The dateline was 2005. The state was Imo. The route was the Aba-Owerri Road. The time was rush hour along the then Aba-Owerri route, notorious for heavy traffic gridlock due to the state of the road and the activities of mechanics along the road, just after Naze, if you were coming from Aba. I had just assumed duty as Sector Commander of the state. It was my first Command appointment in a career that spanned twenty-eight years. Other Command appointments were to follow, including Sector Commander, Federal Capital Territory, Lagos Sector, as well as appointments as Zonal Commanding Officer in Abuja, FCT, Jos, the Plateau State capital, and in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, among others.
In Owerri, the capital of Imo State, my challenge was not just to introduce some level of sanitization and traffic rule compliance but fundamentally to address the daily traffic gridlock that had become an embarrassment to the Command’s existence and a nuisance to travelers.
We rolled out numerous strategies, including special patrols, improved and enhanced advocacies, and creative stakeholders’ engagement, which included courtesy calls to the mechanic village team members, whom we identified as a major stumbling block to solving the problem. We also paid similar visits to the timber shade (ogbo-osisi) members. Some of their members were mobilized into the Special Marshal to strengthen traffic control within their area, which equally had its fair share of traffic in the state.
While these strategies were yielding a semblance of improvement, especially in stakeholder mobilization and involvement, commercial vehicle drivers, as well as private car drivers from Aba, among other road users, were yet to sync with the new measures. As Sector Commander, whose office was situated along the Aba-Owerri Road, it was embarrassing to be trapped in traffic daily on my way home.
On this fateful day, I was heading home but detoured when I observed that my patrol team along the route was being overpowered by a recalcitrant driver. I pulled over to help. My presence emboldened my men. I took control and ordered the particular vehicle to pull over. The driver, assuming that I was one of the normal routine officers, initially declined. I insisted on my order, but while he was still displaying his defiance, operatives of the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency cited me and promptly joined in apprehending the driver.
Despite the presence of the armed NDLEA operatives, the driver boldly identified himself as a soldier attached to the Amphibious Battalion, Port Harcourt. When quizzed further, he failed to provide any form of identification. I ordered that he be taken to the NDLEA Command Headquarters, also situated along the Aba-Owerri Road. After a series of interrogations, in the company of the Commandant of the State NDLEA, I called the Brigade Commander of the Nigerian Army at Obinze, who ordered that the impostor be brought to Obinze.
At Obinze, the impostor finally opened up. Thereafter, pressure mounted on my office from concerned citizens, pleading for mercy when they learned of the move to prosecute him in court. After a series of pressures, in concert with the Brigade Commander, the imposter was released after spending about two weeks in detention. He promised never to impersonate any security operative.
I do not know if you read my piece last week. Erroneously, I said 5,000 deaths occur on our roads daily. The correct figure is about 5,000 deaths annually. Please kindly disregard my unfortunate error. Meanwhile, the Owerri incident is just one out of numerous cases. Some of the impostors and impersonators are civilian impostors. Others are political impostors. Some may be genuine operatives of security agencies.
A particular incident happened in the Federal Capital Territory along the Abuja-Lokoja Road. I was leading a special patrol when a vehicle was spotted driving on the wrong side of the road. When the driver was ordered to pull over, he reluctantly did so, and while my men were questioning his bad driving behavior, he reached out to his holster and pulled out his service pistol, threatening to shoot and kill whoever dared to stop him. With the advantage of numbers, my men overpowered him and brought sanity to bear on the situation.
There are several cases and worse ones too. Civilians, politicians, security operatives – serving and retired, fraudsters, touts, learned and illiterate. There was a case of a senior security officer who came flaunting his state house credentials as a basis for flouting traffic rules. His ego and air of superiority consumed him as he questioned the right of my “Boy Scout” men to pull him over for a mere traffic infraction, being a grade A/superior uniform personnel.
The threats of these characters know no bounds. In fact, one impostor, after failing in his braggadocious conduct, described my men as below the rats in his office. What was their offense? They arrested him for traffic infractions on a Saturday morning, and because he felt he had the ears of the high and mighty, he came with so much arrogance because of his so-called “oti nkpu” (hype-man), who incidentally was the head of one of the security agencies.
Incidentally, when the head called me about the matter, I explained all that had happened and how the offender had denigrated my men, which really infuriated the head of the security agency. Thereafter, he warned him never to call his number again since he didn’t have respect for uniform personnel. He left my command humbled, with his face bowed to the ground.
Even foreigners, mostly those from the Asian stock, rank among these. They will assault you and threaten to call a head of a security agency to deal ruthlessly with you. All of these have joined the bandwagon of impostors and impersonators who challenge you with a “Do you know who I am?” mentality.
I don’t know if you read my piece titled “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM.” If you didn’t, I plead that you do. In that piece, I tried to understand why impostors and impersonators suffer from an identity crisis due to their deviant behavior. I wondered why people who are nobodies but usurpers, pretenders of power, authority, and wealth delude themselves. These are people we call in Nigeria “money miss road,” flaunting infinitesimal cash.
These are impostors, eaten up by their big egos, all because they were pulled over by a Road Marshal for questioning over a traffic infraction. These impostors flaunt traffic rules for several unjustified reasons, such as a desire for an uninterrupted trip and their claim to be in a hurry to attend an urgent meeting with nonexistent VIPs, among others. In reality, all this braggadocious conduct is a show to evade arrest by law enforcement.
These are people with a strong sense of unearned entitlement who display this posture to security operatives to evade arrest. I counsel them to always, before hitting the road, remind themselves that road traffic crashes respect no class, no color, no status, no religion, and no sex. They should always look in the mirror and remind themselves that death is the ultimate for every soul; death is also the likely penalty for chronic traffic violators.
And all, irrespective of status, age, or sex, go seven feet under without any accompanying paraphernalia of wealth, power, or position. These victims are often verbally and physically assaulted, as well as dehumanized. Often, you find them jumping traffic lights, using their phones behind the wheel, overtaking dangerously, even at bends and in built-up areas, as well as exceeding speed limits.
It doesn’t matter if the driven vehicle is borrowed or bears a government-issued number plate whose identity should warrant decency. If they are part of a convoy or the convoy, the lives of other road users mean absolutely nothing to them, as they are ready to drive you off the road, and if confronted, order their security details to “waste you,” bragging that “nothing will happen.”
