My Caring buddies!

After reading an article on my friend’s blog on how 'nice' and 'warm-hearted' the police can be, I decided to share my 'dreamy' experience about them.

It was exactly a week after my younger sister’s wedding and we all were still smarting and reminiscing from the stress and success of the wedding. So my mom’s elder sister was leaving that morning and I had to take her to the ‘park’ but I was still silly tired. I love driving but this wedding showed me the next level of driving (please remind me to always be extra nice to my drivers). So I gathered the little strength I had gathered and drove her to the park with her daughter and an uncle accompanying me. We got to the park and were just chilling for the ‘agbero’ boys to complete the normal antics of delaying people,

    “Oga no worry, them go soon comot. Na five people remain”

was the reply I got when I asked what the delay was, a very normal reply when dealing with an agbero. So we kept gisting and waiting.

After a while, this troll of a guy walks in wearing a ‘fitted’ shirt that obviously wasn’t his size on a shapeless body with a round tummy putting the very meaning of round to test. He greeted a man standing with two elderly people, gisted a little with him and then proceeded to greet my aunt and us. He talked for a little time with my aunt, gave her some money and left to go ‘buy onions’ for her. Few minutes later the five people the bus was waiting for arrived and the bus was good to go. This was our cue to leave. Then it all began!

Five minutes into our journey back home with Praiz (Rich and Famous) delightfully blaring from from the car speakers, my phone started buzzing of the hook with calls from Dad. Wahala had erupted at the park, Dad after my aunt called him sensed a fight and had his gloves on. We were back at the park in no time after I exhibited some very fine classy James Bond moves. The park which was normally agog with people making last minute runs to catch a bus or hawkers (selling things which you don’t need but just buy because it’s customary to do so when you are travelling), etc was now a market place of trouble. The Police had arrived to arrest my aunt and the park boys had refused to let their customer go. I didn’t know agbero could be so caring after they had collected money from you. What was my aunt’s offense? A man hunted by the police for over a year for 419 activities came to say Hi to her just before she travelled. The man that was standing with the elderly people was a detective on the case. The troll (for want of a better name) who engaged in 419 activities (very recent conning 10 million naira from some folks) had told the detective that he was at the park to see his travelling mom off (how evil). The detective called his group that the wanted man was at the park with his mom and that was how we landed at the Police station after a lot of drama at the park.

There was a buzz in the station when we got there because the policemen felt this was a big catch. My dad was furiously ‘raking’, my aunt was pleading her innocence, I was backing my dad and my uncle was trying to calm us. Dad infuriated the police more and they threatened to lock my aunt up (which we all did not want). It was at that point that my dad saw how ‘friendly’ the police can be. He immediately called my uncle, a former police commissioner, recently retired. When he arrived, the frown on the faces of the policemen had no direction until dad walked up to him as he alighted from his car. The policemen present, including the DCO (who had been breathing fire and brimstone) gave him a parade-like salute because he once served in the state and was quite popular among the ranks before he was posted out. He told them that if they were looking for whom to arrest, they should take him as the woman in question was not the mother of the wanted man.

To cut the 8am to 3pm story short, the police apologized for harassing her, claiming that it was the wanted man (who they obviously let escape again) that deceived them. And that was how the presence of a former commissioner of police (cousin to the harassed) stopped the police from demanding and possibly collecting only-God-knows-how-much sum of money, which was always bound to come.

So I was wondering, should the slogan “the police is your friend'  not undergo rebranding too?”


 Agbero - Touts at the motor station (park)
 Wahala - Trouble
 DCO    - Divisional Commanding Officer