Lanre Olagunju
Imagine an ambulance trapped in Lagos visitors, its siren screaming as a affected person fights for breath. Would we insist that it stay in the queue as a result of the highway forward is a one-way avenue, or inform a hearth engine to keep away from the BRT lane whereas a constructing burns?
These aren’t hypothetical questions. They go to the coronary heart of a current incident involving officers of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State Police Command, whose patrol car was captured driving towards the route of visitors in a viral video.
The footage triggered criticism, with some questioning why officers liable for implementing visitors rules would seem to violate them. But what the digicam captured was solely a part of the story.
According to the Lagos command, the officers in a car marked RRS Attack 07 have been responding to misery calls from motorists trapped in a visitors obstruction. Dispatched by the Command’s Control Room, the staff was the closest obtainable formation. Reaching the scene required navigating by way of the reverse lane to handle the obstruction earlier than it unfold to adjoining roads.
The command cited regulation 158 of the National Road Traffic Regulations 2012, which allows regulation enforcement officers responding to emergencies or endeavor civil safety duties to ignore prescribed visitors indicators, supplied they train due regard for the security of different highway customers.
Emergency privileges aren’t a licence for recklessness; they recognise that saving lives typically requires exceptions to unusual visitors guidelines.
More troubling, nevertheless, was the confrontation that adopted. An particular person reportedly recognized as an activist and social media content material creator positioned himself in entrance of the police car, obstructing its motion whereas recording the encounter.
Citizens have each proper to query public officers. A democracy with out scrutiny is a home with out home windows. But scrutiny should not turn into deliberate obstruction of officers finishing up reputable operations.
A digicam ought to doc wrongdoing, not manufacture confrontation. What was the goal of blocking the car? Was it to ascertain the info or create one other spectacle for on-line engagement? And what if the encounter had taken a extra harmful flip?
A unstable confrontation might simply have escalated, with doubtlessly tragic penalties. That no person was harm is lucky. But ought to public security rely upon the restraint of officers being intentionally pushed into an avoidable confrontation?
The RRS officers deserve commendation for his or her composure. Professionalism is just not solely about exercising authority however realizing when to restrain it.
In the UK and elements of the US, emergency automobiles are permitted to make use of restricted lanes and disrespect sure visitors guidelines when responding to emergencies, topic to security safeguards. Nigeria ought to undertake the same method, granting police automobiles, ambulances and fireplace engines authorised entry to BRT corridors, one-way routes and different restricted roads when operationally needed. What is the level of preserving a visitors restriction if it prevents responders from saving lives?
The incident additionally exposes a troubling tradition of turning cops into unwilling performers in social media skits.
Olatunji Rilwan Disu, the inspector-general of police, has beforehand cautioned towards utilizing police personnel as props for skits and viral content material. His concern is effectively based. Deliberately frightening an officer, recording the response and packaging the confrontation as leisure is neither accountable activism nor significant public accountability.
Where officers abuse their powers, they have to reply for his or her actions. But accountability should not turn into humiliation, and freedom of expression should not be stretched right into a licence to impede reputable police operations.
The penalties prolong past an embarrassing video. Repeatedly baiting, ridiculing and undermining officers can erode morale and weaken public confidence in an establishment carrying huge nationwide tasks.
These are the similar women and men anticipated to confront insurgency, terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and different violent crimes threatening our communities and nationwide sovereignty. They aren’t expendable characters in social media skits however human beings entrusted with defending tens of millions of Nigerians, usually beneath tough and harmful circumstances.
Can we demand braveness from officers confronting armed criminals whereas celebrating a tradition that ridicules their uniform? Can we anticipate sacrifice from these defending our communities whereas making their work unnecessarily tough?
The Lagos command’s eventual clarification was needed, though it got here after the video had gained appreciable traction. But the police and visitors authorities should go additional by educating the public on emergency highway entry and the tasks of residents when responders are on responsibility.
The rule of regulation is just not weakened when authorised emergency responders make needed exceptions. It is weakened when rules are utilized with out regard for the lives they’re designed to guard.
When emergencies come up, the highway mustn’t ever turn into a barrier between those that need assistance and people despatched to offer it. Sometimes, saving lives requires greater than implementing the guidelines; it requires understanding why they exist in the first place.
*Lanre Olagunju wrote in from Abuja.
