 You're welcome back. We're glad to know you're still there. It's the run-up and it's Christmas season and while we are wishing everybody a wonderful season, we're also controlling with the family of the people who lost their lives to avoidable debts, you know, because like the case of Omo Bolanli, the lawyer, Omo Bolanli Rahim, it was avoidable But we have joining us, Mr. Banji Adekonye, who is a legal practitioner. Good morning and welcome to the program Mr. Adekonye. Good morning. Well, we also have Thank you very much. Dr. Omo Sholat Deji also is a political scientist and he's also joining us. Welcome to the program Dr. Deji. Well, it's unfortunate that the 25th of December 2022 will be remembered for the wrong, very wrong reasons by the family of Omo Bolanli Rahim and we're just wondering why this keeps happening over and over and over again. Let me begin with you, Mr. Adekonye. How is the NBA taking it from this point? Well, first of all, let me express my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family, particularly the young child that has been left more or less at a time like this. Well, what the NBA has done so far is on points. They have taken it up with the zeal that such demands at this point in time. Let me say it will be, at least, is on records that prior before now. A similar incident happened at that spot. So it's not as though it couldn't have been seen coming, particularly at a time like that. Would the authorities have done anything to prevent it? Yes. Did they do it? No. And we have what we have on our hands. I'm not too sure this may not happen again, even before the end of this year, in spite of the frenzy that we have out there, the outcry. What I pray it doesn't. I pray it doesn't. But I give thumbs up to the NBA for what is being done. And I believe this time around, the NBA will stay with it until justice is served. I don't hope that eventually, when the justice according to the law is served, the authorities themselves will have the courage to bring the justice to bear as appropriate. Because we have in this climate people who are in authority to sanction law, I mean to sanction lawful judgments, shy away from it because they do not want to go down as it were. We haven't signed a death warrant. If that is the case, the law is the law. I'm not coming to any conclusion. But I'm saying if that were to be embodied, would they carry it out? Would they not allow sentiments to come in at this time? We have a lot of people, ordinarily who should have been sent packing. But because these people don't want to be sent to have, I mean to be callous or whatever, that is your job, do it. That's all I have to say for now. But well done, NBA. Keep it up. Okay. Mr. Adegi, I'm sure you want to say something as well. It's an unfortunate event, but it has happened. And government, in most cases, find a leeway to make excuses, apportioning blames to some other people. Maybe the governor will say he doesn't have powers over the police. He would have cautioned them and all that. Do you think those excuses will hold water now? And if they shouldn't, what should happen? Well, my condolence to the Ryan family about the unfortunate incident. So I can hear myself back. I don't know what. My condolence to the Ryan family. If the police that is supposed to protect live and property is now the one taking life of young promising Nigerians, it is a sad situation for our country. The woman has been killed and life cannot be restored. So I'm trying to imagine the impact on the family, on our children. Now, every Christmas, which is a significant day of the year is now a day of sorrow for the family, just because a police officer is trigger happy. And we see that every day. The impunity on the part of the police force that is meant to protect live and property. So for me, this is wrong. This should not be condoned at all. In fact, the trial of the police officer should be made public. And whatever the judge gives as a judgment, the judge should be affected immediately. If it's death sentence, if it's life imprisonment, whatever at the discretion of whichever judge undoes the case. So that we serve as a deterrent to others, because you can't just wake up in the morning and you are hoping to return to your own family and all of it's not being because you are trigger happy. The way we use arms in this country, you see policemen everywhere you go, they are with arms, they are bandishing arms everywhere. And at the slightest provocation, they are ready to shoot or they are threatening you that they are going to shoot and nothing we have put on. And indeed, how many people has been brought to book for all these excesses in this country? We have the answers protest. The recommendation of the panel, even in legal state, what has the government done to implement the report of the panel? This is one case too many. At the end of the day is the usual approach. Government would issue condolences, they've arrested the police officer, promised justice, and after a while you hear nothing. Without the case code, nobody knows what message are they passing to the next police officer that you can also do it and nothing will happen. And that's why we've had the records of these cases that it has been going on and on and on and on. It's sad that the police that are supposed to protect is not the one taking lives. It's a sad day. My condolences to Ryan family. All right, let me take a cue from the last point that you know Dr. Deji just made. I'm talking to you now, Mr. Adekonye. The IGP has come out to say that he's assuring that there's going to be justice served and that everything will be done, you know, that he has ordered a speedy investigation. But these are, you know, words that we've heard over and over before. And these shootings keep happening, you know, irresponsibility on the end of the police officers. We keep seeing it every day. What actually should be expected from the police, you know, to make sure that these investigations were properly carried out and that justice, because we keep hearing justice should be served, all would be served. But then if we're going to bring it to actuality, what is the actual meaning of justice being served and what should we be looking out for? Thank you very much for that. First of all, justice here, justice according to the law, to the justice according to morality, justice according to public opinion. But here what we're looking at is justice according to the law, first and foremost. And what I say in that is this. There are three parties to this matter now. The states, the family that the burial family, and then the society as a whole. And then don't forget, whatever we're saying, this is still an allegation. Investigation has to follow. And I'm happy that they, I mean, they're going about it, I mean, expeditiously. The airing officer, luckily, was apprehended at the scene, even though he has not been identified, he has not been formally, I mean, named, but he's been apprehended. Investigations are going on and on and on like that. Time is of the essence in this case. And I hope that will be maintained. It's the indication of that. But we know how these things go here. You get to a point that we see the DPO has been transferred. All those things, all those, I mean, pranks that they play, just so that we have a situation of dog does not eat dog. I mean, that's pretty cool and all of that. But I know that the MBA will follow this to the last letter to see that justice is gotten for her. I mean, it's, well, sometimes some things happen and some people have to be sacrificed. This is very, very unfortunate. I'm not happy saying this. Can we say it is because it is a lawyer that is involved, that it is receiving this agency? I'm just asking that question, knowing in our society, if it had been an ordinary person, somebody else, would we have seen this outcry and all of that? So maybe this is a price too high to pay for us to be able to do the right thing. But, well, let's see how the game plays out. But the steps that have been taken so far gives me just an aorta of consolation that perhaps maybe we are going to do its right this time. And then many more things will follow thereafter. But then again, I look at the age of the policeman involved. I look at the length of time you are serving, you are putting in service. I look at so many things. We have to look at, we have to have a balance. It certainly is not the only policeman in that state of mind, transitioning a gun. He's even, I mean, at that age, what do you expect? Even much younger officers who are brazing, who are not well brought up, who are ill-breds, who populate the police, the police force and the armed forces. So, a lot of reforms need to take place and on purpose to not just have hazard. It has to be, let me come in here. Even the so-called higher-up officers there. I am not sure in my mind the hard, the process, the moral standing to even correct their junior officers. And I say this because I happen to have been brought up by an uncle who is late now, who was in the military. He, I mean, he retired as a corner. I mean, he retired, he was among the first set of the, of those who were trained in the NDA. He died last year as the patriarch of our family. I recall those days when, when we are, when you are in his company, around army officers or personnel and they are not handling the guns very well. He admonishes them and tells them how to carry the gun, point it down, don't carry it up, don't, let me give you an instance. It is not unlikely that this might not have meant to fire at the first instance. So many things could have happened. The pressure of the work, all kinds of things. You see some of these people at the end of the day just empathize, put yourself in their situation and see whether you can function well. I mean, in the type of jobs they do. There was a day I was driving. There was, there was a, there was a Hilux van with policemen in front of me. I was coming behind them. I had to quickly make, I mean, I had to allow other vehicles to come in because I couldn't drive close to them. Here these people were sitting down carelessly carrying their guns. The guns were pointing at vehicles and they were driving. For God's sake, anything can happen in that situation. That's how careless they can be with handling of guns. And you see their, their, their superiors, they cannot, they don't even know better from my observation. I'm sorry to say. So a lot needs to be done. So much money needs to be done. Let's even thank God that that man was not allowed to flee the scene of the incident. Because if that had happened, I mean, that could have put Page to any investigation. It will, it will remain inconclusive. But thank God this is not so. So what they have to do is, I mean, is enormous. I think so much has, let's go back to Ensa. One of the points raised in that is police from, pay these people well, make them live like human beings, reform them, make them happy, pay them well. But unfortunately these were the same people. Whose costs, I mean, whose welfare was being traversed in that rally were used to go and mow them down and things like that. And we're still here. I mean, arguing whether people were killed or not. People didn't even, even, people didn't even need to be killed. I'm just saying in that situation for us to appreciate the dire situation that we're in. Each time my daughter takes the car out, my heart is in my mouth until she comes home. I brought her up very well. Even some of these people, the mere appearance of good upbringing on young ones, it offends them. We were here on the other day. We saw the other day a young man who had just an iPhone. We saw, we saw the venom that was put on him by police officer on the road. That he's worked for how many years. He couldn't even afford a phone. What is this young man and all kinds of things. We saw the other one the other day on the long bridge here. Who, who, who was trying to, who, who was, who was illegally looking into a young boy's phone. He resisted. Luckily they could have killed him. So a lot has to be done. Everything that needs to be done has been said, has been, has been, they know what to do. It is just to find the zeal and the will to carry through. We all know what we need in this country. So I don't need to reel out whatever they are there. Okay, let me, let me go to Mr. Degi, now Dr. Degi. The police through the PPR, Benjamin Houdain has named the person, the cop that was responsible. They called him Drambi Vandy. It doesn't sound Nigerian though, but I don't know which tribe he's from, but he, the fact that he's a policeman makes him just a policeman. No, no issue of whether he's coming from one tribe or the other. But like we have said, before this incident happened, and they, the lawyer has pointed it out too, before this incident happened three weeks ago, someone else was killed. And we didn't even, a lot of people who are hearing about Bolan Lee right now, they don't even hear about that boy or that young man because maybe he's not a lawyer. Now someone has died. And like Mr. Kinsoya said, maybe it's because she is a lawyer that we are hearing this. But what kind of police are we, are the people of Nigeria expecting what kind of police should be, beyond 2023? Because when we have the right leaders, we'll expect them also to do some reforms. Like the lawyer has said, what kind of reforms do we need in the police force to make them the police of our taste as it were? Because they are the only security agencies that should take care of the civil society. Okay, maybe civil defense, maybe Peace Corps, but they are the highest in that hierarchy. So what kind of a police force do we want as Nigerians so that the next people who are going to be at the helm of affairs will look into it. It was said during the answers, but maybe the presentation was not palatable enough for the political class that make the policy. So what can we begin to tell them now that when you get into office, you need to change XYZ for the police to make them better? The kind of police in Nigeria and what politicians assume first is the orientation of the police itself. If you pick an average police officer in Nigeria and you assess its orientation, it's so hard. So some of them ask to or civilize. They feel like living a good life as something, maybe it's a crime. They see fashion, some of them see fashion as a crime, a well-oriented police force. All we carry out is duty in terms of protection of life and property. Then the training. You can't put a policeman on the job without the training. Some of these police officers have spent 10 years on the job, 15 years on the job, without any proper training. They just receive orders, go and do this, go and do that, and that's all. There must be training and retraining for each police officer to carry out duty in 30 years. Now the welfare and condition of service. If you go to most police stations in Nigeria and you look at the environment, the condition of service is so poor. The work hours, the welfare of the police itself. A policeman that is standing under the storm that can afford to eat three square meals. And he has a gun with him. That gun will definitely push him to misbehave to the next person he sees. And that's why we have exploitation all over the place. A policeman that is living his life in dreams. He's seen iPhone. He has been hearing of iPhone. He hasn't the opportunity to use one. He wants to use one. He desires one. Maybe his wife or girlfriend specializing in power. And he can't afford it. What do you expect from such a police officer? We must begin to look to see that the welfare of the police officer itself is well made. If the police officer is not protected, whether financially, whether emotionally, how do you expect such a police officer to protect the society? The police officer must be protected financially and in every aspect of life. If the police officer cannot say this to a good school and with the state of our public education, the police officer wants to say this to a private school. How much is the salary? He will resort to a special. So the welfare and conditional service of the police must work together. Then our leaders and the police top structure must look at the recruitment. Who are you recruiting into the police? How easy is it for a county and a robber to find his way into the police force? These are important. If you don't recruit people who are the fear of God, if you don't recruit people who are passionate about the service itself, this is the kind of thing we get. Some of the people we find in police force today are not passionate about the job. They are in the force because unemployment called them into it. You might just want to ask the unemployed for years and it's his opportunity to join the police. He sees it as an escape route for unemployment. So the person is not there. The motivation is not there. So we need to begin to check the recruitment process itself. Then another thing, the political class and the police must look into his performance evaluation. How do a DPO, who has been able to resolve crime in his jurisdiction, promoted to the next rank? If you are a CSP, Chiefs of the National Police and your DPO, how do you get promoted to AIG? When the jurisdiction, the division you are handling, there's still so much crime. There's kidnapping. So we must base promotion on performance evaluation. Look at police officers that are performing and put them into the hotspots knowing well that they can deliver for you. So another thing is the equipment. I think we should have soft equipment for the police. In other crimes, it's not about gone, gone, gone. No, the equipment we use most in Nigeria is gone and clear gas. There are so many soft equipment that you can use to arrest a criminal that you can use to cop crime. Instead of going to the equipment class, soft equipment, because you are relating with the public. You are not a military, you are relating with the public every day. So what do you really need an AK-47 for? Except there is a crime, except you are going for a protest, then you can brandish for AK-47. But you are just going maybe on a stopped patrol. You are with AK-47. A man is driving with his kids. The kids are seen gone every day. No institution in Nigeria has exposed the Nigerian kids to weapon more than the police. The Nigerian child is exposed to weapon force, human rights abuse from the police every day like they say it happened to their parents. That affects their psychology about the police. Then we need to decentralize the police. The police is overworked. When you decentralize the police, we have state police, we have community police. It will help 400,000 police officers operating on a budget whereby 96.4% goes to the current expenditure. 3.6% goes to capital expenditure. How do you want them to perform? 400 police officers to man a country of 200 million people, where they are kidnapping, banditry, different types of crime in the community. No. We need to move beyond the centralized police system. We need to de-policyize the police force and make sure that we have state police, we have community police. But it's not doing. The federal police will be able to get some workload off their shelf. So, hello? Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead. Okay. So, the decentralization of the police is quite important. I think there's been an interruption. He made a lot of points and one of which that he made that hit me is how that you are on a soft patrol and you have a low-dead gun. It would never make sense to me because how, is it even legal to have a loaded gun on the streets where there is no, there's no, there's no chaos, there's no war, there's no reported crime or criminal activity going on. Yeah, maybe they go for everything. They go prepared like the Boy Scouts will say. Let me explain the devil's advocate here because if there is an emergency and police has to be called, they will be in traffic. They might not reach their own time. I'm playing devil's advocate anyway. But he mentions also something about evaluating the people that they are recruiting. But for someone who has been in the force for 33 years, at least he was there when things were a little bit better, better in the sense of the values people placed on lives and property, not better in terms of salary because I'm sure this policeman must have started earning maybe something lower than 20,000 or at least lower than 50,000 before getting to 33 years. So if you endured from that time till now, you just have two years to retire and you do this, it's not as if you're a novice. You're a new person that has come in the generation where everything goes. There are so many culties. There are so many people being corrupted by friends and all that. You came in a time that at least the values were still a little bit higher and you're doing this now at this time. Who should be teaching the kids anyway? But I do have a question and I want to like take it up from where I stopped in the last question about how that we've been hearing justice and we need to really understand what it is. Like if this investigation, let's say the investigation is brought to an end and they found they have their findings and this police officer is found guilty. What kind of punishments does the law stipulate? I'm sure the lawyer is still standing by. Ken Harris, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Dr. Barrister, what kind of punishment does the law stipulate? For instance, this police officer is found guilty of this crime. What kind of punishment does the law stipulate and how long would it take to get to that point? Well, it will depend on what the investigation, I mean the fact is yes, there's been a shooting. Somebody has died as a result of that. Corpability would be established. Now whatever comes out of the, I don't want to, I mean, I don't want to prejudice whatever is going to happen. In the event that murder is proved, well, it could be death sentence, could be live imprisonment. The law provides for that. However, if it were to be manslaughter that he didn't intend, the intent was absent. It was just half-unstance manslaughter. Well, life imprisonment, long-term imprisonment, I mean, could be what the sentence would be. It depends. So I'm not going to fix anything at this point in time. Let us just allow, you see, what we are out for, you see, the essence of law is that even if somebody is going to be, I mean, he must, the investigation must be done. He must be taken to court of competent jurisdiction and he must go through public trial and then, I mean, if he's found guilty, I mean, if not, he'll be discharged. We don't know what will come out of it because it is still an allegation. But in the event that, yes, I mean, the worst is confirmed. Well, it will dance to the music if it is dead, so be it. So that's all I need to say at this point in time. But when, if eventually that is what is done, of course, he has a right of appeal up to the Supreme Court. If it is affirmed, that is one side of it. This has to be seen to be done as well. Yeah, when we were discussing, just a moment, when we were discussing, she was also asking, is it even legal for policemen to enter into the civil society as it is, carrying arms when there is no riot, when there is no threat to life or anything? Is it even legal by law for policemen to wield arms the way they wielded in Nigeria? You see, the police, they have what they call standard of bridging procedures, which they know. And our society has evolved in such a way. Look, as a young boy growing up, the highest I saw with policemen were batons around. Then he graduated gradually onto guns and things like that. Now, I mean, it is gone. I mean, haywire. And again, sometimes this thing, yes, I'm sure there's a, I cannot exactly say, I mean, what's, what part of their loss, but there's something that guides them on how to, you know, handle weapons. In the situation around Black Idiom, things like that, you and I know how quickly things can go round. So maybe it's, we don't even know the circumstances that got him there in the first place. We don't know. Maybe there might have been a alarm that they called them to, we don't know. So we cannot say exactly. It is the investigation that goes on that will prove all of this. But whether they can bear arms in a civil environment, maybe yes, maybe not. Otherwise, how do you explain it when you have a party? And then they say you want, they say you want to throw a party. They say, okay, provide security, aside from the bouncers and things like that, you have one or two armed policemen around just to, you know, just to send the signal to the hoodlums. I'm sure you must have been at parties where when it is six o'clock, they ask you guys to quickly hurry up that the bad boys are beginning to take, I mean to take over in the neighborhood. You hurriedly pack everything and you disappear from the venue. You ask your suppliers, your caterers, please, please, please, we are leaving this place. So the situation of our environment now makes it such that it is neither here nor there. Really. But also we in the society, we have a way, the society has programmable such that sometimes when you are in an area and you look at, if you cite a policeman with a gun, you, I mean, you calm down with it. So if the society itself primes itself off of some of these things that we see, so much has happened. Law and order has broken down totally, we must agree. Family is no longer what it used to be. Let me tell you, growing up as a, I mean, growing up as a young boy, I had a lot of classmates who were children of police officers. They kept, I mean, we, I mean the public primaries to police personnel and things like that. Let me tell you one thing. In those days, the children of the policemen were the best dressed in our school. The ironed their uniforms exceptionally. We looked up to the police sergeants and things like that to, to dress up. They dress very well. They look very neat. You hardly saw a policeman then carrying, I mean, sporting beard. Not the high, not the high up. I'm talking of the, I mean, the middle ranks rank and fire. They look sparkling. I'm telling you this growing up. But what do you have now? Even the so-called ACPs and things like that. You look at their shoes on kent and things like that. It is sad. So these things don't even command respect in the first place. I had cost to be in the, I mean, to, I mean, to have an assignment at the police station sometime. I went to, I mean, to, I mean, I went to procure a bill for some, some body and things like that. The police officer that attended to me, I waited for him. He happens to be a graduate from University of Ibadan. I happened to have passed through University of Ibadan too. So we got stuck in, of course. I mean, much earlier than him. So we got stuck in. And in the process of discussing and things like that, do you know that for his office, he had to procure his own, I passed my neighbor generator to power his office. And we went into the discussion about how the, how the bill conditions will be packaged and things like that. Otherwise, he would not function and he has to deliver. And to carry this through, he has to carry through, through his junior officers who reports to him. Now at the end of the day, has he not, would he not have compromised? Would he not have lost one moral, this or the other? So how would he, how would he in return supervise these people and be effective and tell them, don't do this. So you see, too many militant factors against them to even be effective. And it's society too. In a way, we seem to be getting what we have created because everything starts from the home. What is the state of the homes now, my brother? The monsters we created according to, according to Burner Boy. I'm glad that you gentlemen had a balance to it because everybody on the street is just angry, but it's good that there was this balance that no matter what has happened, we should still look at the condition of service of the policemen and all that. And ensas actually had that. But the way the policemen were the same people that were sent to shut down these young men and women who were saying what they were saying, maybe in the way that was not very good, but the message was passed. But this unfortunate incident has happened and we do hope that it will not happen again. Not on Christmas, not on any other day when it's avoidable. So gentlemen, at this point, would like to say thank you to you for being a part of this program. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for being there. Thank you for being there. Okay, so policemen, it's no longer like it's a fashionable thing that you tell somebody in Nigeria that I've never been arrested by the police. I've never slept in a cell or anything. It's not like a fashionable thing. You are such a good person because you could be picked up. Yeah, just for no reason at all. Unprovable. Just imagine how the story he gave that someone was angry, and I've seen that a lot myself, someone is angry that you're using a phone that he has never used. I mean, what's that your, how's that your business? There's something called resignation from the police force to come and do what the young man does if you can do it. But you know, you have, you have your priorities, he has his, you have your source of income. It doesn't always have to be crime for someone to be able to get a lot of things. There are things that me, I didn't think could give you money when I was growing up. The children of nowadays know it and they're taking advantage of it and making more money than us. So I shouldn't be jealous of a small boy who has bought a car for instance, and I don't have a car. And I'm saying all my years in broadcasting, I don't even have a car and you're owning a car. Unfortunately, you don't have the power to arrest anyone. Well, you might have arrested someone. I'll pray for you and just make sure that any time you're passing, I'll strategically stand where you can carry me. I'll be in your good books. But that's how it is. We'll just take a short break, get the news out and then when we return, we conclude the run up for today. Stay with us.