WHY I CALL IT A QUITE UNDECIDED

     By John Eunice (081)
     Some years back , I sent a message which had an effect on check point, one Chidubem sent in a mail ‘warning’ me to first stop the yellow journalism before getting involved in force matters.
We generally exchanged views on the subject and I must say this,chidubem explored me with his down to earth analysis. When I draw his attention to the fact that we journalist does not threaten or even force any person with arm for brown envelope, he replied "all profession have its way of getting what it desire for by using what is at hand".
According to him, media personals use blackmail, by making sure that those who give brown envelopes are the only one who indirectly enjoys the media.
Although Chidubem sounded like a clown, a hard look at the issue of check points would clearly reveal that it is simplistic to deprecate him. A view 7 years back will make the point more understandable
In August 2010, there was an order by the then Inspector General of Police, Ogbonna Onovo to all men under his command to dismantle all the checkpoints on the road because they are illegal. He set up a task force to enforce the directive and some culprits were reportedly caught. Then in February 2012, Mohammed Abubakar assumed office as the new police boss and order all policemen to leave checkpoints which he also declared illegal.
A new task force was set up to patrol and arrest anyone who breaches the order.Come 2014, was the turn of a new Inspetor General of police . Suleiman Abba, who strongly remind all police operatives that the ban on police road-blocks across the nation was still in force.
Abba re-issued strong directives to all commands and formations to dismantle all road-blocks. Solomon Arase came in as Inspetor General of police 2015, he presented perhaps a most serious disposition on the subject describing road blocks as “public nuisance, points of corruption, and source of police-citizens’ frictions.”
Like Abba his predecessor, Arase repeated the need to replace road blocks with extensive visibility patrolling and surveillance but added that CP, AC and DPO in whose jurisdiction illegal road blocks were detected would be personally liable and strict disciplinary actions will be initiated against them.
If Arase was reportedly stringent with his own ban on road blocks in 2015 and was later quoted by the press as stating that the removal of police check points had reduced corruption in the police, did the road blocks vanish? If not, then the arguments of my friend Chidubem that the act can never end is instructive. Ibrahim Idris, the current Inspector General of Police who came into office after Arase has in fact clearly confirmed that police road blocks are still very much with us making the ban supposedly placed on them by successive IGPs a ritual.
He too, has been making some tough pronouncements while his immediate officers have been throwing ample light on the subject. For instance, Dan Bature, an Assistant Inspector General of Police while on tour of parts of the South west last October stated in Ibadan that any policeman checking vehicle particulars on the highways was on illegal duty. Idris has himself sought to add a few items to the old unheeded directives. First, perhaps suspecting that those on patrol may indulge in road blocks, Idris directed that all officers involved in vehicular patrol on highways and major roads across the country are now to wear their uniforms, a bold name tag, and service number.
Second, he has also mandated the Police Special X- Squads to embark on the removal of all other forms of illegal blockage and obstructions on Highways and Roads erected by Revenue collectors inhibiting vehicular movement and smooth passage of people and goods across the country.
With what we have said so far, there are questions, questions and questions. Why did Abubakar find road blocks in 2012, when Onovo banned them in 2010. Again, if Abubakar reinstated the ban in 2012 why did they come up in 2014 for his successor, Suleiman Abba to deal with?
If Abba made an order in 2014 why was it already flouted the very next year to warrant a fresh order by Arase? Why is Idris having issues again with the same subject Arase banned before he came in? Put differently, if within a 7-year period, 5 different IGPs banned and repeated the ban on road blocks, why is the business thriving? Is it not a clear understatement to argue that the orders must have been poorly enforced ?
If the orders made at the top-most echelon of their organizational hierarchy can be disobeyed by police officials, whose orders are they likely to obey? Is there evidence that the IGPs  really wanted the order been enforced or its been a political statements althrough ?
The point that road blocks have soiled the image of the police does not look dirtier than the ridicule of the inability of its leadership to place its house in order.Till this present time the police have made every lopes and corner a check point, but even at that terrible things are happening everywhere.This is truely a serious issue to be recosidered with effectiveness and all strength put together to fight this act than just impossing it for the sake of. It's high time things be done rightly without compromise because I strongly believe that with the set of leaders we have presently that this will definitely be achieved if only they can say a word and carry it  out without bias and prejudice.....