Nigeria police and the uncommon conman

We often hear that some incidences are too good to be real. We, as such, usually doubt the possibility of an event occurring until we either experience it or are able to personally attest to its occurrence.

I suppose what I am about to share, which happened between the Nigeria police and a suspected con man fits into the category of a stranger-than-fiction tale. It could easily have come out of Hollywood, and with emphasis, Hollywood! You will understand why in a moment.

About four days ago, while surfing the net to keep tab with goings-on around the world, I stumbled on a video clip of a news report by a Nigerian TV station reputable for  incisive reporting. The report tells of an 18-year old Muhammed Isa arrested by the Lagos state command of the Nigerian police on suspicion of scamming police commands across the country. He was paraded before the newshounds, as the police usually do when a crime is deemed astonishing and an arrest is considered worthy of public knowledge.

Muhammed is from Katsina state, a state located within the North-western region of Nigeria. He has no formal education, an assertion that is authenticated by his confessional statement, but says he used to trade in secondhand shoes in Aba, Abia state, in the North-eastern part of Nigeria, before his business went bad. Though nothing really suggests a link between the business that went pear-shaped and criminal path that followed, what seems plausible here is Muhammed found a better way out and comfort in crime.

He devised an ingenious scam with focus not on the everyday folks who have always been the victims of most con artists, but on the men of the police!

The young man’s operation will definitely stand out as the most audacious crime targeting the police that I’ve heard of in recent times. Of course, we hear of people impersonating security officials and law enforcement agents such as the police and army to defraud  members of the public but not someone claiming that the police had extorted money from him and the person will walk straight into a police command to report a group of police officers of culpability in the alleged offence.

And, six times, the actual criminal was compensated and the accused officers punished or fired for offence not committed. This is where Muhammed’s modus operandi is clearly ahead of others’.

The Lagos state commissioner of police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, said at the press briefing where Muhammed was paraded, that “He (Muhammed) had rushed to this office (Lagos state command) to say that one of our patrol teams; a metro patrol team 7 arrested him and that they extorted from him a sum of about N150, 000.

“With a view to getting to the root of this matter we had summoned members of the patrol team who swore and broke down that they’ve never seen this boy before.

“That was when it dawned on one of the officers here who was transferred here from Anambra state who remembered that in Anambra they had a similar matter where someone had given the operational code of a police patrol vehicle and the registration number of the police vehicle and the person had claimed that the patrol team (in Anambra) extorted from him about N180, 000.

“They (the leadership of the police in Anambra) punished those policemen and the command also refunded the N180, 000 to him.

“So this officer quickly, with the boy not knowing that his picture has been taken as his picture was previously taken in Anambra, shared the picture with Anambra and we found out that he (Muhammed) is the same man

“And as of today, at the last count, we found out that he had done that successfully in six police commands”, said the Lagos police commissioner.

Perhaps the most devastating of Muhammed’s scams is the one that he perpetrated in Akure, Ondo State, South West of Nigeria, where he reported and accused six police officers in the state of the same extortion.

After an apparently hasty investigation and trial, the six officers who had served between seven and thirty-two years in the force got dismissed from the police service. And Muhammed got back the money that he claimed the officers collected from him. Till now the dismissed officers in Ondo state are yet to be reinstated even though their innocence has now been proven.

It was the attempt on Lagos police command that put an end to the young man’s notorious act. Speaking in broken English during the press conference at the Lagos state police command, Muhammed confessed to have lied against some officers in Akure, Ondo state early this year. And said he had come to Lagos to lie again before God caught him.

“This year, I go Akure, talk lie, this year I go come here (Lagos) talk lie. So for here, God don catch me”, says Muhammed.

That a trickster of Muhammed’s brain and exposure could carry on successfully with strings of false allegations against officers across police commands in Nigeria shows how badly the credibility of the police has dipped. Even such that the leadership of the force can pronounce judgment on its lower officers without thorough investigation. And this shoddy and lethargic crime investigation also explains why the people don’t get justice in many cases in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, it is supposed to be a new dawn, and the current Inspector General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, whom I’ve had the privilege of engaging one-on-one, has promised pragmatic reforms in the force.

Hopefully, this will cover sufficiently the issue of public perception of the police, which characters like Muhammed is out to exploit and will continue to deepen lack of confidence and trust within the ranks if left unchecked.

Similarly, it will serve justice if the positions of the Ondo officers who are victims of sheer popular distrust, institutional porosity and societal decadence can be restored soon. And Muhammed is also given punishment that will suit his bad behaviour.