Encounter with a Policeman's Wrath

There are what are probably police, or maybe just men in police-looking uniforms, hoovering along the edge of the road stopping cars, peering in, maybe saying something to the driver in a language I don’t understand, as the driver slips a bank note so stealthily I only know he has accomplished this when we are waved on and allowed to proceed.

This is one thing that never happens in person, at least in this form but only in highway tolls, in the u.s. But I’ve experienced it now in Ghana and Mexico as well. In Mexico I understand more of the language and I’m being told the reason we are being stopped is that the worker is not getting any or enough money to patrol or fix the roads.

In Winneba (and even Accra), Ghana I only know that these men will not allow the car to pass unless they are paid something. For the local small town uber driver this must get costly, as the (maybe fake) policemen block the major road through the town – because being local, they are easily recognized and tracked down.

In Mexico I could simply avoid a ‘toll’ by asking if they take credit cards, pretending I don’t have cash. One time when I was stopped in Mexico – and definitely by some uniformed and armed military men – I made the mistake of putting the key to my little refrigerator door in the same hidden compartment where I stashed some cash. So they had to search my entire vehicle. Up to this point, when I was stopped and made to understand they wanted to search my vehicle, I opened the back roll-up door and they assumed that was my entire vehicle.

Not this time. This time I was instructed to open the camper also. The man standing in my small camper space squeezing in next to me, as I was trying to make myself smaller but unmovable and unafraid of several uniformed men with 2 foot rifles and an array of other weapons of harm, demanded I open up my locked refrigerator.

As I debated to pretend I couldn’t open it, (not if I still wanted a working fridge in Mexico), or continue stalling searching for the key in all the open, obvious spaces it could be and should have been; or asking him to close his eyes for a moment or turn his back – impossible, while I rescue the key. I ended up opening the ‘secret’ compartment under his eagle eye and he ended up meticulously and slowly examining every slip of paper, every document, every stone and tiny container, counting every peso I had left hidden there after he inspected the fruit, rice and beans, and jars of sauce lounging in my little fridge.

He didn’t ask me for money nor did I offer it. I think he was more curious than penalizing or looking for a bribe. I did offer him some yummy guava but he refused.

Today on the dusty, barely asphalted roadway, along some stretches of the supposedly two way road to the Academy, several men in uniform with long rifles dangling at their sides, were stopping traffic. Reflexively, I pulled out my phone, turned on the camera and prepared myself to video should there be any trouble – not that I would have anyone to show the video to and I have yet to learn how to send things to that ubiquitous cloud.

The approaching and very angry policeman leaned into the back seat passenger’s side window and began screaming at me, asking me why I was taking pictures. His face is all scrunched up, his eyes blazing, and he’s yelling furiously. Another officer is standing several feet back, looking upset, watching carefully. The two Nigerian men, the driver and passenger, in the front seat are silent, not moving, not turning to look at this unhinged man, not saying anything at all.

I level my voice to match his and frown, uncomprehending his tirade, telling him I’m a tourist, of course I take pictures but I didn’t take a picture of him (not yet…). He says to my astonishment, I’m not allowed to take pictures. I feel my face go blank but I know my eyes are blazing as I tell him this is my first time in Nigeria and I’m taking pictures of my trip.

He continues barking angrily at me, my denials of this accused 'wrong doing', until I hold my phone out to him and challenge him to look at my pictures and see that his ugly attitude and face are not (yet...) on my phone. He insists I’ve taken his picture and accuses me of hiding my pictures somewhere but refuses to even glance at my phone. Finally, Akim, who is sitting on the back seat passengers side closest to the officer, intercedes and assures this deranged man I didn’t take any pictures of him, even though Akim knows that I would have if I could have.

The man is refusing to back down, refusing to look at my phone, refusing to wipe the spittle dangling off the corner of his lip, maintaining his volume of fury. I feel like offering to take a picture with him for surely that’s what he wants deep down inside, but I’m not going to step out of the car at this point.

Akim tells the man, repeating it several times, that he told me not to take the picture and I did what he told me to do, and that seems to calm the man down but raise my incensed fury level yet I keep silent. Akim takes my phone to show the man who reluctantly finally looks but askance, refusing to touch it. He points at different icons for Akim to push and grudgingly either believes or gives up trying to find the evidence that I dared to take his picture.

I am still angry when we pull away and continue journeying to the Academy not merely because of the police’s vehemence directed at me but even more because he was calmed by Akim’s assurance he had me under control.

At the same time, I feel the pressure to apologize for this has happened but I will not stoop to that typically female role of taking responsibility for inappropriate at best, violent at worst male behavior. On the other hand, I know that in this country (as in Ghana) total strangers will say “sorry” if I trip in public or exclaim ‘ow’ or ‘ouch’ as if taking responsibility for easing the hurt. And I know that I can utilize my privilege and act against the norms here governed as usual by male privilege and female acquienscence to male authority.

No one comments as we drive off, nor later in the day. My biggest regret is not knowing how to send things to the cloud immediately. I MUST learn this.