A Day without The Police .:: By mikemm.:: 29-4-2022.::

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Hi everyone. Having a great day? Am sure you are! Well, today I remembered an incident that happen two year ago so I decided to share. 10 % payment to @Steemalive. Please read on.

Introduction

Have you ever thought of waking up one morning, and there were no police officers, no police activities or their operations. Horror is what you will imagine. Isn't it? Crime stats are on the high and out of control at their watch. Imagine what it will be like when they go on strike!

For us leaving in Lagos, we got a glimpse of the picture during the "End SARS" protest that happened in October, 2020. At some point, during the protest, some hooligans hijacked the protest and turned on the police. They were killed and kidnapped. For a few weeks, the police officers hid themselves from the public. There was pandemonium everywhere.

Seeing that the police were no longer operational, different gangs of thugs, robbers and rogues took the scene. They vandalized many popular shopping malls.

In my environs, a gang of robbers known as "one million boys" emerge on the scene. They wrote letters to different streets demanding for money and properties. There was panic every day during that time. An intriguing thing about this gang was that they were mostly teenagers! How on earth, would you imagine such a trend!?

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They did their recruiting on social media, WhatsApp precisely.

How did we cope? Usually, my street has a security structure. There's a night watch system that starts from 12 am to 5 am. It acted as a deterrent to this group by night, but they preferred day time robberies in which they videoed their atrocities and bragged about it. That was the reality we faced at that time.

But do you know what? Critical times, often brings out critical solutions. And as history has it, there will always be a person(s) who will take up the "mantle" of responsibility so to speak, and stand "head on" to forestall the danger. Due to the fact that this was happening during the Coronavirus lockdown, my street formed a daytime vigilance group. Each compound volunteered a number of persons to join the street policing. Many surrounding streets followed suit. Despite all these measures, the millions boys gang, still rampaged. Their modus operandi was, rush into a compound, attack, cart away with whatever was of value and come out on a stipulated time.

They Did Come

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It was exactly 7 pm when they stroke. It happened a street closer to ours. They attacked a compound. Been teenagers, they lacked a bit of coordinated instinct. Although they tried doing things like adults, they fail to replicate true adultism even in the crimes.

News of them been around quickly reached our vigilante. In minutes, everyone in our street came out with matchet's, rakes and bottles. Others had bangers as well. We have a WhatsApp group, so information was flooding in, on what was going on.

Because of the overwhelming force, they ran away from our street and the nearby ones. That was how we succeeded in repelling their invasion.

Two week later, they were given another big bashing in Mushin another part of lagos. With time, the police were back, and calm and normalcy was restored again.

Conclusion

The police have been tasked with ensuring that their's law and order. Granted, they sometimes act brutally, which was what led to the protest in the first place. However, their role in combating crimes and lawlessness can not be overly emphasized. Their work is risky and in many occasions some have lost their lives in the line of duty. I think they should be applauded and favorably rewarded.
Remember too that they are humans and are imperfect.

Cc:

@beautybb
@misterfab
@focusnow