I was going to write about the part of me that keeps coming back before I decide to dig into my draft because of a story I read on Friday.

For some Nigerians, the fear of officers of the Nigerian Police Force is the beginning of wisdom. This is because you could be arrested for just walking on the street and minding your business.

There’s hardly a day that you don’t see someone online sharing a police brutality experience.

I have read about someone who committed suicide because some police officers collected thousands of dollars which doesn’t belong to him from him.

About three years ago, a friend back in primary school shared his near-death experience with the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS). These are stories you don’t want to imagine.

We have people at federal and state house of assemblies as well as those at the executive arm of the government online, tweeting and weighing in on issues about the society. Yet, you’ll hardly, if not never, see them take a stand against police brutality.

Uncle Segun @segalink has been a strong force against police brutality in Nigeria. Same with Ruggedman among others.

While their effort is of great importance, there’s the need for the legislatures, the president, governors and locals authority chairmen/chairpersons to really work on putting an end to the inhumane activities of our ‘officers’.

One of the people’s MCM in government created an initiative that provides assistance to victims of police brutality. This is fine but he actually has the power sort of to address the source of the problem as an elected officer. But what do I know.

I got inked last year and the only fear attached to it is the part of opening myself up for police harassment.

Wearing a tattoo to them could be translated to being a cultist or ‘yahoo yahoo‘. A photographer was arrested and detained about last year or thereabout because he had dreadlocks.

It’s not surprising considering that a top officer claimed that tattoo is not part of the Nigerian culture. Well, my late maternal grandma had tattoos all over her back and stomach.

Interestingly, she got them more than six decades ago. So, which culture are we talking about?

I think it’s a case of people trying to prove a point that they are better than others. That you don’t wear tattoo or dread doesn’t make you a better human or a judge.

Now to the story I said I read on Friday. I was at Smile Network office to resolve an issue with my Internet modem. While at the waiting area, a story headline from a newspaper caught my attention.

Police arrest software developer, extort N10,000.

In the story @dav_okwulili shared how he went out for an haircut but ended up in police custody.

These things are happening. I cant remember the brand now but one Nigerian media outlet did a story recently about the fact that the Nigerian Police has killed more than coronavirus since the index case in the country.

Corona is outside and so is the Nigerian Police.

There was a sort of wake up call to the Nigerian tech community last year which saw stakeholders in the community donating thousands of dollars for the cause. What’s the update? That story is not for this platform.

It’s scary and it could be me or you next.