A Journey into Hell
Dehumanizing Society's Protectors
The Horror of Mopol 20 Police Barracks in Ikeja, Lagos
Part 1
Exterior
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Coming out onto the main road after leaving Police Command, the elegant premises housing the office of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police at GRA Ikeja, Lagos, its entrance manned by strikingly dressed policemen and intimidating armoured vehicles, one comes across a complex of buildings, of which it is debatable if it they are fit for animals, but which are the Mopol 20 Police Barracks, where many policemen and women and their families live, in conditions of the utmost environmental squalor and infrastructural degeneration.
This environment is similar to that of the police barracks near to the location known as Ikeja Under Bridge, a similarity suggesting this as the fundamental standard of police barracks in Lagos State, one of the richest, if not the richest in Nigeria, a standard for police barracks perhaps obtaining across Nigeria.
Here are pictures I was privileged to take, on the 30th and 31st of July 2022, of this absolute horror, this degradation of society's protectors, society's first line of defense against crime:
View from the Road Opposite the Barracks
Edifices of hell, towers of punishment
This section of the road directly opposite the barracks is suffused by a terrible smell as could come from a broken septic tank.
Another View from the Road Adjoining the Barracks
These buildings should be torn down and rebuilt in a manner fit, not only for human beings, but for society's protectors.
View from the Road
Do those who manage the Nigerian police force look down on the police force?
How else may one explain these inhuman conditions?
Is it a Crime to be a Policeman or Woman in Nigeria?
If not, why do those responsible for the police force house them in conditions in which dog lovers would never place their animals?
Police Barracks as Ghetto, as Capital of Squalor
How will a person living in such conditions find dignity?
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