Benin Violence: Looking Beyond the Surface

By Ohikhuare Isuku

Hoodlums have hijacked the peaceful protest in Benin-Ciy. Robbery, arsons, rapes, intimidations, etc have been reported across the city. On Monday 19th, the worst yet happened: there was a jailbreak, and from the videos circulating the online space, thousands of inmates may have been let into the wild. 

But my curiosity is: how did a peaceful protest meant to press home key demands for the betterment of our country degenerate to such a shameful anarchy? How did a federal correction facility meant to be fortified by humans and technology become so exposed to be broken into?

There is a painful irony that bares itself in all these occurrences, and it points to the fact that our systems which gulp billions of our budgets to maintain on a yearly basis are in real sense wobbly fortresses which break down when a little quake occurs. 

It should be noted that pockets of violence are normalities of purposeful and genuine struggles in every clime and time. Sure, we'll have anarchists among us who will lend themselves to be used by the oppressors to foil the struggle for a better life. But this won't deter us. We must run this race to the finishing line and touch the tape with our torsos. We move! 

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Police Reform is Long Overdue

 by Ohikhuare Isuku

In April 2013, right before my eyes, some policemen opened fire on a group of defenseless youths in front of a shed. The policemen didn’t point their guns upward when they fired neither did they aim at the legs of their victims. The firing was direct. It could have hit their heads or chests if they had not miraculously escaped. Later on, when the vicious policemen had gone with the victims they were able to arrest – bonded away like animals to be slaughtered – I began to ask what the root of the provocation was. Were they criminals? Have they been condemned by a reputable law court? The revelations I got from those around shocked me. It happened that the only crime of these young men was showing grievance against the local election which had been rigged with impunity by the incumbent government. A local leader in the area who was pro-government had ordered policemen to open fire on these youths in order to stem the agitations which may arise as a result of the ruined election. This is just one of the thousands of cases where the NPF have been used by the powerful people to oppress, maim and kill defenseless Nigerians.

            It’s not uncommon for a wealthy man to call the police on a poor man just because the later is packing his keke close to his camry. These things happen on daily basis. Take a ride around the busy routes of Lagos especially in still traffic and see how the wealthy threaten commuters with the statement: “I’ll beat you up and lock you up! You won’t be released until I ask the police to do so.” And most times, this threat is followed by action. A little scratch on his car because of his own recklessness and the big man jumps out from his car, dishes some blows on his poor victim while dialing a police contact he knows to come and whisk the common man away. And as you’d guess, the police will only work for those with fat pockets.

            Like all public institutions in this collapsing republic, the rich have hijacked the police for their own salvation. From the suppression of justice to the oppression and extortion of the masses, the police have deviated from their core responsibility of enforcing the law to breaking it, inflicting untold hardship on poor Nigerians. The time to overhaul the entire police structure is now. There’s no going back. Police brutality, injustice and extortion against poor Nigerians must end. Time for an utter police reform has come.

 

Ohikhuare Isuku

 

 

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