At a dinner party last week, we discussed the attitude of the police. I'm always afraid of sounding like a whining oyibo when I talk about things that are entirely negative, but encounters with the police do make entertaining stories.
for example, on the way up to Zaria my friend nearly ran a policeman over. He didn't slow down when the man started waving his baton, and then stopped after making the guy really mad. The cop came over waving his gun, and when he saw me said: "A-ah! White man why did you order your driver to run me down?" that's it I thought, we're all going to jail. But it was ok. In the end I didn't even see the moment my friend handed over the money to oga sergeant. I thought we'd got away free, until my companion sheepishly owned up to paying the guy 500. I was astonished how cheap it had been, I'd been fingering N1000 notes in my pocket, wondering how many we'd need.
So this article caught my eye. I imagined being flagged down and ordered out to speak to the oga commander, finding him sitting by the side of the road, playing chess and talking about Sartre.