Plight of commercial motorists in the hand of traffic police officers

Muhammed Abass

Nigeria Police is purportedly created to ensure strict adherence to the laws and regulation they are directly charged with. One of such laws is the traffic law which motorists are often found to violate. While the breach of traffic laws is an offence that attracts strict formal sanction, traffic police are expected to always work strictly within procedural law in dealing with suspects. To effectively carry out their duties, traffic officers are empowered to make arrests, keep offenders in custody pending trial, investigate, and prosecute where there are enough evidences for them to do so. Hence, fundamental policing actions are backed by law.

In the course of carrying out his/her official duty, a traffic police officer is allowed to use some measure of force. However, it is expected of an officer to use force only after discussion, negotiation and persuasion have been found to be ineffective. While the use of force is occasionally unavoidable, the Nigerian Police code of Conduct negates the infliction of pain or suffering on suspected traffic offenders. Thus, it is safe to say that there is a legal limit to the amount of force a police officer can exert on a suspect. Unfortunately, these limits are often exceeded by traffic police officers when they come in contact with the not so rich commercial motorists at traffic routes and checkpoints.

Today, we find furious policemen roaming around traffic routes and checkpoints, pointing sticks at public taxi drivers and threatening to inflict bodily harm even before the taxi driver had violated any traffic laws. Recently, I witnessed how a policeman (traffic warden) battered a commercial motorcyclist claiming that the motorcyclist beat the traffic in crossing over to the other side of the road. How can a policeman standing on one side of the road know what is happening on the other side? The motorcyclist was later taken to the station in spite of his repeated protests. It dawned on me that the motorcyclist had just begun to suffer in the hands of men in black. The fact that the self-acclaimed omnipresent policeman assaulted him against constitutional provision could not even save him. He ought to have known that a policeman will always find justification for his misconduct.

Even though the traffic policeman is aware that his overzealousness toward the commercial motorist is a breach of the law and human right provisions, he had prepared and perfected different justifications for his misconducts. A policeman would argue that, he assaulted a wrong doer in order to stop him from fleeing. Do not be astounded when a policeman claims he shot an over speeding commercial motorcyclist in Lagos because he suspected him to be one of the fleeing Boko-Haram terrorists from Maiduguri. If a policeman does not abuse a suspect in public, he is only cautious of the presence of potential witnesses around. He will not falter to do so as soon as he takes the suspect to the police station.

Furthermore, commercial motorists are extorted of their daily proceeds when they come in contact with police at checkpoints. The ‘anything for me’ slogan is for the rich and literate road users whose identity is unknown to the police or who is not afraid of the consequences of not having something for the officer. A public bus driver is quite aware that having something for the officer is the only condition for passing the examination at checkpoints, so he does so even before a request is made by the police. It is not important whether the motorist have in his possession some Improvised Explosive Devices or other contrabands.

However, it is a catch-22 for the commercial motorist who fails to bribe a traffic police at checkpoint. He will first be incriminated, then asked to see a senior officer cooling off somewhere under the tree for remedy. The senior officer’s price is higher and non-negotiable. He threatens the commercial motorist with an arrest and or physical harm. He is not ready to reason with the incriminated suspect for the fact that he has some passengers waiting in the bus. He keeps the motorist until he is willing to pay the N1000 minimum price for violating no extant law.

These and many more police excesses at checkpoints are violations of human rights and legal provisions of the country. It is also a breach of the ethics of the Nigeria Police Force and as such compromises the purpose for which the agency is created. Police officers are expected to refuse any gifts, presents, favors, or promises that could be interpreted as seeking to cause the officer to refrain from performing official responsibilities honestly and within the law. But the reverse is the case in Nigeria.

Virtually every road user in Nigeria has experienced one form of police misconduct or the other. It is disheartening to note that police abuse and corruption have become a routine experience of everyday life of commercial motorists, since they are the most frequent users of the road and high ways. They have lost hope in this institution designed to give them hope. Those charged with the responsibility of police oversight, discipline, and reform have for a long time failed to curtail their excesses and menace, thereby reinforcing impunity on the part of most police officers.

It is against this backdrop that there is urgent need for a reform in the Nigeria Police; a reform that will put an end to the plight of commercial motorists and every other road users in the hands of men of the Nigeria police. This is pertinent for effective crime prevention and control. For, the greatest crime is the one committed by institutions designed to fight it.

Muhammed Abass

Pioneer Graduate of Criminology and Security Studies,

Federal University Dutse, Jigawa State

muhammedabassofficial@gmail.com

+2348068016981