Police brutality in africa
Police brutality in africa
While in Montreal, Canada in 1978, I watched a film with the title "The Untamed Frontiers" I was incensed with the content of the film. It was a portray of the black Africans in their original forms, with neither clothes nor shoes, completely enmeshed in cannibalism and unwavering brutality to one another. My friends and I watching the same film were in one accord, condemning the whites for portraying the blacks in such negative light, manifesting man's inhumanity to man.
What happened in that film took place many centuries ago even before the white man set his feet on the African soil. But today, can the situation be said to be different? Is the use of police and law-enforcement agents to maim, kill and perpetrate all sorts of atrocities by our leaders and politicians still not in vogue in all corners of Africa? From the cap to the toe of Africa, there are visible evidences where the police ( including personal guards) who are meant to maintained law and order, be the friends of the people, are used against the people.
In South Africa, apartheid government thrived and was sustained for so long by the brutal use of police against the people. Our eyes are not shut against the not so long ago government of Field-Marshal, Alhaji Idi Amin Dada of Uganda who trained his police and personal guards only to kill his people over who he proudly and brutally ruled. The world watched in silence and helplessly as rival Presidents turned police and other law-enforcement agents against the people over who they sought to rule. Many went into the gallows while thousands were made refugees in their own country.
In Sudan and Somalia the story is worse. The armed leader organized rival groups and turned the gun against the people. As I write and reflect, the blood of Africans is flowing from the African guns turned against Africans. African police and other law-enforcement agents have been so trained to be hard-heartened, given that type of orientation by African leaders and politicians that all the blood of humanness has been drained out of their veins, that human life, to them is less than that of the life of a chicken which can be slaughtered at will. Take a cursory look at Zimbabwe where opposition is stifled and life sniffed out of them by the police. Was the case better in Abacha's Nigeria, where serial and systematic killings were on unleashed on the opposition by the police and other secret agents of the government. Lawrence Ngbagbo of Cote d' Voire is at it, doing exactly what his African brothers in crimes against humanity are doing. He is deploying effectively the police and other law-enforcement agents to perpetrate himself into power, even though the people have said NO to him in the ballot box. He is wasting the lives of the people he claimed to have voted for him.
In northern Africa, police has been brutally used to murder peaceful protesters. Yesterday it was in Egypt where Mubarak, who knew he was already sinking, used the police against his people. Colonel Gadaffi is on the rampage muzzling, maiming and killing his people over who has ruled since 1969 at the age of twenty- nine. The maniac who could not read the handwritings on the walls of Tunisia and Egypt, has deployed his police and law-enforcement agents to kill, and so far he has over a thousand bodies of his compatriots for a sumptuous dinner before he takes a sure exits from the government house, a house he has occupied for the past forty-two years.
The question that bothers my heart is "who are the police working for"? Do African police see themselves as serving the people who make up the state, or the political leaders who are mere opportunists and whose stay in power is temporary and transient? If they are to serve the people, why kill the same people who are out to demonstrate peacefully against the wrong doings which include elections-rigging, misrule, inordinate ambition of their leaders to rule for life. The police, I know are members of the society who also would suffer the misrule or otherwise of any government. It therefore follows that the first loyalty should go to the people and not the political leaders. In countries outside Africa, peaceful protests are generally monitored by disciplined police who at times exchange cigarettes and other pleasantries with the protesters
Many a times, have police shot dead protesting students in African universities. There had been mysterious deaths and disappearances in the police cells, arrests of innocent citizens, christening them armed robbers and summarily doing away with them. There are many times when trigger-happy policemen would run amock, killing innocent citizesn and at the end, nothing is done. The list is long and it happens daily in many African countries. It was only last week a court in Abuja, Nigeria gave a verdict that a policeman should die by hanging for unlawfully killing an innocent taxi-driver. This is a plus for the President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria that it is in his time that the police force is being made to sit up. Prior to this time, the police has thrived in its brutality with impunity without government raising an eye-brow. The silence of a leader at crimes perpetrated by its citizen encourages the citizen to graduate to the next level in his undesirable acts against the people. Instead of African leaders to punish erring police or law-enforcement agents that have brutalized the people, the leaders encourage them and eventually use them against the people. Life, indeed is very cheap in Africa, and it can be taken by the leaders with impunity, using law-enforcement agents
The world stays watching with arms folded while African leaders use their law enforcement agents against the people. The world hides under the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a country. How long did it take the two Bushes of the USA to move into Iraq and removed Sadam Husein, when it was clear that he was becoming dangerous to his people? Gadaffi is there, comfortably bestriding his people and silently eliminating them. The USA is watching. The recalcitrant Ngbagbo is there, not only forcing himself on the people who have rejected him, but also systematically using police brutality to eliminate his so-called "beloved people". The USA is watching and waiting for African leaders who themselves, have no clean hands so as to come to equity, in order to solve the Ivorian problem. If Ngbagbo was not depending on the brutality of his law-enforcement agents to keep him in power, he would have long abdicated and handed power over to Watara, the peoples' choice. The brutality of the law-enforcement agents in Africa has become a grave problem, militating against democracy, good governance and the general development and the welfare of the people. It has, sadly though, entrenched in every country of Africa, corruption, election malpractices, abject poverty of the people in an alarming rate, and the perpetration of political leaders into elongated terms or life-rulership in their various countries. When will Africa be out of the woods as far as true democracy and good governance is concerned? Choose Cyprus villas for the ultimate stay Wonderful holiday packages of the world Explore thrilling India - Jaipur holiday packages India- A perfect Honeymoon destination Wonderful tourism packages – Ooty, Jodhpur and AP Tourism Banned Probably Not the Best Bet for the Triple Crown Villas that will Never let you forget the Holidays Villas on Rent – Here is a Guide to take you on an Imaginative Tour Major tourist activities in Uganda Kerala Holiday - Visit to the Celestial State of India Isle of Wight Festival Attractions Annual Travel Insurance: Make your Annual Travel Trips Secured Innovation of Synthetic Playing Surfaces in Australia