The incoming New Year is a time to remember departed souls who will not celebrate the occasion. Many departed as a result of old age or some type of untreatable ailment, while others suffered tragic circumstances such as road accidents.
Many of the departed were “big men” who were lavishly buried and will be long remembered. However, too many were Nigerian policemen being killed in the line of duty who will never be celebrated and whose faces will never be known. They were not big men whose passing was recorded on multiple full-page adverts in the national press, or TV obituary announcements.
As 2022 winds down and Nigerians prepare to celebrate the festive season, most road travellers will agree that the biggest nuisance, apart from kidnappers and robbers, is the plethora of police checkpoints openly extorting money. It’s routine for incoming Inspector-Generals of Police to announce checkpoint bans that make no difference to the rank and file. There is total cynicism over the police motto; “police is your friend”. The behaviour of police at checkpoints has made them lose public support because they appear as more of an irritant than a protector.
In spite of all this, our policemen deserve much sympathy. According to data obtained from the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a website that tracks violent incidents related to political, economic and social grievances, as of August 2022, 138 policemen had been killed in 2022. The killings cut across states, and indeed, only 12 out of 36 states had not experienced any at the time of the report.
Taking the life of a policeman is akin to attacking society as a whole. It goes without saying that anyone prepared to end the life of a police officer, is prepared to do the same to anybody else. There is no denying that many elements within the NPF have contributed to staining its reputation, but this is no excuse for the shoddy manner in which deceased policemen and their families are treated. Rather than be feted as national heroes, slain policemen are quickly forgotten and the family problems they left behind are placed on the back burner.
Recently, there has been an alarming rising wave of daredevil attacks resulting in the killing of police officers. These days, the NPF consistently blames the killings on unknown gunmen, whereas back in the “good old days” police killers were quickly identified and declared wanted.
It’s a scandal that these days the NPF seems unable to put a face or give identity to those killing them. Nigerian policemen die gallantly while protecting others, but their right to good preservation and decent state burials is compromised by denied or delayed approval.
It’s no news that the families of slain policemen are neglected. Police authorities assert that delay in paying benefits is inevitable because there are “legal considerations” for other claims. For example, when it comes to pensions and gratuities, the next-of-kin must be verified.
However, such excuses do not explain why police widows consistently complain of being “totally ignored”. The truth is that the NPF doesn’t adequately reward its members who lost their lives on duty. As such, the men have no real incentive to fight violent crime because they know that if they are killed, then their families will be in trouble and will suffer.
Not only is the NPF failing to pay all the financial benefits owed to the families of slain officers, who tend to be the lower rank and file, but it has been reported that in some cases, sexual favours or kickbacks have been demanded from widows, leading to the dismissal from the force for those involved in such behaviour.
While campaigning for the fast approaching 2023 elections, every candidate has promised to improve internal security. This requires massively increasing manpower, welfare, equipment, transportation, communications and death benefits of policemen. In the USA slain policemen are given state burials, at which their widows are given a national flag, and all financial benefits are paid immediately.
The death benefits available to surviving families can amount to over $400,000 and include children’s education benefits, state benefits, workers’ compensation, pension, funeral benefits as well as other miscellaneous benefits.
In Nigeria, families of slain policemen routinely cover the expenses of returning the corpse home for burial. The effect of this is that so many children of slain American policemen join the force when they see the honour done to their parents. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, dependents of slain police officers openly state that the police authorities have disappointed them and they would not pray for anybody to become a policeman!
Death benefits, of course, cost money. The Minister of Police Affairs says the proposed budget of N871 billion for 2023 is inadequate, as indeed it is. A comparison between the 2023 police budget and the National Assembly budget reveals that while approximately N300 million is budgeted for each legislator, N2.3 million is budgeted for each policeman!
It is cruel, wicked and unjust for the National Assembly to pass a budget spending so much money on itself and the Presidency while the families of those killed maintaining law and order suffer. If their families cannot be adequately rewarded for making the ultimate sacrifice, then nobody should expect to be protected by the police, who will be busy protecting themselves.
