For over 14 hours today, we only had electricity for 3 hours and yet we happen to reside in the so-called GRA in a state capital. As at last week (I dont know about today) there were areas in Benin-City that has not enjoyed a minute of electricity this year. That brings me to an incident that occurred over a week ago. Youths in Aduwawa area of the city protested to the Benin Electricity Distribution Company office in the area over non-availability of electricity for over a month. What followed is a sad reminder of how bad things are in this country. A team of police officers led by the Benin Area Commander himself, on the instruction of the Commissioner of Police, Edo State went to the scene. These brave officers could not arrest even one protester and at the same time they called not return without making an arrest, so the randomly selected 5 persons among the crowd of people attempting get to their various places of assignment. Those arrested dont even reside in the area, they were just passersby from far away villages. One of them was viciously beaten by police officers with guns and a stick with nails emitting from it. Himself and others was then taken to the Oregbeni Police Division. The extremely arrogant DPO refused to grant them bail claiming that he had order from above not to, but to transfer them to the State Police Headquarters. The DPO made no arrangement to treat the suspect that was severely beaten while they held him for the next 2-3 days. They were eventually transferred to the Edo State Police Head Quarters and were held there for another one week plus before the they were granted bail. And of course, the families of these innocent young men had to cough out large sum of money for bail. As at this afternoon one of them was yet to be release because his family has not been able to pay the bail money. The problem with the Nigeria Police Force is not just that it is an hopelessly corrupt institution that is poorly funded and staffed with men and women that dont know anything in the art of policing, the main problem with it is that nothing is being done to reform it. As important as the institution is, the present Government is making no attempt at reforming the Nigeria Police Force, yet they want to continue for another 4 years. For those who support this clueless administration on the basis of region, tribal or religious reason should know that these boys were not northerners, but Southerners, at least one of them is Igbo. None of them are Muslims, all of them are Christians. So Kontinu, if Jonathan continues for another 4 years, we will ALL continue to suffer together. Igho Hakeem Ohwojeheri
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 07:46:04 +0000
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