Every time I see a policeman, I think of sex, robbery and death.

  

 

If you love sex, you’re in for a surprise: You are an armed robber! And if you’re ever caught “making love,” you’re dead! At least, that’s what the police suggested last weekend in Makurdi. That “love making”  is a capital offence punishable by death. And killing lovers is the new method of fighting armed robbery. 

Well, in this Ehindero’s era, when his new police “protect and serve with integrity,” sex and love making mean the same thing – security risk. So when next you approach a road junction, drop your wife or girlfriend and zoom off. That way, both of you may still be alive tomorrow.

 

Our policemen are now so hard-working. Having “finished” all the robbers, they now turn on lovers. Well, robbers and lovers mean the same thing, don’t they?  At least, they rhyme. So nobody should say our policemen are so drunk with an ogogoro called “integrity” that they can’t tell armed robbers from lovers. It’s their duty to shoot at any car driving past with male and female occupants. What else would they be if not lovers? I mean, robbers. Last weekend, the police achieved a feat. They shot a pretty 17-year-old girl, Suleyol Hiikyaa, dead in Makurdi and claimed she was “making love” in a car. Hey, if we must blame anybody, it should be Sunday Ehindero, the acting IG. If he hadn’t banned policemen from wearing dark goggles, perhaps they would’ve seen better in the dark.

 

Yes, sex has a few things to do with robbery. Like when robbers have sex, for instance. And, sometimes, they rob for sex - to satisfy their sex partners, who may not even be women. Well, when someone rapes somebody, that’s robbery. Still, you could tell a man’s organ from a gun – shot or long - if you weren’t so drunk with something, including mischief. So, we can’t call a man making love “armed,” unless we’re talking about his manhood.

 

In the quest for glory, policemen are easily drunk - with either overzealousness or brukutu. And then, they become very effective - only in killing unarmed citizens. While young Suleyol was killed, her partner lives. His identity was even kept a secret until youths raised hell. And you know why? Please, don’t tell anybody – o. They say the guy later named as Charles Ibanga, is the son of one “big-man”  - Governor George Akume’s chief security officer. We call it “esprit de corps”  in the Force. 

 

Now, if the “lovers” were mistaken for robbers, how come only the girl got the lead?  Were the “lover-robbers” chased by the police? Well, next, we may be told they shot first.  And that, my friend, would still be very inconsistent. For, if the “lovers” were “making love” and shooting at the same time, I would quickly conclude it had to be the guy. And he would only be shooting a white liquid substance from a natural “gun” between his legs. So, when did that become “armed robbery?” 

 

Okay, so they did it by the road side – in the “comfort” of a car, abi? And  that, I guess is serious enough to be punishable by death. Or isn’t it?  “The couple were making love late in the night in a car,” the police said. But, hey, how did cops know the occupants of the car were making love? Was the car “hip-hopping” in the middle of the road? Who was on top of the show? The guy, the girl or the police? If they were caught making love, and killed the girl for it, was the girl taken naked to the morgue? If they stopped to wear her cloths, why did they leave the briefs behind? Perhaps, somebody was happy to keep the girl’s pant and bra in the station as souvenir. 

 

Yes, sex is a serious matter; serious enough it even lures men into a prison called marriage. But it’s never as stern as deserving death. Well, men fight and some even die for it. A guy falls off a hotel bed and dies, while in “active service.” The other meets a man on his bed and suddenly remembers  he hadn’t delegated that “responsibility” to anyone. Instead of calling the intruder an “armed robber,” he thanks him for the assistance – with an Iquo Minima-slap. One blow leads to another. Then, somebody dies and the police take away more pants and bras – for souvenir. Oh, sorry, they call it exhibit. For sidekick exhibitions, I guess.

 

Sex, I’m told, leads to marriage. In fact, experts say it also breaks marriages. Well, I’m still conducting a research and would send a memoranda to Obasanjo’s confab. I’m told General Obasanjo forgot to add sex in the “no go area” list. Imagine! After adding everything, including “presidentialism” and the freedom to breathe my village air? He says sex isn’t serious enough to break any union. Okay, so he didn’t exactly say sex, but he likened Nigeria’s unity to marriage. And marriage is about sex, right? “If  we sit down and say I am fed up with this marriage, that is not enough  reason to break it up…,” he said. My only problem with Baba’s preachment is that it’s contrary to the reality surrounding him. Obasanjo has married at least three times. I’m still searching for the (im)moral grounds  he stood. And if marriage can’t break when the partners are “fed up,” Sir, can it then break when they are “fed down”? 

 

Well, by Baba’s theory, if your wife refuses you sex for six months, for instance, don’t worry; be happy. If she locks you out of home and gives your food to the dog, say “cheese” and smile for The Husband of the Year photograph. If you catch your driver doing your “matrimonial job” in your bed, buy your wife a “Thank-you” card. Don’t forget to add the inscription: “ More (white) grease to your…”  Sex, Baba Iyabo suggests, is never enough to question loyalty, fidelity and all other “itys.” And don’t you dare discuss it. Ever! Go around bottled up with swollen tummy like Tafa Balogun. Oh, never mind! It’s okay for the police to kill those engaged in sex. It’s their job. How else would they prove that rusty guns still kill?

 

Oh, before we forget, Obasanjo’s marriage theory was about Nigeria, not himself. Well, in sex matters, Baba has the “experiences.” So, while Ehindero and his men see sex as serious enough to kill people for; Obasanjo says no big deal. At least, that’s the impression. So, Niki Tobi removed sex from the schedule and ordered delegates to address one another like Rastafarians: “Respect!”  Then, he banned them from chewing even cola nuts, no matter how bored and sleepy they might be. And from drinking – even medicine for courage and clear thinking – “on the floor of the house.” Well, they can do those “under” the floor, perhaps. Problem is, stammerers, those who can’t articulate their thoughts and sex fantasists may never talk there. Since they have to chew their mouths and aphrodisiacs, first.

 

But foreclosing verbal expressions about sex opens the leeway for physical expressions. Well, sex may not be on the same pedestal with resource control, federalism, regionalism and even chewing, but it’s serious enough for discussion. For instance, how much of the N2.4 million due to each delegate goes on sex? How much goes on “love making.” The difference?  I’m told when the prostitutes moved into Abuja to protest their non-inclusion in the nomination list, they had sex in mind. But what you do with your girlfriend or wife, with their consent, is “love making.” But in either cases, neither the constitution nor the police manual, authorises death for it. And not even prostitution, a crime committed by even the children of the “powerful,” is robbery. Still, every time I see a policeman now, I think of sex, robbery and death.

                

 

• First published in Saturday Sun of  March 05, 2005