Relating With The Nigeria Police Officer: Dressing

How do you dress? To show them, that is to kill? Rough like a lunatic? Extravagantly, like a fraudster? Like a serious businessman? Non-expensively simple? Gentleman-like? You may wonder, why all these questions about dressing. Your dressing speaks volumes about you. Even the Police are able to read you through your dressing. And many times, they have been able to nab criminals on the street by simply stopping them for search due to their dressing and through questioning find the suspect incoherent to simple queries and then a revelation of their true persons through deep scrutiny. The same way, criminals have passed the searching eyes of policemen unnoticed due to their decent dressing. But you know what? Policemen look out for more than just dressing to suspect a criminal, so there is no hiding place for the Goldfish. If at all, it is only temporary.

Simply put your mode of dressing counts so much on the street and highway. Many people have run into trouble with the police through their manner of dressing. They have been victims of police harassment, arrest, brutality and detention through their indecent, flamboyant dressing. Besides, one’s manner of dressing can easily attract criminals to the person. I want to tell a short story here to buttress this point.

There once was an Auto mechanic servicing the vehicles of a bank. He goes to work at the premises of the bank daily very well dressed in suit to hide his identity as a mechanic, and carrying a briefcase to hide his work tools and overall. His journey took him through a lonely route to and from his home on those days. Unknown to him, he was under the watch of some criminals who have noticed this well-dressed guy always carrying a brief case working for a bank. After a few days of surveillance, they decided to take their chance to rob him of his “valuables”.

One day as the guy was returning from work he noticed that some young men came out of nowhere on the lonely route and started following him hurriedly. He suspected they must be criminals from their looks and decided to increase his pace but the men kept closing in on him. He had to run for his dear life as there was no one around to get help from. As he ran, he remembered that they might be following him thinking he had money in his briefcase so he thought he should let them know that they were mistaken. He snapped open his briefcase and the content started tumbling out. This further infuriated the robbers who gave him a very hot chase.

They finally caught up with him and gave him the beating that almost took his life for wasting their time. The lesson here is, be streetwise, dress to suit the occasion or the environment you live or to take eyes off you.

Relating With The Nigeria Police Officer: Identification

A lot of people have had very tough times with the Nigeria Police on the streets or highway, sometimes landing them at the Police Station, Police cell or even jail for an offence they may not have committed. Some innocent citizens have lost their lives to some trigger-crazy officers, in the name of accidental discharge. A major cause of these is that most citizens do not know how to relate with the men in black.

Before we continue, the saying that the Police is your friend cannot be truer. Eh! Did you say? Yes. If you don’t think so, maybe we should hold a referendum compelling President Yar’Adua to order the Inspector General of Police to withdraw his men from Nigeria streets for just 24 hours. Picturing what can happen within that period should convince you whether they are your friends or not. Well, that is not to say you don’t have enemies among the officers. There are, and they are they Criminals-in-uniform who had given and still giving the force a very bad name.

So how should you relate to the Nigeria Police Officer to avoid some of the negative experiences I earlier mentioned? I have chosen to talk about identification this time. Usually, when policemen stop anyone on the street or highway the first thing they would ask for is an identification card or anything to identify that person. Most times, this simple request had led to an argument which should not be. Simply comply with the request not minding the manner the request was made, even if rudely as applies sometimes. However, when you bring out your identity card as requested, be careful not to hand it over so fast to the man in uniform because the “officer” may just be a criminal on the road who suspecting that you have something of value could collect your ID card, destroy it, leaving you with no means of identification and give you a bad name in other to take you out of public glare to a place where he can carry out his criminal operation of dispossessing you of your valuables while you are trying to defend yourself.

Please note, do not argue with an officer who asks for your identification, just comply but be cautious when you do, watching out for the behavior of the officer.

Be Streetwise Nigeria

Do you live in the city or the countryside. Wherever, you have to be streetwise. Being streetwise means knowing what to do, where to go, when to go and how to go to certain places. It also means knowing how to behave in certain places or under certain conditions. These pages would be psoting how to be streetwise in Nigeria, taking the reader through various villages, towns, and states in Nigeria. I hope you will enjoy reading the pages and most importantly that you would learn from the counsel provided in other not to be a victim.