#FreeBOG: Abduction without trial is just another extortion method

#FreeBOG: if you’ve ever been arrested before or had a police case in Nigeria, you would understand where this post is going already. The Oga Police stops your car,  brings out his booking leaflet and pretends to write something down,  you start begging him to not book you. He asks you to bring car particulars, then engine, then fire extinguisher, then he will forward you to station because you did not “cooperate”. He will not book you ooo because he probably does not know what to charge you with. He only knows your major offence is your lack of “cooperation” especially in a case where you were abducted based on information.

Somewhere in Olonkoro Osogbo, one shop owner places a call to Oga Police and explains that a customer is coming to cause trouble. The police wait for the signal and arrive just in time to whisk the dude away. They don’t have any business with the informant anymore; they just start the usual harassment of hide and seek. You post a video on facebook Like PDP chieftain Babatunde Gbadamosi, some informant sends a signal to whomever and before you know it,  you are behind counter or locked up somewhere bargaining or not even getting booked for anything particularly than your lack of “cooperation”.

How do we progress in a country where people are abducted and their offences are not made public? Even when the people clamour for an explanation, why the endless silence and utter lack of information? Maybe we should consider properly what the role of the information and communication minister is. We are so happy to have silent activities in public spheres,  we call them “secret service”. Shadow economies can never progress,  the only arms of government that seem to function are those who have some license to hoard information from the public. This is totally wrong!

We cannot make crucial decisions based on speculations,  we should book people when they have been called in for questioning. Public notices should be made when a criminal is on the loose, we say no to shadow pricing and other forms of mago mago that usually end with hand shake and back patting.

Maybe we are losing count but in this year alone,  the number of Nigerian citizens who have been unceremoniously whisked off continues to rise. The common factor always includes the security office’s refusal to charge these people to court,  in fact it is more than sad when we all know that these cases are just another addition to the many possibilities that our justice system is largely selective and a major tool in the hands of whoever calls the Shots in Abuja.

I just hope we start seeing things as they are and not the way we’re told they are.