Lawless enforcers

 Editorial

Police personnel, just as the personnel of other security services, are by professional calling law enforcers. They are, thus, required to themselves be law-compliant at all times. Their authority for coercion is expected to be used, if warranted, only to compel adherence with society’s rules of behaviour. But it happens every now and then that there are bad elements in security services who ‘enforce’ lawlessness rather than the law.

The report about a police officer who mobilised his colleagues to go tyrannise teachers who held his daughter to the rules of a school she attends was such a case. It was impunity on steroids.

A police sergeant in the Ekiti State Police Command was said to have led four fellow policemen to a secondary school in Ado-Ekiti penultimate Friday to harass officials of the school for reprimanding his daughter over her indecent hairstyle that was against the school rules. The girl had gone to school with a haircut that was not in line with the regulations of Mary Immaculate Girls’ Grammar School in Ado-Ekiti, and a teacher reprimanded her over the misbehaviour as should be expected of any respectable system. This is more so that it is a faith-based school with prescribed minimum standards expected of students. But the police sergeant, named Agenoise Elijah, was unhappy that his daughter was called to order and he rallied four armed colleagues to go teach the school management some lesson on how not to mess with his daughter. Reports said the unruly squad raised hell when they arrived at the school, harassed the school principal, tore the dress of a female tutor and seized the mobile phone of another teacher.

The Ekiti State Police Command confirmed the incident and promised redress. Its spokesperson, Sunday Abutu, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), said the commissioner of police, Tunde Mobayo, had ordered full investigation with a view to punishing the culpable officers. “The command is not unaware of the reported case of indiscipline at Mary Immaculate Girls’ School, Ado-Ekiti, where a police sergeant allegedly stormed the school alongside four of his colleagues. They were said to have harassed the teachers simply because his daughter, who is one of the students, was questioned about the style of her haircut which was not in line with the school directive,” Abutu was quoted saying, adding: “The command wishes to confirm that the police sergeant and his colleagues who went to the school to cause chaos have been identified and discreet investigation has commenced as ordered by the commissioner of police. The officers shall not be spared if found guilty.” He further said the command was working with the state ministry of education to redress the issue.

It is obvious that Elijah and his colleagues took advantage of their uniform to tyrannise school officials who only acted in line of duty. That was a gross abuse, not just of the public trust vested in the police establishment, but also of the coercive power attached to that trust. Perhaps the police high command should consider educating force personnel more in civic behaviour, and on the expectations attached to the authority of their uniform. Besides, Elijah and others like him need to know that when parents / guardians voluntarily enroll their wards in institutions, they are implicitly submitting to the regulations of such institutions. They could have chosen not to enroll their wards but did not.

On personal level, it was a tragedy that Elijah role modelled social misconduct that he could not in sane mind wish his daughter to copy. Actually, there’s a strong chance his misbehaviour will in some way adversely affect the educational fortunes of the daughter (she could be suspended from school, for instance), only that such consequences must be extremely restrained so as not to permanently disadvantage the girl. But Elijah and his squad are bad elements of the police force and should be held to full account, just so to dissuade potential emulators.