He ran the best time in the world that year. He was certainly our best individual prospect in the 1981 world athletics championships; but when he honoured our country’s invitation to the pre-championships trial, he was shot dead by a trigger-happy policeman at Ojuelegba.
We lost Dele Udoh, an enterprising 400 meters runner, who drew national and global attention to his sport and to our then young sporting nation. Our prospect of winning the gold medal died the moment Dele breathed his last on the arms of his distraught wife who witnessed the killing. Our nation was turned into mourning.
The dastardly murder of Dele Udoh didn’t prick the conscience of IGP Adamu Suleiman’s Nigeria Police Force, neither did it make the High Command of the Force to reel with shame and remorse, nor made it to own up to the callousness of its officers. Instead, the Nigeria Police Force organized a media parade of Dele Udoh’s bullet-ridden body and wraps of Indian hemp carefully placed close to his lifeless body. The criminal cover-up didn’t stick with the more discerning public that later forced a public inquiry on the nation. The result of that inquiry is akin to what the inimitable Fela once famously described as government magic. “Dele Udoh died as a result of accidental discharge”, the public inquiry announced to a bewildered nation. Government magic, truly!
Put the 1981 calendar away and fast forward yesteryear to the now for a moment and ponder over the fates of our slain compatriots, Comfort Godwin and Beauty McLeod (the mother of the teenage lawn tennis star, Angel McLeod) who were killed by the police in September and October of this year. This is the fact of the murder of Comfort Godwin as reported by the Sun newspaper of October 25, 2015: ” Udoh and his family were returning from a vigil when they were flagged down by a stop-and-search policemen who allegedly demanded for money from them. He was said to have pleaded that he had no money on him as he was not operating on a commercial basis. Irked by his non-compliance, one of the policemen, who was later identified as Corporal Musliu Aremu, allegedly opened fire on the tricycle which he had moved a few meters away from the checkpoint, killing his wife who was carrying their 11 months baby and injuring Udoh on his shoulder and jaw”. But for the irrepressible women’s rights campaigner, Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin, the dastardly killing of Comfort would have gone unnoticed, unreported and unheard by those compatriots who joined her to seek justice for the slain woman. The long arm of the law has now caught up with Corporal Musliu Aremu. He is presently standing trial at the Ebute Metta Magistrate Court for the unlawful killing of Comfort Godwin. Good for him.
The duties of the police as preserved by Section 4 of the Police Act include “the prevention and detection of crime, the apprehension of offenders, the preservation of law and order, the protection of life and property and the enforcement of laws and regulations which they are directly charged and shall perform such duties within or outside Nigeria as may be required of them by or under the authority of this (the Police Act) or any other Act”.
Gleaning the Police Act, there is nothing that empowers police officers to walk the streets of our country and demand bribes from impoverished citizens, who end up paying with their lives when they don’t meet the unlawful monetary demands of these killer cops and there is nothing that entitles rogue officers to turn their Kalashnikovs on harmless citizens. The Police Act is very clear and in fact, it charges every police officer to “protect life and property”; but what do we experience daily? The breaches of the Police Act by the same police officers charged with the responsibility of preserving it. These officers seemingly get away with even the most heinous abuses of the fundamental rights of citizens because we have the 1999 Constitution that derogates on the fundamental right to life. A police officer can kill a citizen for the purpose of “suppressing a riot, insurrection or mutiny; or to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained”. Welcome to the Nigerian jungle!
It isn’t that our police officers don’t understand their duties, but there is a certain savagery that possesses them when they put on their uniforms, slung the Kalashnikovs across their shoulders and march like game keepers in search of errant games in the Nigerian jungle. Possessed by savagery, they lust for the blood of innocent citizens- killing those who unfortunately stand in their paths, burying others in shallow graves that our prying eyes do not uncover and throwing many citizens, like those unfortunate activists of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) whose bodies were found floating on Ezu River in 2013, into the many brackish waters that dot our landscape.
The truth is: men and women of the Nigeria Police Force are not above the laws of our land; they are not superior to citizens who maintain them with their taxes, but our country is a deep jungle where all manner of law enforcement officers- whether of the Nigeria Police Force, Army, Navy, Airforce, Customs and Excise, Prisons or of the Civil Defence- run free and prey on defenseless citizens.
No one documents the excesses of the Nigeria Police Force than my good friend, Okey Nwanguma. As the coordinator of the globally respected Network of Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN), I take whatever he says as the truth. He has consistently called attention to the many killer cops on the prowl in our country, but it doesn’t appear that anyone in authority listens to him or his group. “Our country is broke and police officers have not been paid, please, put up your best behavior well whenever you approach stop-and-search-checkpoints”, he advised me recently. This is my advice to you, my dear reader: Christmas is fast approaching, please, keep out of the harm’s way of our killer cops. “Life no get duplicate”, as they say in my part.
Mahmud, a lawyer and poet, is the president, Public Interest Lawyers League (PILL). He tweets from The Oracle, @Abdulmahmud1.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
