Nigeria Police: The New Internet Scammers

It’s been long I have expected a lot of people to speak on this topic but nothing’s been heard. One wonders why, well one that is concerned wonders  why, well one that is not in government wonders why, well one that is in government is too busy looting to wonder why, well people that are in charge of the NPF (Nigeria Police Force or Nigeria Police’s Fucked) are too busy getting cuts to give a damn, well 90%(or maybe 85% or 80%,statistics is bullocks) of the
Nigerian youth are involved in online scam to wonder why and well one reading this is wondering what he’s supposed to have wondered and still be wondering but has failed to wonder and is now wondering what he’s supposed to have wondered and be wondering. The NPF is the eighth wonder of the world (oh please, sheer incompetence and gross intentional twisting of the law for monetary benefit over a long period of time surely counts).

Of all irregularities and incompetence the NPF is engaged in I have chosen to write on and about the famous question from a typical policeman: ‘what do you do for a living?’. For people unaware of this question, this is what a policeman would ask any guy nowadays so far you have the smallest look of success in or on you. Now the wonder is: why will a private car with a private number plate full of 4 non-uniformed men (trust me, they are always 4) who present themselves as policemen stop just about every guy on the road they come across (sometimes these geniuses choose a spot to park and wait for their customers) and start asking questions and searching their gadgets? Why? The latest level of this ‘anomaly’ is that they request that you take them to your house to search because they are very sure you can’t be looking this good and not be an internet scammer. While I am not a supporter of internet scam, I am wondering when the police force took it upon themselves to take off their uniforms, split every policeman in the station into a group of four and send them out to look for preys, maybe it’s the outcome of such encounters that has brought worries to a lot of people where the policemen actually take cuts from apprehended scammers with money in their hands(and yes, they are only interested in the ones that just scammed someone successfully or had scammed someone and they find evidence indicting him, all which leads to getting a cut). They are only interested in the MONEY. They let them go on the spot or free them from the cell after they can ‘bail’ themselves. Let me give examples from my experiences:

My first encounter with this was in 2012,back then, they had just started the hustle so they used to be in twos everywhere. Let’s say the DPOs of the stations didn’t see this venture as forthcoming so they invested two men in it and as the venture grew and the DPOs got bigger cuts, they invested more resources in it like four men, a car and fuel. YES, that precious fuel the police will tell they don’t have and that you would have to buy when you report a case and want an arrest, YES, that fuel is available when going on this manhunt, after all money back guaranteed and a lot more of it actually. On this fateful day I had my first encounter, I was on a commercial bike and when we got to mokola ( Ibadan, Oyo state), a policeman stopped the bike and told me to ‘get down!!!’, I asked him why still  sitting on the bike. Then he asked if I couldn’t see his uniform, I nodded in affirmative and said ‘so why did you have to shout?’, then he said ‘ok, come down’. I got down and the bike man asked to be paid so he could go (I think he was used to that kind of scenario), I did and off he went. Next the policeman asked for my name (in a very accusive tone, that’s how they all talk), I told him and then came the famous line I was to be familiar with later; ‘what do you do for a living?’ and I answered ‘why? Do you have a job for me?’. It was funny, you know. Then he said ’do you think am joking with you?’(still trying to maintain a hard look), then I said ‘If you are going to continue talking to me in that tone, I will not answer you’, then like someone who got a better bargain after a long hagging, he calmed down and repeated the question in normal tone and I answered I had just finished my NYSC program, he asked where I did it and I answered, then he asked which school I finished from, I told him OAU, and then came one of the most stupid questions I have ever heard In my life(I’m actually going to have to do a top 10 most stupid questions from the Nigerian policemen article on this blog later),he said :’where is your certificate?’ I looked at him like ‘were you created this dumb or you really had to work on it’,then he repeated it and I got angry and asked if he thought a certificate was an extra phone battery you carried around,the he got furious and said I should provide my id card that he suspected me of something,then I told him ‘I think the only certificate you have is WAEC or NECO,because if you ever went to a higher institution, you would know you would have to submit your id card to get your certificate or it expires after your course in that school’. Then he called another policeman and told him to take me to the station and I said ‘am I your lunch?’ and the new guy told me to calm down and follow him, I asked ‘you be Jesus Christ?’ Then while standing there, he asked for my phone and I gave it to him, he went through it and asked why I had porn on it, I was like ‘what?!!!’. I didn’t know what else to say. Then he handed It back to me and asked to search my pocket, he did and found some money on me and asked where I got it from, I said ‘oh I stole it’, he looked at me with this disdain and said to the first guy ‘bros, this one na bad market, he no dey do yahoo(scam) na why he dey talk anyhow..if them don go school finish, na so so English them go dey speak full everywhere, make he dey carry him wahala go’ and so I was allowed to leave.

Now to the present day, I was at the bank days ago and as I was about to drive out, I noticed a private car parked behind my car ,full of 5 people, a particularly young guy in the middle of two guys at the back. I got down to tell the driver to get out of the way but I saw one of them counting money and giving the boy an apparently small portion of it. I beckoned to the driver to get out of the way and he looked at me suspiciously and then the boy got down and they left, then I saw the boy almost crying and I asked him what was wrong, then he said ‘na police bust me, them see western union tracking number for my hand and the money wey my client just pay me, so them take 210,000 and them give me the remaining 76,000’ and he started walking away while cursing them.

 I got into the car and drove out of the bank, few miles ahead the road before any turning point was the car I had seen earlier, as I got past it, it followed me. Then they drove to my left side and the front passenger told me to park, I asked him why and he showed me an id card and I thought ‘oh the geniuses’ and I did. They got down and asked for all papers which I provided and asked what I did for a living, I yawned and answered, then one asked for my phone and I gave him while the other asked that I show him the laptop on the passenger’s seat beside me which I did. I asked why they were going through my stuffs and they said it was their job, then they told the man at the back who had been inside all the while that they found nothing, then he said ‘he dey do am, make we dey go him house’, I got furious at what he said and asked ‘why are you guys not on uniform?’ Then they looked at one another, I asked the one holding my laptop for his id card which he showed me, ‘are you CID?’ He said no, ‘then why the hell are you not on fucking uniform? Why are you searching my stuffs without a warrant? Since there is no regard for your uniform, why don’t you guys just dress up like 5o cent with the big chains and stop everyone and scream ‘freeze, it’s the fucking police’? Why are you driving around and stopping strangers and searching their gadgets? Why did fuck did that fool in the car tell you to go to my house? How am I sure you are not armed robbers with fake police id cards? Is this why you are being paid with tax payers’ funds? Are you people this jobless? Then one of them told me to calm down but I wasn’t going to have it, why would a policeman ask a random guy to take him to his house without a search warrant and search because he was sure he’ll find something to indict me and thereby ask for some obscene amount of money?’. I told them they were a shame to Nigeria, ‘all you ever do is ask those boys for the large part of the money and let them go. Are you not the real scammers? Waiting around for someone to scam a foreigner and then you catch him and take the large part of it when you can invest some of your allocation into online security and save our country’s name from further damage but then you are the result of a wrongly elected fellow who has so far proven himself to be the most incompetent of all possible past and future choices’. The man in the car beckoned to them and said ‘leave this one alone’ and they got in and drove off. I think my outburst wasn’t new to them.

I got back into the car furious at such twist of law. Questions flooded my mind as I sat there. Why would they try such on anyone when it’s obviously not supported by the law, why does the Nigeria police use the law only to make money? Are they not tired of the shame generally attributed to them that every day they come out with new ideas of presenting themselves as bigger fools than we thought? Why will they always want to deprive you of your rights? Are they blind to the respect given to soldiers? It all boils down to the fact that Nigerians don’t know their rights and this is because the government has made it so, there’s no provision by government to educate its citizens about their rights and civic duties. But then why would it when it lives large on the ignorance and dogmatism of its citizens. A friend told me ‘7 out of 10 guys I know are internet scammers, 6 out of 10 ladies are prostitutes’. The Government has refused to see that the best solution to internet scam and its resultant vices in this country is to provide jobs or at least provide a thriving economy that supports private businesses which will in turn provide employment opportunities. Yesterday the national security adviser said they are working on stopping pornography on the internet. But where do all these clueless fools come from? What does that have to do with security? why can’t they stop internet crime? It’s people like this that have brought decay into every part of our lives and the Police is just an outstanding example how worse things can get.