Of 77 recovered cows and 67 “wedding” crashers
By Ambassador Lilian Onoh
I despair.
On September 20, 2023, I saw the sort of headline I had hoped had been permanently retired to Daura – “Police Recover 77 Stolen Cows in Plateau,” (Punch newspaper, 20/09/23).
In the said story, the spokesman for the Plateau Command, Alabo Alfred, said, “According to the intelligence report, the cows were rustled from a herder while grazing and moved towards Odare forest of Kampani Zurak village, Wase Local Government Area… On sighting the Police the culprits fled into the nearby forests. However, 77 cows were recovered and released to the owner. The police have intensified efforts in order to arrest the culprits and ensure that they face the full weight of the law.”
First of all, let us digest these words “INTELLIGENCE REPORT”.
The kind of stuff referred to when talking about how the Americans found and tracked Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan before killing him.
The kind that should have found out who ordered soldiers to be withdrawn from the Chibok checkpoint before the kidnapping of over 300 schoolgirls or found out where the girls are still being held as sex slaves by deviants since 2014 or who was behind the bombing of Army barracks or who supplied Boko Haram, A.K.A. “Bandits” with surface-to-air missiles with which they brought down military jets et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!
These are the sorts of things for which the term “Intelligence Report” should be applied in any normal society but which in this case rendered the Nigerian Police into a global laughing stock.
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The intricate, detailed account of how 77 cows left Bauchi State and traversed hundreds of miles through swathes of forests in their inter-state journey to Plateau state is even more embarrassing. If all this awesome intelligence can be gathered for 77 missing cows, in a country where Fulani herdsmen with AK 47s and thousands of indistinguishable cows roam the country without care, blocking roads, including those leading to Aso Villa, or Apo Legislative Quarters at will, how on earth did over 300 students get kidnapped without a single “intelligence report” to guide our Police, our DSS or our Army?
And how come the scarce resources of our police are being used to hunt inter-state cattle rustlers but not the perpetrators of the genocidal decimation of the indigenous Plateau population, i.e. the herdsmen who waka-waka freely with AK 47s and rustle cattle without fear of arrest because they know/work for the Oga at the Top?
That might explain how come the “Intelligent” Police with Intelligence did not think to surround the rustlers before they “ran away”, conveniently leaving 77 cows and no culprit in custody to corroborate or refute the Tales by Moonlight in the news.
This reduces the police to a global joke in search of 15 seconds of fame. Please, I am begging the Police, the DSS and the army – DO NOT EVER AGAIN REPORT THAT YOU HAVE RECOVERED COWS! It is too embarrassing. The Nigerian Police, Army or DSS cannot become fodder for international TV comedy shows. Biko. Are these the forces that Tinubu is threatening to send to Niger? Who will take him seriously?
The other story, again involving the Nigerian Police, was the arrest of dozens of “Gay Wedding Attendees” in Delta State.
According to the Delta Commissioner of Police, Mr. Wale Abass, represented by DSP Bright Edafe, “The suspects were apprehended …by a crack team of police operatives attached to the Ekpan division. Acting on intelligence gathered, the Divisional Police Officer…raided the hotel where some suspected gay members were holding a gay marriage ceremony,” He said. (The Niche, August 29, 2023).
Watching the video posted by the Police on Twitter, I couldn’t help but despair at another global display of ignominy. The Police have absolutely no case at all. There was no legally authorised person to conduct a wedding at the venue so they would have a hard time proving that a wedding was about to take place. There was no “bride” – only a bad apparition in a bright gold-ish sequined dress and blond horse-tail wig! The rest of the motley crew in white claimed to be present for an all-white party/fashion show.
None was caught in the act of doing anything other than being at a gathering of males wearing white trousers and tops, sprinkled with a couple of inept cross-dressing males. Even a recovered rustled cow high on ogogoro and tramadol could not mistake these caricatures for females!
If wearing white trousers and white tops is a crime, then the Delta and Edo police would be the busiest in Nigeria since gatherings of males in white attire happens almost daily, especially those who are in the various royal courts of towns and hamlets or in various cults. And their attire can technically be called cross-dressing since it often looks like wrappers tied across one shoulder or across the hips, and not much else. An unexpected gust of wind could cause a wardrobe malfunction we don’t want to see.
In fact, all the police did was make global headlines that turned the Nigerian Police into an international meme.
The disgrace of the Police was completed by the show-stealing red-wigged, red-booted, show-bele suspect who eloquently stated that he wasn’t aware that cross-dressing was against the law and asked to know which law he had violated.
He was infinitely more eloquent than the Professor who informed Nigeria that the RMRDC had achieved the technological wizardry of inventing a Kilishi Making machine in 2020!
That red-wigged apparition in a mini-skirt destroyed the Nigerian police without the least effort and made everyone wonder who went to school and who didn’t.
That it was the “CRACK TEAM” of Police Officers that rumbled them begs the question – couldn’t they have infiltrated the group and actually gather tangible evidence before pouncing and gaining global notoriety for nonsense at par with recovering meandering cows?
What makes them a “crack team” and what “intelligence” did they gather other than arrest a mini-skirt wearing man and force him to lead them to where he was going?
The Nigerian Law on homosexual unions didn’t include cross-dressing as a crime since it would lead to bombastic imbeciles interpreting it any which way and probably result in the Police and Army arresting any woman in trousers, as was the case in 1984, when Buhari’s soldiers were flogging and arresting women in Enugu for wearing trousers.
Without a law on cross-dressing or other evidence in consonance with that law, there was absolutely no point in the exercise. The Nigerian Police should not waste time and resources on this matter now that they are out on N5 million bail. They should quietly drop the case. It’s too embarrassing.
Next time, the “crack team” should try to find evidence first before pouncing and gaining global notoriety. Maybe find out the whereabouts of Leah Sharibu and the other Chibok girls and rescue them and catch or eliminate the terrorists holding them. That is when the terms “crack team” and “intelligence report” would have meaning.
Lastly, I beg all Nigerian Media Houses, please, biko, save Nigeria and help protect her already tattered image by refusing to publish stories of recovered cows by the Army, The DSS or the Police, which dominated our news headlines between 2015 and May 2023. Biko. I am begging all of you. Remember that you all have relatives abroad who become laughing stocks whenever these stories make the news.
And some of us know some exceptional police and army officers and they do not deserve to be converted to cow-catchers by the Ogas at the Top who have spent the last 8 years trying to turn the whole of Nigeria into a cattle colony from the 3rd Century B.C.
Biko, let us put an end to this nonsensitization of our security agencies. And yes, “nonsensitization” is not in the English dictionary. Just like cattle trails are not all over Nigeria.
- Ambassador Lilian Onoh is Nigeria’s former High Commissioner to Namibia and former Head of Mission in Jamaica.