It is a disturbing that the Police are fond of disturbing free flow of traffic with their illegal road blocks in Rivers State.

Few days ago, along Owerri Expressway, some uniformed men suspected to be policemen pulled over a commercial bus and the driver showed his papers which were complete. The Policemen refused to let him go all for the sake of twenty Naira.

The bus was still parked there when a huge trailer came on high speed and crushed the driver, the bus with the passengers inside including a nursing mother with her baby, all died in the accident.

The policemen fled the place, shortly after the accident.

If you ask me, most policemen in this country are not supposed to be policemen, because they do not know their jobs. It is either they are somewhere constituting nuisance, all in the name of performing their duties. At least, they should look for a very good location to mount their check points on the roads or highways.

So if we are talking about rebranding our country, the police should be a very good place to start from. The police take bribery making it mandatory by collecting money from all the commercial drivers along the road. They constitute national embarrassment not minding if a foreigner is watching them or not.

Speaking of rebranding, the police need to be retrained physically, mentally, spiritually and psychologically. This retraining exercise has to be done nationwide because it is not only the policemen in Rivers State who collect bribe neither are they the only ones corrupt in the country. The extortion by the Police is a national issue and should be treated as such.

The government if possible should place an order that the exercise should be carried out from the top to the bottom. Because the officers at the top are more corrupt than the ones we see everyday on the road. In fact they are the worst culprits of this bad habit that has ruined the reputation of the Police in this country.

The police take bribe so careless that sometimes I wonder if the saying that “the Police are your friends and not your enemy” is true.

Because how can you call somebody who collects bribe from civilians for the release of criminals who were caught in the act.

Bribe collection is like a normal thing in Nigeria, that foreigners might think that the citizens are the ones paying the Police monthly.

Just imagine travellers coming from Aba spending more than two hours to get to Port Harcourt, not because the road is bad or they encountered accident on the way. But within every two miles you see Police checkpoints everywhere. Some of them no longer stand on the road to check the buses or cars, they just sit under shaded trees and the drivers come down from their bus to give them the money. So if a driver is to stop and give money in other check points like that, how long would it take the driver to his destination?

Some of those policemen act like crazy people. If not how else can you explain a policeman firing shot at an unarmed civilian. They take laws into their hands and persecute without justification. The power given to them gets into their heads so much so that they no longer differenate the good from the bad; neither do they see evil in the oppression of powerless and innocent civilians.

In most cases policemen have been caught with other robbers. The robbers sometimes even accuse the police to be their arms suppliers. Despite the money extorted from commercial drivers, their salaries, the police still involve themselves in criminal acts like supplying robbers with weapons, their uniform as well as engage in robbery.

In spite of enhanced pay, police cannot stop corruption, because even if the government decides to pay the rank and file in the police force a million Naira, he cannot stop his daily extortion from the commercial bus drivers.

Therefore the need for rebranding is very important and should be taken seriously by the government of this country.

As the saying goes that one bad egg can spoil a dozen more, if not removed from the basket filled with good eggs. So  the government should remove the bad officers in high places?

The government should make sure that workshops are attended by senior officers first so as to enable them instruct their younger or junior officers to attend the training programme as well.

If the government can take some of the senior and junior officers from different states of the country abroad in the United States and see how the Police force in the US operate, just the way the governor of Rivers State is taking some teachers abroad to train them more about teaching.

If all these views are considered, in no time Nigerian Police will be one of the most respected and Nigeria will not be counted among one of the corrupt countries in Africa.

The police should appreciate that outside the uniform, they are also like any other Nigerian that will one day seek the help of taxi drivers, medical doctors, and engineers or even traders in the market place. They should know that no matter the power given to them by the government, we are nothing but pencil in the eyes of our creator.

The issue of road blocks should be dealt with by mounting road blocks in good places and within reasonable distances and the collecting of money from commercial drivers should stop as well as harassing and oppressing of innocent citizen.

If all the facts are put into practice then the Police will be known as peace makers and not the enemy.

Oyibodudu resides in Port Harcourt.

Lilian Oyibodudu