Unravelling Police Image Conundrum 

Title: Media Reports And  Police Image In Re-branding Nigeria
Author: Celestine Msunwi Dickson
Publisher: Pearl Publishers, Port Harcourt
Reviewer: Boye Salau
‘Police is your friend’. This is a hackneyed cliche that usually draws beer parlour jokes among many Nigerians. The homily has also continued to elicit both argumentative and derisive commentaries among scholars. Reasons for this are not far-fetched. The catchphrase is incongruous with the image of the Nigerian police.
From the era of IGP Sunday Adewusi in the 1980s to Tafa Balogun, to the present regime of Usman Alkali Baba, the Nigerian police has created a monstrous image that runs contrary to its establishment and principles. The wild wild West saga of 1983, the DCP Iyamu episode, the Tafa Balogun infamy and the #End SARS protests that rocked the country in 2020 are some of the infamous chapters in the history of the Nigerian police. With the ongoing drug peddling trial of a super cop turned villain, Abba Kyari, the wheel has come full circle.
The Transparent International (TI), in several of its reports, often describes the Nigerian Police as one of the worst harbingers of corrupt practices in the country. This unsalutary epithet has far-reaching impact on Nigeria’s panegyric as the pride of Africa.
But how did the police that was created to check corruption and fight criminality become the harbinger of crimes? How did an important institution such as the police become the scoff of the town? Why and how did the Nigerian police become the butt of jokes and ridicule? These are some of the conundrums that the ‘Media Reports and Police Image in Re-branding Nigeria’ tries to unravel.
Written some 12 years ago by a cop in support of late Professor Dora Akunyili’s Re-branding Nigeria project, the eight-chapter book tries to rationalize the inefficiencies of the Nigerian Police as well as interrogate the role of the mass media in the police enigma.
According to the author, “The recruits are poorly trained because the training facilities are grossly inadequate for such a large number of recruits” (Page 53).
He continues his justifications on page 55 by referring to a statement credited to the former Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Coomasie that “……. anytime a citizen becomes a public figure, his first official correspondence on assuming duty is to write the Inspector General of Police to ask for an orderly and policemen to guard his house … Everybody wants to use the police as a status symbol, yet the members of the organisation remain without accommodation, adequate remuneration, tools to work with, transport to patrol, effective communication and intelligence outfit to support their operation. “
For a man with a huge stake in the Nigerian police, these justifications are not unexpected. He, however, concedes that a significant number of policemen have lost their morale compass due to corrupt practices and utter depravity of humanity.
But while the author tries to project a high moral vibe for the police, he struggles to deflate the hypocritical self-righteousness of the media which he believes holds the torch to the image of the police and the country at large. He argues with greater effort that the negative image being suffered by the police was as a result of misinformation and misrepresentation by the mass media. How true is this assertion? This is where the real challenge lies in ambush for the book.
Needless to say that the media, just like many other institutions with the seething compost of corruption and other abuses, has been variously linked with many ugly episodes that question its ideological puritanism. In spite of its ugly side, the Nigerian Press is adjudged the most vibrant in Africa in terms of informing, educating and entertaining the public. It is, therefore, subjective for Dickson to draw a conclusion as he does on page 56 and 57 that the journalism industry in Nigeria is now left in the hands of quacks who habour hatred and bitterness for the police and whose mission is to misinform, misrepresent and mislead the public.
Is the mass media also responsible for illegal check-points mounted by the policemen across the country to extort money from the public? Was the criminal complicity of DSP Iyamu in the Lawrence Anini saga in 1980s and the ongoing drug peddling trial of Abba Kyari the creation of the media? How did the media contribute to the high level corruption that brought IGP Tafa Balogun from the stardom to the grass? These are some questions that weaken the author’s justifications for police inefficiency in Nigeria.
Nonetheless, Dickson demonstrates rare courage and patriotic zeal in handling his diagnosis of what I will call Nigeria’s unenviable image. The author recognises the might of the pen and argues brilliantly that the Nigerian media holds the key to the building of a new image for the police and, ipso facto, the country. He, therefore, charges the mass media practitioners to focus more on the good sides of the Nigerian society. I agree.
While it is right to assert that the Nigerian media should begin to temper national foibles and idiosyncrasies with something more noble and patriotic, the Nigerian society, especially the police, should also live above board and should not abuse the power of the gun or see itself as an instrument of oppression, coercion, repression, intimidation and exploitation.
Meanwhile, we will be playing to the gallery if the public sees the mass media as an image laundering agent or as a mere tool in the hands of government institutions. Beside its primary assignment of informing, educating and entertaining the public, the media has the onerous responsibility of watching over the public including the police. This function, though, should be devoid of recklessness.
Again, the book would have made more interesting and concise reading if the author had focused only on the theme of the book which borders on media reports and police image, but it veers off to what I can best describe as ‘irrelevant literary expedition’.
Nevertheless, the 160-page book, in spite of its literary deficiencies, unnecessary comments and zigzagged analyses that are often associated with budding writers – the book being the author’s first literary shot, leaves the readers with the assignment of exploring and discovering some facts about the Nigerian police, the mass media and Nigeria at large. The challenges are now yours.

By: Boye Salau