IF the conduct of the Lagos State command of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) during the recent Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) strike is an indication of what citizens should expect from the service going forward, then the force can begin to compare favourably with its counterparts in the civilised climes. Not a few people were pleasantly surprised to see police personnel treating protesters courteously and even in a friendly manner. The police acted well and kept no one in doubt that they recognised the right of the protesters to ventilate their grievances. This was diametrically opposed to their accustomed disdainful treatment of protesters as if they were enemies of the state who should be hounded, brutalised and humiliated. If the police do this more often, the tension between them and the populace will reduce and the meaning of the mantra, “police is your friend”, which many hitherto tended to construe in the obverse because of their horrible experiences with some personnel of the service, will now begin to be embraced as the catchphrase finds concrete expression in police conduct.
It is also worthy of note that the protesters were not unruly and, for us, that is not really surprising because we know that it was the high-handedness of the police against protesters in the past that usually provoked them to be boisterous and riotous. And as if to accentuate the police’s seemingly sudden transformation, its operatives in Lagos State were spotted distributing bottled water and biscuits to protesting members of the NLC. This friendly and courteous disposition of the personnel promises to signal a new lease of life in the police-citizen relationship, provided that the conduct was not staged just to achieve a momentary end. In any case, the service has just set a standard against which its future conduct at crowd control and management of civil protests will be measured. To be sure, no one in the future will expect the police to perform less than its Lagos command did.
Economic hardship is biting the citizenry hard by the day as a result of the Federal Government’s policies which it claims are meant to correct age-long distortions and imperfections in the management of the domestic economy. And the negative spin-offs from the policies have made many miserable amid improper and suboptimal administration of palliatives, particularly at the subnational levels, which has in turn exacerbated the pains of the citizenry, especially the poor. It would have been tantamount to insensitivity on the part of the NLC not to stand with and indeed act on behalf of the masses even as it pursued its own demands for the workers which the government has yet to meet fully. It was against this backdrop that the NLC staged a protest across the country, and it was the same unwanted strike in official circles that brought out what would appear to be the new and good side of the police in the Lagos command.
The protesters had gathered around the Ikeja area of Nigeria’s economic capital to register their grievances over the rising cost of living in the country. Meanwhile, the chief law officer of the land, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), had warned the NLC not to proceed with the strike which he labelled as unlawful. According to him, the protest would be contemptuous of the extant ruling of a court of competent jurisdiction. The Federal Government’s body and verbal language was enough for the police to be hostile to the protesters. However, the police did not just provide security for the protesters, but its operatives were captured in a van handing out bottled water and snacks to the demonstrators who marched through the streets! That is commendable even as it renews citizens’ hope that the police are capable of reforming and modernising as a lead agency in the maintenance of internal security as well as safety of life and property. Perhaps the police are beginning to realise that the organised labour is also fighting for them since they, too, are federal workers and not insular to the current economic hardship.
It would not matter at whose behest or at what level of the command chain the exemplary conduct of the Lagos Police command was authored and effected; we recommend that similar conduct be replicated across board. There tends to be good police examples from Lagos command that are worthy of emulation and the police authorities are urged not to squander, but to build on the goodwill to burnish their perennially sullied image. Yes, there is suspicion that the police’s good conduct may have been stage-managed but it is up to the police authorities to defeat the rumour by ensuring that the conduct of their personnel in the Lagos command is replicated whenever and wherever they are faced with similar circumstances.
