing to see others challenge BBC’s question. It is like trying to avoid the challenging truth. Someone has to ask that question. Murders happen everyday in many places, but where murder/wickedness is cheered on by a mob with glee and without an ounce of compassion, then that society/community is as depraved as hell itself. Nigeria has sincerely fallen into anarchy.   It is only now that social media is exposing how low we have fallen. How long do we pause and lament the death of a stranger murdered by armed robbers? A few minutes only because it is a ‘normal’ everyday occurrence. When a woman goes to a police station to report a crime and gets assaulted by police officers, can we still say we function as a country? I remember hearing on the news of a Western female reporter being gang-raped on the street while on duty reporting an uprising. It was fellow women who saw this from their balconies and came out with sticks to fight off the men while other women ran for the police. They did not say she is white or non-Arab or not covering her hair. They saw a human being, a woman like themselves and they acted.   But in our case, murder was championed by a community, in a country where lynching and burning alleged thieves has been done for ages. We must examine this question from a moral and human rights point of view and set pride aside. We have no pride as a nation. In our hearts, let us fly our flags at half-mast and lament the state of our country.   

A lady posted this, “Robbers came to my house and I went to report them to the Police. I was asked to pay them so that they can follow it up. Even when you report, then you become a suspect. This is just sad.”   The solutions to this dissipation of moral, political and social values can be found in Kola Oyeneyin’s (a friend and the convener of Sleeves-Up) brilliant article”Nigeria-my faith and my fear” published in Ynaija.com (October 13) and also posted on his Facebook page, where he opined, “this is the time for the genius in you and me to come out and express itself.   

This is when the Spirit of God should begin to inspire us, to inspire others towards one purpose, solution….The feeling must be that there is no better time to be born in Nigeria than now, and there is no greater generation to belong to than this. Those that are left with any jot of morality should begin to put it to use, and those who can still feel, begin to feel for others. 

We have been empowered to empower, built to build, supported to support and assisted to assist. We have been raised up to uproot, destroy and plant. This is our mandate, now is the time. I call on all writers to sharpen their pens and begin to write. Artistes, begin to sing songs that can move a generation. Let poets begin to compose words that will resonate down history and painters begin to paint your masterpiece. Those with political will, position yourselves and those with a voice for social justice and equality for all, begin to join or float platforms that will amplify that cry. Enough of empty talk and pointless conversations, our gatherings must be strategic and our strategies must deliver.”   

Also, if the citizens of this nation must talk, it must not be a politician-driven talk. It is of necessity that the perpetrators of the Aluu lynching should face the music. But it would be of immense national benefit if the trial is televised. The trial should be televised. If done, Nigerians would all be watching themselves on trial. For we are no longer normal.
 •Dolapo Aina,  a writer, resides in Lagos, Nigeria

SO I ASK AGAIN ARE WE ABNORMAL?


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