The police must stop being a nuisance on our roads

Richard Moleofe | Thursday June 30, 2016 12:25

When I was still an officer at BDF, going on duty for one week on police patrols was always a form of torture. They always have their hands full. The level of crime in this country is always under-reported and therefore under-estimated.

In their overwhelming work, the police seem to have found a way of making their presence rudely felt. Most of us who went out to Jwaneng for the weekend have really suffered at the hands of the police. The only crime we had committed was driving motor vehicles. There were roadblocks everywhere and this to the inconvenience of members of the public.

Roadblocks are a necessity as they weed out drunken drivers as in the case of this past weekend. Those who rely so much on the waters of mortality for their happiness were visibly happy when they realised that the usual Booz Buses were not present in the roadblocks. Road blocks in other cases help in the apprehension of criminal elements.

The Toyota Desert Race is by far the most attended event in this country. Most of us appreciate the presence of the police on our roads and at the event. However, the police have elected to become a source of inconvenience instead of making life easier for those attending the event. I can say without hesitation that if there were no police in Jwaneng and a few places on roads leading there, we would have enjoyed the race much better. Sometime self-regulation is better than government regulation. This is why some American citizens have for decades been calling for less government.

The police must come to a clear understanding that in a republic they exist for the purpose of serving us the public. That is why they are called public servants and not government servants. They often forget this element and go to great lengths to please government at the expense of the public.

Out of this past weekend’s experience, we need to seriously introspect on the effects of roadblocks on our highways particularly. The police need to know that roadblocks must be as friendly as they can be. When members of the public approach them, they must not begin to have palpitations if they know they are law-abiding citizens. It defeats my mind if I have to queue for 15 minutes at a police roadblock.

Police as guardians of the law must understand that they are in no way above the same law they are enforcing. When I was an Officer Cadet, my platoon commander taught us the drills of conducting a roadblock. Before anyone from the law enforcement agencies can set up a roadblock, they need to apply to a local magistrate to be given such authority. A roadblock by law is an equivalence of a search warrant and hence the need to get a magistrate’s permission.

It’s sad to note that most police officers are totally oblivious of this major fact and hence they have lived in perpetual disobedience of the same law they are attempting to enforce. The police are only allowed to set up a roadblock in order to check for driver’s licences and may make an arrest if they notice a criminal act taking place while conducting such an activity.

We set up a roadblock with our platoon commander and he told us that regardless of the absence of a permit from a magistrate, no member of the public can raise their voice in protest of the same. We went ahead and we were really feeling powerful. One pick-up truck turned up with a dead leopard at the back. Before we could ask questions, the driver and his passengers were already narrating how the spotted cat landed at the back of their pick-up truck.

Roadblocks have a long history of abuse around the world and particularly in Africa. BDF troops and police were notorious for conducting long and slow searches at roadblocks closest to border entry points. The purpose of conducting such searches was for the purpose of getting themselves occupied and shortening the night. This was all at the expense of members of the public.

The police are a necessary factor in the Toyota Desert Race. Some criminal elements go there just for the purpose of committing crimes. The crowds of spectators are also usually uncontrollable and this is where the police are needed. The police have become so necessary because this race has slowly over the years lost its image of a family outing and now has the form and shape of a beerfest.

There was so much drinking and wayward behaviour that I could not imagine a scenario where the police were not present. But leaving Jwaneng was such a challenge. The police were more interested in serving motorists with traffic charges rather than controlling traffic.

While people thought they had escaped trouble in Jwaneng, the traffic leading to the roadblock at Moatle was approximately six kilometres long. Chaos developed as motorists started overtaking and undertaking. It was an absolute law of the jungle and all this was happening under the watch of the police. What they must have done was to allow a free flow of traffic at the time when the event was over. It is in the nature of a roadblock that motorists are stopped randomly in order to avoid traffic bottlenecks.

As though this was not enough, the police went further to set up a new roadblock in Mogobane. In avoiding the morning experience of waiting at a roadblock for up to 15 minutes, motorists were trying their very best to avoid another bad traffic experience while the police were up to frustrating motorists.