Ruminations on the Nigerian Security After Watching 44 Minutes

         

44 Minutes (motion picture)

You don't need to wonder what my childhood was like, but I just watched 44 Minutes yesterday. You know that then-popular "Police & Thief" film . So don't feel like I was really missing out on certain heydays.

And I felt quite good watching it at this point in time, with a spectacle of perspectives, which may not have been possible with the clueless eyes of a child, regardless of my cognitive abilities for discernment. 

Then, I would have merely been thirsting for the sounds of sporadic gun shots, the dramatic falls from bullet hits and other elements of action-packed movies without understanding the storylines for proper synthesis and context.

So having watched the movie, and realizing that it was an adaptation of a true-life event at the Bank of America, North Hollywood branch in Los Angeles on a Friday (Feb. 28, 1997), I figured out a strong sense of patriotism and service to humanity among the people; the police particularly. 

Then a faux nostalgia took me back to how we held a similar sense of service and sacrifice in the days of Lawrence Anini and other notorious armed robbers. 

Lawrence Anini

I caIl it "faux nostalgia" because I wasn't born at any of those times in the 70s and 80s; a time chronicling histories of daredevil bandits with portfolios of high-incident operations. 

But for contact with journals recalling stories of such similitude, including the Shina Rambo deplorable adventure and that of Ishola Oyenusi.

My mental absorption and synthesis of the violent event that transpired at the bank between two heavily armed and armored bank robbers, Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, and members of the Los Angeles Police Department in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California nudged me to commend the sheer determination and willpower of the police to win one of the most intense shootout in the history of crime fighting by the American police.

Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu's Mugshots, and Scenes from the North Hollywood Shootout

Considering the range of firepower the ruthless robbers had over the over-20 police officers (with their pistols and a survey helicopter), the suspense that attended the whole event was enough to assume that the robbers would probably kill virtually all of them, if not eventually get away. 

But that didn't happen. Instead, only serious injuries were sustained by twelve police officers and eight civilians, until their eventual victory at clamping down the tough bad guys. In the words of one of the first-hand narrators, it was "willpower versus firepower", with the former motivating the police officers.

This goes on to mark the degree of patriotism the American police engendered (and still do, except for disappointments stemming from delinquencies on the part of erring officers in some state police divisions, highlighting the reality of Police Brutality in America).

This magnitude of patriotism and sheer display of responsibility magnified the belief in the state-wide security of LAPD.

This is a formidable trait now deficient in the conduct of the Federal Government-led Nigerian Police Force as of today, unlike yesterdays of applaudable interventions by the security personnel in bank robberies; the Union Bank at Sandgrouse, Lagos Island in 2002 for instance.

In light of the rampant security challenges bedevilling the various states in the country including kidnapping, banditry and worse still, insurgencies, the Police Force have faced countless criticisms.

Suggestions by the people on the enactment of state-controlled police by the legislature have been made to no avail. In essence, no consideration of such, in favour of the so-called Federal Character under which the Federal Government-led Police exists.

Watching this true-life-story inspired movie made me wonder how much of values for sacrifice, transparency and security have been left to fade in the hands of the Nigerian security system. 

The irresponsiveness of the police to incidents of gruesome crime in many cities of Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Imo, Delta and Anambra accounts for the degenerating state of our security across the country.  

Nobody knows whose life and properties would be jeopardized in the next second.

Suspicions are being raised even as to the supposed conspiracy of police authorities with armed bandits and like criminals in highly vulnerable areas, looking at the delay in their response as an approach to crime fighting and security at large. 

The twenty-first century Nigerian Police Force and their diminishing energy at attending to security threats have plunged the confidence of the citizens in the institution, as we have multitudes of Anini's and Oyenusi's in many occultic groups of bandits breaking homes and taking lives.

As a result, citizens do resort to jungle justice at the slightest opportunity or at their worst provocation, as an only alternative to our failed expectations of the police to act fast and restore law and order, as was recorded in the middle of 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

– Tukur Loba Rilwan, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic and Content Writer.

Lagos, Nigeria.