When tribe wears the uniform

By Pat Onukwuli
A police uniform should conceal tribe and reveal the Republic. It should transform the wearer from an indigene of a particular place into an officer for all. Yet in a video circulating online, a Nigerian policeman appears to tell a motorist that, had he been Igbo, he would have detained him. The statement is brief, but its implications are profound. If accurately understood, those words convert protection into prejudice and discretion into discrimination.
They suggest that liberty may depend not on conduct but on origin; that one Nigerian may comply with the law while another faces inherited suspicion. The Nigeria Police Force has reportedly commenced disciplinary p...