I fought the law...

Just when I thought I had run out of inspiration for my Nigeria blog and it seemed I’d become too blaz­e to describe the little everyday wonders that happen to me, the long arm of the law came to the rescue.

On the last Saturday morning of January I found myself walking around my estate to clear my head and shake a red wine hangover from the previous night. The streets were nice and quiet as everyone is supposed to stay indoors during ‘Environmental’ - the 3h cleaning exercise that takes place on the last Saturday of each month - and during which no cars or pedestrians are allowed and Lagos is meant to become squeaky clean. From my walk I called Yemisi and during our chat suggested that maybe rather than wasting my credit I should come over to hers, after all she only lives a few hundred meters from me. ‘Just be careful so you don’t get arrested’ were her final words to me and laughingly we hung up and I set out to go see her.

As I was approaching the main road, there was no sign of any cleaning going on, but I did see a yellow danfo slow down and 3 policemen hop out of it to greet me. In my mushy head I was still not reacting and I smilingly said hello to them, when they asked if I knew what day it was. At first they were friendly, then grew harsher, surrounded me and insisted I go with them in the police car to the station. I tried to plead, beg, ask for understanding but in the end when they started pulling my arm and pushing me into the van, I decided it was better if I went of my free will. Nigerian police are something else, not very friendly and certainly not very honest or law abiding. If I had only had some money on me I could have ‘reasoned it out’ with them then and there but stupid girl as I was I didn’t take my wallet, only my mobile phone, thank god.

So when it became evident that we were cruising the streets of Ikeja for more law offenders to rip off and our journey would lead to the jailhouse at the local government court I decided it was time to phone Yemisi to tell her I probably wouldn’t make it to hers . . .what’s more I’d need her to come bail me out urgently. But at this point, I am still sitting in the police danfo, with 10 police around me, the closest one to me with one glass eye suspisously mustering me and all of them cradling their batons, talking strategy as they see other ‘criminals’ out in the streets: ‘you get off here, two of you round the back of the van, circle him, get him!’ And the good old Lagosians, used to battling the police, would argue, shout, beg and finally try to fight their way back to freedom rather than entering the car. I kept thinking, ‘this is not happening to me’ – at times marveling at the absurdity of the situation, at times chuckling to myself at the hilarity of it and at times wondering how intimidating it would get for a white girl in a Nigerian prison.

Finally we arrived to the police station, everyone was offloaded and after more pushing and shoving and intense Yoruba cursing, locked up in a communal cell with about 26 unlucky souls. People were getting quite agitated: ‘In my own state, this is how I am treated!’ and ‘You people only want money, that’s why you are doing this!’ were some of the comments made to the police. I kept to myself and fought the urge to pick up my mobile when I kept getting calls and texts about what I was up to that Saturday. I could hardly answer the phone and say ‘sorry can’t meet you for coffee, am in jail right now’. I attracted a fair bit of interest: ‘Oyibo, what did you do?’ was a common question and soon enough we were sharing tales of how we’d gotten captured and what we were ‘doing time for’ A police woman took our names down on a list – this was so that we could be summoned for our pending court proceedings. She offended one of the jailbirds somehow and the guy started to complain about her to another policeman. Rather than showing solidarity the police guy just said ‘don’t you have a wife? you know how women are, now’ and that seemed to settle the problem. Meanwhile, some of my new made friends wanted to take my number and even one police man tried chatting me up from the other side of the barred windows. I suppose [Nigerian] men will be men no matter the circumstance. . .

After 1.5h when I was finally wondering if I’d have to start sampling Nigerian prison toilets too, Yemisi and her not at all amused brother in law arrived. I could see them through the bars, outside our cell and I waved over the police woman so Yemisi could talk to her. The woman outlined the proceedings – I would have to wait for the trial, when the magistrate would gather, they would ask me if I was innocent or guilty and I would have to plead guilty, then they would give their verdict and I would have to couhgh up the dough for my penalty or rot in jail forever. This could take the whole day. Yemisi, the problem solver, said plainly, we don’t have all day so lets just sort it out and proceeded to explain ‘see na dis gerl, she no get motor, she treck in Ikeja, how many oyibo people you go see in Ikeja on di road, they all go VI in their big cars. Dis one, eh, is working for development self, she no get money’.

Well, the police woman had apparently not thought of it like that, so she responded ‘Eyyah, na true, maybe we give her staff price!’ So after some negotiation, I got 1000naira off, was fasttracked in the proceedings and somehow once the money had changed hands didn’t even need a court proceeding to get the hell out. I was taken out the back way and took my first glorious breath of fresh air after 3h of stale prison, feeling giddy from the excitement of being back out in freedom. I had never ‘seen’ my street Adeniyi Jones, now all of a sudden it looked beautiful and I was marveling at the people, the sights the dusty roadside shacks, feeling a weird intense joy!

We went to Yemisi’s house and I got treated to some akara and was laughed at by quite a number of people upon telling my story. Even Bimbo, who is now in Switzerland, was texting Yemisi, asking how ‘operation rescue Panni’ was going. To wash off my experience I had a swim in her pool and it was divine. That night, I almost felt like someone out of Goodfellas, we were a big group of people, everyone welcomed me as if I had just gotten out and there were plenty of jokes about me getting prison tattoos etc. It occurred to me that this has happened almost on the day of my 1^st year anniversary in Nigeria and I s’pose I did managed to commemorate it in true Naija style!