By Tosin Adesile
There is no doubt that today’s Police is at the lowest ebb and needs radical change in all ramification-SARS,RRS and other units of the force.
The issue of police harassment, extortion and brutality has been on for quite sometimes and the government has failed to address the issue not until recently when the people can no longer condone the excess of the Nigerian Police.
This has led the nationwide protest which had invariably crippled economic activities in some parts of the countries but there seems to be no end to this mirage because the government had looked down on the youth for a long time.
The Protest tagged #Endsars had escalated beyond police reform to other demands like good governance, human right abuse and compensation to victims of police brutality.
The height of the matter was the declaration of 24 hour curfew in Lagos and the military shooting at unarmed protesters even before the deadline of the curfew, this has led to an uproar which gave power to the hoodlums to break into malls and burn down building in annoyance.
As i write, many youths had taken to the streets blocking roads to show their grievances and there are a lot of stories on police brutality which a serious government needs to listen to and engineer reform. It doesn’t necessary mean disbanding of SARS and announcement of another name “SWAT”, this is too early. Changes are not effected hastily, they are carefully studied.
As a proactive government with the interest of the people at heart, dialogue remains the best option and not harassment of innocent protesters with gunshots, it is never an option.
During the 12-14 days protest, lives had been lost, the country economy had suffered yet the presidency had continued to remain mum blaming all on political agenda which makes no meaning if we have a responsible government.
As it stands now, the people have lost hope in the government and this will need a lot of assurance and reassurance to be able to convince the people that government meant business this time around.
The Federal Government had its weekly Federal Executive Council meeting on the 21st October 2020, and at the end of the meeting, the president was yet to speak nor did the meeting came up with an outcome on the current impasse despite various calls by the people and international organizations.
The time to restructure Nigeria is now when all its citizen had turned active. They are ready to put hands together to have a Nigeria of our dreams starting from Police reform to ending bad governance.
From the Police perspective, government needs to look at the welfare of Police which happens to be the major issue that had pushed them to extortion, begging and all sorts of malfeasance activities on the high way. To report a case at the police station, you must pay, this is disheartening.
I therefore call on the president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari to take the humble pie and address its citizen at this crucial point in our lives when a father needs to step in and salvage the situation from going worse.
Nigeria koni baje!
