NIGERIANS DECRY THE PERSISTENCE OF ILLEGAL 20 NAIRA “ROGER ME” POLICE CHECKPOINTS

It is indeed an established fact that one of the major streams through which the Nigerian Government is fighting corruption is through the sanitization of the country’s police force. To this end, a lot of efforts have been dissipated towards creating a safer and more secured Nigeria. There have been cases of taskforces been set up, reformations within the rank and file of the police, review of different welfare packages, promotions to deserving officers and men etc.

Despite all these efforts, what baffles the Nigerian public has been the persistent existence of Police checkpoints where motorists are forced to gratify the palms of the officers and men on duty with amounts ranging from 20 naira and above. Such money extorting police checkpoints are popularly called “roger me” checkpoints.

In case they do not know, most of these crimes are very prevalent in the roads away from the cities or metropolis where I suppose supervision or monitoring may be low or not existent. According to private investigations, such scenarios have been cited along the Naze – Nekede road axis leading to the Federal Polytechnic Nekede Owerri, Imo state. It has become fully commercialized and compulsory especially to commercial bus drivers who would have to pay for every trip to and fro the road axis.



Typical Police Checkpoint

Obviously, what face would the Nigerian Police want to have with this lip service paid to the fight against corruption within the force? The force understands their different formations and therefore should know what command, Division and Units control certain areas. Therefore any crime of such manner discovered to have been committed within an area controlled by any Division should be traced to that particular Division.

Let me assume that the high commands of the Nigerian Police Force are blissfully unaware of this persistent shameful act. Sincerely but without mincing words, the confidence of the public in the Nigerian Police Force would only return when Nigerians begin to see Police checkpoints who would stop vehicles solely to conduct professional searches and nothing more. If this achieved, cases of extra-judicial killings and accidental discharges on our roads would stop and the Nigerian public would become more cooperative with the security agencies in releasing information and exposing crime.

Also, kidnappers, armed robbers, transporters of illegal arms and ammunition caches would be stalled and apprehended. The Nigerian society would become truly sanitized and consequently become safer and better secured.

The Federal and State Governments should intensify their efforts in ridding the Police Force of unqualified and corrupt eggs among the rank and file. There should also be an efficient monitoring system that would comb the entire formations of the force to the least units in the rural areas, who would function secretly to investigate and bring to book erring Police officers. The Nigerian public should be empowered more to have a direct means of reporting any existing bribe-collecting police road blocks to a federal taskforce which should be present in all states of the federation.

Generally, the Police Force as a whole should regurlaly device means of accessing the mentality and knowledgability of its rank and file with the view to producing the right crop of mentally-sound police officers who would not stoop so low as to start demanding bribes from innocent Nigerian commuters. These efforts would restore pride to the Nigerian Police as well as facilitate the nation’s drive in fight against corruption because the police is the life blood of an efficient and sanitized crime-free, safe and secured society.