Whatever happened to ....

.... Sergeant Musa Usman?

You don't know who he is, do you?

I read about him nine years ago. The last I heard, he had been placed under arrest. I've wondered since what happened to him. Whether he was released, whether he was still in detention; whether he had retained his job, whether he had been sacked for "insubordination" or whatever excuse.

The fact that he is almost entirely unknown, the fact that his courageous statement to the Minister of Police is entirely forgotten, and the fact that there was exactly ZERO public reaction to his arrest 9 years ago, well, this says a lot about the state of politics in our Federal Republic.

And I am not just talking about the politicians. I am talking about you and me. All of us.

Read what he said (see below). Tell me he didn't have a point.

Absolutely nothing has changed since then, has it? And nothing will change, because we the people are too busy fighting each other to spare any energy to fight for changes that would benefit all of us.

The issue of substantive, meaningful police reform is not even on the agenda. Oh, sure, our leaders  keep promising it (read the articles below, you will see the promises from 9 years ago), but that is like lions promising to work towards vegetarianism on the Serengeti.


Anyway, this is what happened 9 years ago:

 THE SUBSEQUENT ARREST:

Harassment of Sergeant Musa Usman

In August 2003, police officer Sergeant Musa Usman was arrested and questioned by the police after speaking out about corruption and poor conditions in the police force. He voiced his criticisms on August 21, 2003, during a meeting in Lagos addressed by Minister for Police Affairs Broderick Bozimo. The minister had invited those present to express their views. Sergeant Musa spoke in the meeting about corruption in the police force; he complained about the poor pay and other disadvantages faced by junior officers. At one point, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police attempted to stop him by trying to take the microphone, but the minister said he should continue. A few days later, on August 27, Sergeant Musa was arrested and questioned by the Lagos State police in connection with the comments he had made during the meeting. It is not known whether he was subsequently released or transferred to another location. Members of a nongovernmental organization who made inquiries with the police in Ikoyi, Lagos, where he was normally based, were told that he was not there, and have not been able to make direct contact with him since. As of September 2003, his whereabouts were not known. In response to a letter addressed to the Minister for Police Affairs by the Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN), which was made public, the Lagos State commissioner of police denied arresting or questioning Sergeant Musa, claiming that it was a routine procedure. [88]

  WHAT PROMPTED THE ARREST:

You, too, Are Corrupt

By Mathias Oko
Monday, September 01, 2003

Junior police officers, angry at the arrest and dismissal of their colleagues for extortion, accuse their superior officers of the same offence.

The junior ranks of the Nigeria police have ac-cused their superior officers of aiding and abetting corruption in the force. The policemen, who were bitter over the recent sacking of 34 of their colleagues for extortion of money from motorists, said they were merely being used as scapegoats, and called for a similar disciplinary action against their superior officers. The junior policemen narrated their experiences in the hands of their superiors to Broderick Bozimo, minister of police affairs, who was in Lagos on a two-day working tour, August 21 and 22.

Musa Usman, a police sergeant attached to the force mobile unit, stirred the hornet's nest at the Onikan Sports Stadium, Lagos, August 21, when he made startling revelations on why corruption thrive among policemen. The officers present included Adebayo Adeoye, assistant inspector-general of police, AIG, in charge of Zone 11; Young Arebamen, commissioner, Lagos State Police Command; top- ranking police officers and the junior ranks alike, who were on hand to receive Bozimo.

Usman told the audience that poor condition of service was responsible for corruption in the force, and that the superior officers were liable for the much orchestrated extortion experienced daily on the highways. Though, Usman absolved himself of corrupt tendencies, saying he would never stoop low to the point of extorting N20 from anybody, he noted that officers who extort money make "returns" to the superior officers, who send them to check-points, and wondered why only the junior cadre should bear the brunt. "If 34 of our men could be paraded and shown on television to the millions of viewers in the country, and were later sacked, I hope our superior officers who sit in their offices and get returns would be shown on the Cable News Network, CNN, for the world to see," he said.

He attributed the large-scale corruption in the force to insensitivity on the part of the authorities. He also blamed it on the poor salaries of junior officers which he said, cannot take them anywhere in the face of the tight economic situation in the country. He said for instance, that, a police constable earns N8, 500; corporal N10, 000 and sergeant N12, 000. These, he said were grossly inadequate to cater for their immediate families. Usman decried the lack of insurance policy for the hazardous job of securing lives and property of Nigerians.

As Usman eloquently reeled out the ordeal of the junior police officers amidst ovation from his colleagues and admirers who urged him to "fire on," Arebamen, who was visibly angry by the reaction, attempted to seize the microphone from him. But the minister stopped him saying they should be allowed to express their minds.

Each of the six speakers, including a female cop attached to the traffic division spoke in similar vein. Michael Attah, a police inspector, told the audience that contrary to the official claims about the upward review of the minimum wage, policemen were yet to enjoy same with their civil service counterpart in the country. He explained that frustration was largely responsible for corruption and other vices in the force. Many policemen, he said, were dying silently because of series of problems confronting them which were beyond them, noting that the authorities were not doing anything about their plight. Attah noted, for instance, that some of them could not bring their families to join them in Lagos due to lack of official accommodation. "Even the existing accommodation in the barracks are an eye sore," Attah stated.

One of the junior officers who spoke with Newswatch on condition of anonymity at the stadium said the disparity between the senior cadre and their junior colleagues was too wide. According to him, this was the kind of scenario that prompted the nationwide strike last year and some of those fingered as masterminds were made sacrificial lambs. "Now they are at it again. It must be the junior officers they would want to crucify. What an injustice," he said.

Apparently overwhelmed by the outbursts, Bozimo expressed sympathy with their plight and thanked them for their courage in exercising their constitutional right to freedom of speech. He observed that if such freedom was allowed in the past and their problems addressed, the question of strike in the force would have been averted, and that the force would have been the better for it.

He told the agitated cops that he had come and seen, and would take their problems to the president. He spoke on the cardinal programmes for improving the police. These include improved welfare, training and retraining of officers and promised that more training facilities would be acquired to enhance professional training for the teeming incoming members of the service. Acquisition of facilities like computers, vehicles, as well as provision of accommodation, he said would be addressed through the Police Trust Fund Scheme, which he said, would serve as morale booster for the cops. "If these basic things are provided ,it would engender discipline," Bozimo said. He called on journalists and members of the public to help expose corrupt officers. He insisted that members of the public owe it a duty to discourage the police from taking bribe by not giving, because according to him, "if you don't give, they won't take. So don't give at all."

The minister visited several police formations in the zone including the zone II headquarters, Lagos; the Lagos State Command, police air wing and pension unit, all in Ikeja among others. He also paid a courtesy call on Rilwanu Akiolu, the Oba of Lagos.

© 2003 Newswatch Communications Limited