Uniformed corruption vs. supreme sacrifice

Have you heard the name, Bukar Jimeta before? If you haven’t, you will remember him after reading today’s piece.

I am not seeing the change I expect in certain public quarters. Flash back to this time two years ago: Civil servants suddenly became very punctual at their desks and were careful about asking for bribes - the godfather was watching. Policemen waved you on as you drove for fear that the motorist might be a Buhari spy out to trap unsuspecting policemen. Immigration officials became very coy, not sure if the person they were about to beg for a few dollars was a Buhari operative. You could feel the new mood of CHANGE everywhere. But all that has fizzled out now.

We are back to our old riotous and corrupt ways. Open, blatant, in-yourface corruption has become the order of the day. And the government seems helpless.

Nigerian passports are still being produced in Malaysia and sold to the highest bidder. The immigration service is not ashamed to tell you that they have run out of booklets or lamination film, but that one can be made available for a fee, of course. The greatest scandal in Nigeria today must be the fact that we continue to print overseas what we could comfortably have produced at home. What is so special about the Nigerian passport (and the Naira currency notes for that matter) that we have to ship the contracts abroad?

The uniformed services are seen by the public as symbols of the social decay so evident today. Efforts are being made to clean the Customs department, but it is still like pinching the toe of an elephant. The police have re-established their toll gates under the guise of security checks - and you wonder what became of the orders of successive Inspectors-General that all checkpoints be dismantled.

The other day, some policemen reportedly became armed robbers, forcing a motorist at gun point to withdraw N140,000 from an ATM. According to the story, the policemen (two inspectors and two sergeants of the anti-robbery squad, SARS) threatened to kill the victim, one Apagbo John, if he didn’t come up with a huge sum to save his neck. As it was already about 10 pm, the young man feared for his life and played ball. Eventually his parents got to know about the problem and contacted the Area Commander, Hope Okafor, who swiftly ordered the arrest of the criminals in uniform and returned the money collected from the victim.

Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) have several scams of their own. They waylay motorists at traffic lights and roundabouts, thereby adding to the already unbearable traffic snarl. In Abuja, they do it gangster-fashion, forcing motorists to pay for what they call “computerised certificate of road worthiness”. Your vehicle is never inspected. Just pay and go. Nobody was surprised when Governor El-Rufa’i banned them in Kaduna State. The FCT minister ought to borrow a leaf from Kaduna.

While some people are abusing their uniforms, others are putting their lives on the line in the service of their beleaguered communities. Today, my heart goes out to the commander of the Adamawa State Hunters’ Association, Bukar Jimeta, and some of his colleagues who went down with him in a bloody encounter with Boko Haram terrorists in Dagu village on the Borno side of the border.

Thank God for Daily Trust, the heroism of Jimeta and his colleagues would have gone unsung. “Late Jimeta and his fighters have been hunting down members of Boko Haram since 2014 when insurgent attacks spread to Adamawa from Borno after Boko Haram overran several military formations to rule over a large territory spanning parts of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states”, the newspaper reported.

The volunteers in that axis are led by Usman Tola, Chairman of the Hunters’ Association. Their daring raids into the territories inhabited by Boko Haram had led to the killing of hundreds of terrorists. At times they fight alongside the military. At other times they carry out solo attacks on terrorist dens. Their weapons are crude. I’m told that government is being careful about arming them because of the fear of having sophisticated weapons in civilian hands. What they lack in weaponry, however, they more than make up for in sheer enthusiasm.

However, that enthusiasm was not enough on the fateful day over 200 Boko Haram terrorists laid siege on Dagu with the sole mission of killing Jimeta. He fought them bravely to the end. As he lay dying, the terrorists sprayed more bullets into him. Mission accomplished, they returned to the forest whence they came. He left behind four wives and thirteen children.

Jimeta is my kind of hero - a man who, without the authority that a uniform confers, has taken on the burden of securing the lives and property of fellow men and women. I’m looking forward to seeing his name in the Honours list during the next National Awards. Let Customs and Immigration and the police emulate the good man.

I think it is high time the government found a way of integrating the Civilian JTF and other anti-Boko Haram fighters who know the Sambisa forest terrain like the back of their hands, into a more formal kind of force under the control of our military. To leave them to fend for themselves is to expose then to serial elimination and prolong the war.