After working 15 years with the London Metropolitan Police, 6 of which were spent working (and socialising) quite closely with uniformed officers, I was fortunate enough to learn and understand to a considerable extent, how the Metropolitan Police has managed to be on the forefront of world class policing. This places me in a unique position to comment on the true problems facing the Nigerian Police Force and how they can be resolved.

And it is not just about increasing salaries and wages.

The problem of the Nigerian police goes far beyond the issue of inadequate wages and salaries.

Yes, the boys in black are terribly and woefully underpaid, and this pathetic treatment of Nigerian policemen is mainly what has reduced our law and order officers to “Beggars with Guns”. But no matter how much we argue this point, it is not necessarily the main issue or cause of police brutality.

The typical cop on the street is filled with his own overblown feeling of power, entitlement and invincibility, topped up by serious deepset bitterness

The assumed superiority complex is generated by nothing but the uniform and the weapon he carries. This dangerous mindset is not limited to the mostly illiterate Nigerian policemen. It is the same attitude you will find among the majority of coppers in the US. The reason we do not have similar incidents of police brutality in the UK is because the police here is not routinely armed. And many UK officers have constantly reiterated their preference for not carrying arms as the temptation to use them will be too powerful to resist.

Which is basically why people submit unquestionably to the most ridiculous demands, extortion and threats of even the most illiterate, uneducated and unexposed rookie policeman on the roadside. Such cops hide behind their uniform and their guns to manipulate, terrorise, threaten and subdue the public. After all, no one in their right senses will dare argue with a man pointing a loaded gun at you. An armed man in uniform who is also almost likely high to his eyeballs on drugs and most definitely filled with so much hate and resentment in his heart.

The typical policeman in Nigeria is not obsessed with keeping criminals off the streets.

No

He is more interested in how much he can extort from fellow Nigerians that he secretly hates in his heart, and warpedly believes are better and more successful than him. So he tries to extort (beg) for handouts and when that fails, he resorts to violence.

A typical policeman in Nigeria will loudly hail a criminal or ritualist who throws wads of Naira or Dollars at him, and even carry his wife’s bag or hold an umbrella over her head to shield her from the sun.

The typical illiterate cop believes every University student is a child of a rich politician, with far better opportunities and prospects than him. So he immediately transfers his bitterness and feelings of inadequacy and limitations to the poor student whom he terrorises and brutalises.

Many innocent students and young people have been summarily murdered by Nigerian policemen under these circumstances.

The typical illiterate police will see any young person in possession of everything he wishes for but has no access to himself (top grade mobile phone, ipad, laptop etc) and immediately his bitterness translates into suspicion.

His lack of exposure or knowledge of youth culture is what makes him see a young person in street fashion and label him a criminal.

The roadside policeman sees himself through the eyes of others and not through the work he signed up to do.

He sees members of the public either as a threat to his psyche or as a meal ticket. Never as on ordinary law abiding citizen. There has been several cases of victims of crime or mere witnesses ending up as suspects to be locked up for days or in some cases months because the hapless officers are too lazy to conduct deep investigations.

There is no real understanding of his role or indeed how to carry it out. Which is why the tag line “the police is your friend” is such an irony.

No policeman as far as I have learnt is anyone’s friend. Especially not the Nigerian policeman. And definitely not if you are black in the UK or in the US!

Increase the police salaries even 100% but without a change of organisational mindset, it will be the same coppers in the same uniform with a few more Nairas in their pocket. But the attitude and behaviours will remain unchanged.

Not without a massive organisational restructuring, restrategising and reformulation of the entire force. Recruitment and training strategies need to be completely overhauled and potential recruits subjected to serious and stringent psychological assessments which will continue throughout their period of employment.
Entry requirements need to be raised and compulsory verbal reasoning tests must be taken.

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And the routine arming of Nigerian police must be abolished, Only mild/medium incapacitators such as pepper spray and stun guns must be issued to all policemen. A SWAT like team that can attend at moments notice can be established to respond to serious incidents.
Police officers must cease to be utilised as errand boys for the rich or glorified body guards for politicians and their wives. And it must become a serious disciplinary offence for any officer to receive or be given any gifts monetary or otherwise from any member of the public

And most importantly, the leadership must be thoroughly and widely cleansed, properly trained in real leadership strategies and public service awareness.

Until the Nigerian Police Force is re-established as a modern organisation of well paid trained and skilled professionals, they will continue to be a body of hungry and bitter trigger happy thugs.

By Olajumoke Ariyo

Change and Improvement Strategist

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Barely 24 hours after the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force announced the disbanding of the dreaded SARS arm of organisation, graphic images have surfaced from the ongoing peaceful demonstrations taking place in Lagos.

The Nigerian movie industry popularly known as Nollywood needs to clean up it’s act and give the viewing public better value.

Aside our poor standard of education, Nigeria’s Nollywood – especially the Yoruba movie Industry can also be held strictly responsible for the illiteracy, ignorance and backward level of the common Nigerian populace.

Many people learn wrong facts from their misinformation, mis-education and false awareness created on various vital issues and topics through Nollywood movies.

Since the completion of my MBA program, I have had quite a lot of free time on my hands. I lost my job early on in the lockdown but it became easier for me to study without the added stress of a full time job. And I felt I needed to take some time to decompress after such rigorous studying. Therefore,  nowadays, I spend a few hours during the day to watch some Nollywood and Netflix movies.

There are a few movies that I have seen that really made sense and I quite thoroughly enjoyed – albeit with a few observed flaws. You see, Nollywood movies were not always known for good quality particularly in the areas of production, dialogue, acting, sound and video quality and interpretation of roles. However, some producers and even directors have evolved, honed their skills and improved on their “acts”

But there are still many areas where Nollywood producers need to work and greatly improve on. I speak also of actors in many cases who seem to think it acceptable to misinterpret a role they are given to play or simply ridicule it.

Nollywood should be the best forum to educate the masses and create awareness of several healthcare or social issues. For example, that a heart attack patient can still be saved with prompt first aid treatment. Or  that a person that has fainted does not necessarily need hospital treatment… But Nollywood does not even seem to have the faintest idea of the difference between a panic attack, cardiac arrest, heart attack or a mere fainting spell. 

Many Nollywood practitioners seem oblivious to the fact that they are not mere entertainer or amusers, but educationists and information disseminators. People pick up so much information from movies. However, when an actor misinterprets a role and gives out woefully wrong information in the lines he delivers, he has succeeded in mis educating his audience.

Now 2 things can happen when this occurs: either the actor is seen and dismissed as an uneducated ignorant mediocrity by a literate, informed and exposed viewer, or he succeeds in mis educating certain viewers who were completely ignorant of the subject matter beforehand.

It still surprises me that so many of Nollywood actors are University graduates from the information they give out in their lines sometimes….because we know that many of them “ad-lib” and deliver their lines in their own words and according to their own interpretation. How many Nollywood movies have I watched an actor playing the role of a doctor performing CPR on a “live patient” ? Or the crass rubbish commonly spewed out about cancer or other life threatening ailments? Only in Nollywood will a cancer diagnosis mean immediate hysterectomy! Or a pain in the chest will be readily concluded to be breast cancer – without as much as a scan! Or someone that was brought to hospital from a “minor car crash” will suddenly need a kidney transplant!

How about the abysmal portrayal of lawyers, judges or courtroom procedures?

What will it take for an actor to research the role he is given to portray, know how doctors behave, deliver bad news or correctly explain ailments and conditions? 

In Nollywood, a woman will go for a pregnancy test but the doctor will hand the result over to the man accompanying her! In 2020? Or a “husband” will plan with the doctor” to perform an abortion or hysterectomy on his wife – without her knowledge or consent! In Nollywood?

Or a woman is arrested and charged with murder because her sex partner died during intercourse!

I think one of the reasons Nollywood has been able to get away with such nonsense for so long is perhaps because those in the different professions have not bothered to complain about the mis-portrayal of the ethics of their profession. Or they are simply unaware of them.

I actually laughed one day I heard a Nollywood actor compare the industry with Hollywood!!! Now that the industry makes so much money or reported to be the third largest after Hollywood and Bollywood does not mean standards or quality also compare. It’s like comparing Chinese products with Japanese or German simply because China is getting richer. Nollywood is estimated at $50 billion annually. That is a lot of revenue. But shouldn’t a portion of that be plunged into educating the scriptwriters, directors and producers and for making quality films and movies? 

Yes, Nollywood is in the business of entertainment. But this is also an industry where information is given out. And it is the industry’s responsibility to guard the type of information that comes out.

Sadly, anyone including the illiterate, the uneducated and the unlearned can become a Nollywood movie producer just as long as they can find the money to fund the production. And when the producer is also the director/main actor, what standard can one expect?

Another thing I have noticed is the level of vulgarity, lewdness and gross indecency that Nollywood – particularly the Yoruba movie industry has descended to in recent years! From what I have watched recently, many of them are just yards away from being pornographic! Many of the dialogues are filled with obscene references and filthy jargon unfit for modern day viewing. And it is not just the male actors. The females are just as bad if not worse in many cases. The lack of intellectual lines has been replaced with meaningless, disgustingly offensive and witless, dry jokes. 

And why, oh why for Gods merciful sake does there have to be so much shouting and cursing?? Sometimes, I find myself wondering why so many Nollywood actors fall on seriously bad times.. Could it be as a result of all the cursing and negative declarations they pronounce on themselves? This practice does not portray Yoruba people in a good light at all. Every other line is a curse and this makes for seriously uncomfortable viewing.

And then there is the eardrum shattering shouting. GOSH!!

Do they have to shout?  Sometimes, you cannot make out the dialogue from the cacophony of voices and the very loud shouting! I cannot count just how many movies I abandoned after just 15 minutes because I could not cope with the shouting – or cursing.

Like I said at the beginning of this article, this is not a generalisation of Nollywood. A few players in the Industry have “upped” their game and can deliver valuable products. But the majority still have a long way to go in giving real value for money.

Think of the people you are making the movie for and what you want them to  get from it. Is it pleasure – or torture…?

Also, consider that your movies are not just for the illiterate uneducated folks on the streets of Lagos or Abeokuta. The learned and educated both in the country and in the diaspora also would like to watch and enjoy them – with their westernised kids.

I often wonder if there is a any kind of licensing board that these movies pass through before they are released to the public – because frankly, many of them are simply not fit for public consumption.

And if we had a better government, they would have passed laws to regulate the industry and take them up on materials they broadcast to the public.

Alas, our government is not much better. Many of our leaders themselves speak like they were educated by Nollywood 😢

By the way. I congratulate the industry on the discovery of the aerial view shot. But you are now overusing it…..

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Former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode’s estrange wife, Precious Chikwendu, has finally confirmed that her marriage to the PDP chieftain has ended.

The mother of four made the confirmation via her Instagram account while replying a follower who advised her to work things out with her ex-husband after she shared photos of her sons.

The Instagram follower in her comment section advised her to go back to her husband adding that it was better to settle their differences rather than join the miserable association of divorced women.

However, in her response, Precious told the follower that she can have FFK.

“Take note, my marriage ended. It didn’t collapse.
“But if you want him you can go to him or his dm,” she said.

Recall that the former minister while reacting to a viral video of him abusing his wife and rumors of his crashed marriage had accused her of cheating on him with another man.

According to him, ”there was no physical abuse. I only collected the phone from her after catching her in bed with a married man.”

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Fitness centre operator PureGym has apologised “unreservedly” for an “unacceptable” Facebook post from one of its gyms about slavery.

The Luton and Dunstable gym said “slavery was hard and so is this” regarding a workout designed to “celebrate black history month”.
In a statement PureGym said the post was “wholly unacceptable” and “was not approved or endorsed by the company”.

PureGym added it was removed “as soon as it was brought to our attention”.

The company is the UK’s largest gym chain by membership.

The workout, entitled “12 Years of Slave” after the Oscar-winning movie with a similar title, included 12 different moves such as burpees, push ups and box jumps.

Many users responded angrily to the gym’s Facebook post with one saying PureGym had an “offensively tone-deaf marketing team” while another said it was “wrong, insensitive and horrendous on all levels”.

In 2014, supermarket chain Sainsbury’s was slated after one of its stores used a mannequin dresses in replica costumes used by Chiewetel Ejiofor’s character in the movie 12 Years A Slave to advertise the movie.

A shocked shopper tweeted the first image of the mannequin alongside a tweet saying that it was “in very poor taste”. The mannequin was dressed in black trousers and a beige shirt to mirror the outfit worn by Solomon Northup in the film, and had been placed next to a rack of DVDs. Sainsburys was forced to issue an apology after removing the offensive display.