Change begins with you; change begins with me, say No to CORRUPTION. The advertisement kept rolling as I watched the 9:00 pm news on cable TV. Ask me not what station it was, for that’s a story for another day. While the news was still on, I received a notification from a post on Instagram. ‘Police is your friend; don’t give and receive bribe. Be the change you want to see…’ I watched this video over and over again. I was forced to ask myself if I was being targeted; same message in one night!
I finally looked up at my mum who was spread on her favorite chair in the parlor munching her favorite fruit, Cucumber. ‘Mummy, police is your friend’. She turned sharply to look at me with her brows raised almost choking on her cucumber. ‘Which police? Your police or my police?’ I was a bit confused. ‘Mummy I’m saying that police, the normal police you and I know, are our friends so we can approach them if we are in danger.’ ‘But I didn’t say I did not hear you the first time. I’m only asking which of the police; Nigerian police? The one I know or the one you know because the one I know is ‘more than a friend’.
In fact, the other day as I was going to Udua Nka (a market in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria), one bike man (motorcyclist) rode into my side mirror and totally uprooted it. On my way back from the market, ‘police, ‘your friend’, stopped me. I opened my boot, showed my papers and one asked what happened to my side mirror, I explained. Then, he said he’s not sure the car is mine even after seeing the papers and my driver’s license. Then, the other one added that it’s a crime to drive around without side mirror as if I enjoyed it. ‘Mummy, I chipped in, how does that relate to police being more than a friend?’ ‘It does oh! It does! My friend would have understood what happened that day. Mama Choir (a nickname for one of her friends) would have understood but because ‘police is more than a friend, they did not oh! They did not! Mummy exclaimed.’
Just then, the advertisement came up again as the news was rounding up. ‘Police is your friend…’ ‘Where is that remote?’ Mummy changed the channel before advert finished. I went back to reading comments on the police post on Instagram.
Image Credit: Daily Post Nigeria