Here is the fundamental problem as it is with the Nigerian state and the mentality of the people themselves. As aptly illustrated by scholars of human behavior, When we’re the consumers of the change or disrupt, we insist on evidence-based treatment. We want doctors and software and teachers that do something that works. We want to get better, we want the computer to not crash, and we want to learn things effectively and quickly…

But often, as practitioners, (people in position to make change happen) we ignore the evidence in favor of what feels ‘right’, or because of our attachment to a narrative or what we’ve done before (I treated this under revisionary life ideology which has kept us voting the same set of people that has ruined us in the past). We stand on principal, not results.

So, before presenting the evidence, before assuming that people will change their work in response to the data, we need enrollment, commitment and common ground. We have to ask for a commitment. “If the evidence shows that there’s a better way to do this, are you open to changing?”

What we do often instead of confronting the question above is that we hang unto tradition and culture that has failed us once before. Being underpaid in a regimented system is not an excuse to become criminals if you are not criminally minded abnitio. The issue is with the recruitment of criminals and recidivists into the system and handing them guns without any form of rehabilitation or psychological evaluation. Some have taken the social construct of “it takes a thief to catch a thief” literally.

How much training do you want to give to a recidivists that will make him deploy such training for common good? It will be used for his personal cause. Besides the rationale for having these thugs institutionalized under the state under the transmogrified police Unit -SARS is to legally arm political thugs for election purposes. The same reason why the Clamor has fallen unto deaf ears.

This is the only advantage the ignorant and grossly unqualified IGP has working for him. His prowess in election rigging. But this time Nigerians are wiser and we will not go into an election year with a political hireling at the helm of affairs of the Police neither would we stomach a balkanized police structure beyond 2018. It is better we have a full fledged revolution and know for certain there is no government in a Nigeria than submit to oppression and tyranny by the worst of us.

If it is about better training and funding, why are they against holistic Reform of the Police structure? They know there is no room for their carefully curated ecology of the Organized Crime Syndicate as operational through the SARs unit and covered up by the regular police structure.

The above submission was made last Friday by Sega Awosanya, during a live tweetchat hosted by the Digital Media Practitioners of Nigeria (DMPN), to raise more awareness on the EndSARS & ReformSARS clamour. Read full interview HERE