popo 1

nigeria

popo! we ran into them a lot. and the corruption was pretty bad. nigerians pay taxes to fund the police but you NEVER see them in the cities where theres quite a lot of crime (esp. armed robberies at night with black market guns). seemingly all the police stake out the high traffic routes, often making barricades and brandishing guns to pull people over with false claims of regulation infractions, wasting your time until you slip them some money, then they let you go.
they really slow up traffic. most avg nigerians despise the whole affair, and theres basically no respect for police. i hope they work away from it sometime soon.
the day after i left lagos, i read in a paper that some criminals there packed enough firepower to slaughter a whole group of 12 policeman who carry riot gear and assault rifles. so they announced how the govt bought 2 APCs to combat this... kinda made me a tad bit worried bout the sense in makin my visit !