The Secret Behind Bribery and Corruption in The Nigeria Police: 'Decent Sinners'

We need to get to the roots of some issues, then we will realise that the innocent ones are the ones that we often point fingers at. The top men and women stay somewhere messing with the lives of the junior ones and paint them as evils, whereas they are the wicked, unruly demons. I'm so glad to meet this hardworking and humble Federal Chief that has passion for his work and love for the community. He doesn't want his name to be mentioned, he humbly called himself a 'decent sinner'.

I started with a straightforward and tough question:

What about the bribe some police take sir? My dear, there are more to the bribe business than the ordinary know.. I will be right back, he said. When he came back, I was not really interested in asking him further questions on bribery and corruption, because I thought he was trying to avoid the question. I was wrong, he came back and said to me, "so back to bribery and corruption in the Nigeria Police" Then I continued...

I know about the bad salary and poor standard of living; what else? Thank God you know about the bad salary and poor standard of living; what about lack of the wherewithal to do the job? I'm not a saint when it comes to corruption, but sincerely I don't take delight in it.

If you are not a saint, how come you don't take delight in it? Good, it sounds like a contradiction. Rght? Let me cite some examples of the work I do and how I do it. I send men on patrol to the town, 24/7 work. Nobody anywhere cares how I get fuel for my patrol vehicles, All they care about is that my men are visible everywhere. Each of these vehicles takes 80 litres of fuel, 80 x 145 =11.600, times two vehicles are 23.200.

Yes, So what do you do? To keep the vehicles on the road I must task some people in a surreptitious way.

How? That's where 'bribery' comes into it. These are the issues the authorities don't want people to know about.

Which department oversees of giving the money to fuel the vehicles? The Headquarters. Let's drop this issue, let's just say I see myself as a 'decent sinner'; I take from the community to cater for the community.

How do you tell your boys to ask for bribe? I don't need to.

If a member of the public should come to you and say, "Sir, one of your officers with so, so and so number just forced me to bribe him, I'm here to report the indecent act". What would you do, knowing the fact that you permit them to do so?  Hmmmmmmmm, I can see that I'm dealing with a stubborn, tenacious lady! Smiling...

Tell me please: Well, if the truth be told; you see, really people are not complaining about these demands for money.

Yes, they are! Ok, yes I am, please tell me: Their complaints majorly are based on the impunity in which policemen make the demands, and the arrogance displayed by the policemen, and the offence policemen take when you don't give, I have had instances when I received complaints from members of the public like you asked. I sat them down, I apologized for the conduct of my men, I explained to them why the men demanded for the money. 

So what's their response? The people explained that their anger was in the manner of approach, and at the end the same people asked me if the money they already gave would be enough.

Hahaha...enough for what? My dear, that's the height of hypocrisy. They had a problem of crime in their community and they needed constant patrols to raid off some suspected criminal hangouts.

Do you ever think one day, corruption will be a thing of the past in Nigeria, particularly in the police? We can change this ugly situation if we all agree to be honest. You see, at times when people talk about the corruption in the Police I tend to get seriously angry.

Why? Good question...I think you should be able to answer that question from the revelations coming out from the probe of the arms deal. They have been sharing the money! They steal with reckless abandonment, while some people are dying due to lack of equipment, some people were busy stealing the money meant for our equipment....do you know how many men I lost in Borno State during the onslaught against Boko Haram? I'm yet to get over the loss...

I had a two-year appointment with United Nations some couple of years back; I was amazed at how the system works, and I was able to perform maximally. I came back home, wrote how we can copy the system of the United Nations police, and adapt it into the Nigeria Police.

What happened? I was given a rousing applause, at the Force Headquarters...end of the story.

You are a leader too; so what are you doing to eradicate bribery and corruption? I'm trying my best. Sincerely, I once said at a forum that any person vying for a political post should undergo a psychiatric examination first. The truth is that the greed amongst African politicians is insanely high. We may be calling them thieves, when in fact they are just psychiatric patients; there's this medical term for a psychiatric disorder that makes one compulsively acquire properties...somebody bought two houses worth 400 million each for two sons..it's sheer wickedness where millions of people do not have  nothing to eat, talk less of a room of their own. Greed in Nigeria is beyond the natural.

Thanks for sharing this story with us: Thank you.