My First Encounter with the Police
Over here, the government always talk about freedom of speech and all of that stuff but the truth is that if you're a Nigerian or someone who has stayed in this country, you will know that that is all bullshit talk. I mean not too long ago, a man was arrested and locked up just because he named his dog after the president, his dog was also killed. So you see, we don't really practise freedom of anything and that is probably one of the reasons why the police harass the common citizens because they know nothing will be done to them.
The first time I had a real police encounter was when I traveled home from school to go spend some time with the family. My mom had sent me om an errand to go buy so meats and on my way there, this guy holding an AK47 came down from a bus and asked me to stop. He roughly searched me as if an informant had told him something about me. He had asked me where I was going to and I told I wanted to go buy meat and he said I was lying that I was going to buy some weed.
Luckily for me, the whole thing didn't escalate and I was set free, probably because of my innocent face. It's important to note that those men could have easily arrested me for no crime at all without anybody knowing while my family would be at home, waiting for their son and some meat.
Well that wasn't my scariest encounter with them. That one happened on my way back to school. I had boarded a private vehicle because I heard it was faster and I really wanted to get home before dark because whenever I travel, I always arrive at my hostel by 9pm or something around that time.
It turned out that I should have just stuck to my usual public transport because this time, we got stopped twice. And every time we were stopped, I was always the one they paid most interest on and that was because I was the youngest in that vehicle. For some reason they believe old people don't do cyber crimes, only the young ones.
One of the officers had searched my phone and even went ahead to turn on my laptop, probably searching for his girlfriend's picture. The reason why I say this is the scariest is because both stop and searched had happened in two completely different states in the country that I wasn't familiar with, so if this guys had seen something (maybe the picture of a white lady who probably was my friend), I would have been handcuffed and taken to their station.
I ended up getting home past twelve midnight and that was the last time I boarded a private transport. I'm not doing that again because I never want to experience any of that harassment anymore.
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Hello Prayzz...you know how incompetent our Nigerian police can be. Most times, they even miss the main people to check and still claim to be doing a good job. I will also encourage you to avoid night travel while going back to school. We just need to play safe in this country to avoid unnecessary ugly stories.
Glad your encounter wasn't bad.
Take care and do have a lovely week😇👏👌👍💪
I don't travel at night.. Haven't tried it and never will. I was traveling from Lagos to Imo state and our vehicle left around 7am in the morning.. I just pray never to experience anything like that again.
Quite the similarity with the situation here, but we are in a much better state, in terms police brutality, violence and abuse of power, I guess.
The only encounter I remember was probably back in 2018, quite a funny one too, because I knew they couldn't do shit to me. I was heading home from a nearby area, had just finished my IETLS exam, so I was walking down the side of the road.
Sadly for me, there was a police check post up ahead, which I knew about, and had crossed many times before, but this one was different. I was actually on the opposite side of the check post; yet, the the two cops called me over from this side to theirs, while waving at me at me and calling me over like a bunch of crazy fan girls haha. So, I crossed the road and they had a few questions to ask, some really dumb questions too(as always) they checked my papers and ID and all was good. Yet, I knew why I was called over, because I was a young buff dude with long hair who was just minding his business, and they just felt as if outnumbering me would give them a chance to bully me.
I've been in this area for over two decades now, these check posts didn't even exist when I was walking through these areas as a kid, only God knows what these incompetent blokes were doing back then. Sadly, if they get their hands on someone who's new in the area, then I can't even imagine the abuse they'd have to face.
Over here, I don't even walk past their check post, I follow another route instead because those guys will look for something so stupid just to extort you or take you to the station. And once you get to the station, you can never leave unlike you bail yourself out.
It's terrible over here. Sometimes they take people to bushes or abandoned uncompleted buildings like kidnappers do, then they force you to pay them cash.. And if you don't have cash, they escort you to the ATM machine to withdraw some money. They don't take transfers because that's evidence.
I can imagine, I've heard about the scenario over there, a couple of times, but now it's all confirmed.
Luckily for us, the worst we've seen is harassment and the framing of innocent pedestrians, murders of innocents too, in extreme cases that is. Yet, the most common scenario is when the police themselves plant some drugs into a passer-by when performing a body checkup. Many innocents have experienced this, for some it's nothing less than a mental scar. Harassment is also quite common, just depends on which area you're walking through and at what time exactly.
Funny, how the police were supposed to be protectors and defenders who people would go to for protection and help, but it's actually the opposite in most countries. People rather try their best to avoid the "po-po" even if they're innocent.
You see everything you just mentioned, it happens here too. It's scary bro.
You can't even go report a case to the police, you will have to pay them first (money for fuel they call it 😂) before they can come help... And when they come, they will just arrest anybody they see, just so that the person will bail his or herself out which equals to more money in their pocket.
It's crazy.
Money is the motive, crazy indeed.