The men in uniform do not eat bullets.
They eat money ,
soft, warm, fresh-from-your-pocket money.
They stand by the roadside,
like vultures waiting for a tired cow to fall.
They say “bail is free,”
and yes, it is free,
until your wallet decides otherwise.
Freedom now has a price,
They will call it small settlement
but small settlement is the mother of big settlement.
Receipts are written in whispers.
Before your case is heard,
Your cash must speak first
Even mosquitoes show you mercy at night,
but these ones bite you in broad daylight.
Checkpoints grow on our roads
Like stubborn weeds after rain.
They do not grow to stop thieves,
but to harvest small notes from tired drivers
You think they stand there to catch robbers?
No -- except the robber is you,
driving with innocent face.
Police stations do not smell of justice,
they smell of negotiation.
Before your matter reaches the court,
the money has already reached the pot.
And oh, they cook it well ,
no receipts, just long throat and short conscience.
Sometimes they smile,
sometimes they frown,
but the ending is the same
your cash is the missing praise song in their daily devotion.
Protection is sold here,
by kilo, like smoked fish at Ogbe-Ijaw market.
What was built to protect,
now prowls like a hungry goat in the yam barn.
In my country,
the uniform is not just cloth,
it is a shopping basket.
They shop in your pockets,
they cart away your peace.
And until the day the uniform stops eating like a hungry goat in a yam barn,
the police will keep firing their favourite weapon ...
their stomachs.
Until the day the uniform stops trading,
It will be a force,
not for the law,
but for the pocket.
EBIKABOWEI KEDIKUMO - writes from Ayakoromo Town, Delta State
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