By Lanre Olagunju
There is something curious about the Nigerian relationship with the police. We complain about them. We criticise them. We film them. We sometimes mock them. But when the armed robbers arrive, we call the police. When kidnappers invade a community, we call the police.
When violence breaks out at night, when a missing child needs to be found or when an armed criminal is on the loose, the same institution many Nigerians love to hate suddenly becomes the institution we expect to save us.
But what do we owe those we ask to protect us?
Nigeria has lost police officers repeatedly this year while they were doing the job we expect them to do. Since March, publicly reported incidents alone show at least 21 police officers killed in eight separate operational incidents that I could verify.
Two officers were killed at a border checkpoint in Kebbi in March. Four died while repelling a terrorist attack in Borno in April. Three Explosive Ordnance Disposal officers were killed by an IED in Zamfara in June. Two were killed at a checkpoint in Rivers, while another two died following a patrol crash in Imo. Two more police officers were killed in Zamfara in July.
Then came Benue. Four Mobile Police officers were killed defending Ayilamo on 10 September. Four days later, two newly deployed officers were killed in an ambush while escorting the Divisional Police Officer back to the community. That is six policemen dead in one community within days.
These are not numbers on a spreadsheet. They had names. They had parents. They had wives. They had children who will now grow up with stories about fathers who left home to work and did not return.
Consider the three EOD officers killed in Zamfara in June. Superintendent Abdulrazak Musa Hassan, Inspector Murtala Musa and Inspector Auwal Ahmad were part of a team responding to a suspected explosive device planted along the Anka-Bagega road.
Their mission was to clear a route made dangerous by an IED. The device exploded before they could neutralise it.
This is one of those jobs that most of us would rather not imagine doing. Someone has to approach the bomb. Someone has to inspect it. Someone has to decide how to make it safe. And sometimes, that someone does not come home.
The tragedy is that we can become so accustomed to hearing about dead policemen that the news barely stops us anymore. Perhaps that is part of the problem.
We should be careful here. Respecting the police does not mean pretending every police officer is innocent, professional or beyond criticism.
They are not. Where officers abuse their powers, citizens must be able to speak up, document wrongdoing and seek justice.
That distinction matters in the current argument about filming police officers. The Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, recently said Nigerians should not turn policemen into social-media skits, describing indiscriminate filming as demoralising.
But he also acknowledged that citizens have the right to record officers performing their duties in public. The NBA President, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, similarly supported the right to record officers while calling for clearer boundaries around privacy and accountability.
That seems like the sensible conversation. A citizen should be able to document misconduct. But should a policeman who is risking his life in a dangerous operation also become entertainment because someone happened to have a smartphone?
There is a difference between accountability and humiliation. There is also a difference between criticism and contempt.
There is another part of this conversation that Nigerians can influence directly: welfare.
A police officer who spends a significant portion of his salary getting to work is carrying a burden before the shift even begins. This is why the recent Lagos initiative is worth watching. The state has provided 2,000 Cowry Cards giving police officers three months of free access to BRT, rail and electric boat services, followed by a proposed 50% fare discount.
That is not a substitute for better policing. It is not a reward for misconduct. It is simply recognition that welfare and performance are connected.
The private sector can do more. Air Peace, for example, has been acknowledged by the police for providing rebates and special boarding arrangements for officers.
Why not extend the idea? Why should a serving police officer not receive modest discounts at selected pharmacies, supermarkets, transport companies, bookshops or educational institutions?
Why should companies not create scholarship schemes for children of officers who die in service?
The Police Officers’ Wives Association (POWA), under the leadership of the president, Olufunmilola Disu, has already shown what is possible.
Through a partnership with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), it secured a $200,000 master’s scholarship programme for five children of police officers to study in the United Kingdom. It has also supported scholarships, nursing education, medical outreaches and welfare programmes for families of police officers.
These gestures matter because a policeman does not leave his family behind when he puts on his uniform. He carries them with him. And when he dies, they remain.
Perhaps Nigerians need a new phrase. Not because the police should be above scrutiny, but because those who serve should not be beneath appreciation.
Thank an officer. Support an officer. Demand professionalism from an officer. Report an officer who abuses power. Protect the right of citizens to demand accountability. But also remember that the person standing at that checkpoint is human.
In America, “Thank you for your service” is often used for members of the armed forces and security services. Nigeria need not copy another country’s culture wholesale. But we could borrow the principle.
Before we ask the police to sacrifice everything for the country, perhaps we should ask ourselves a simpler question: What are we doing to make it worth their while to keep standing between us and danger?
Because a country cannot endlessly demand courage from people it refuses to honour.
And if we want better policing, perhaps the first step is not simply asking the police to do better. Perhaps it is also asking whether we, as a society, are doing enough to help them do better.
Lanre Olagunju wrote in from Abuja
