Ngozi Braide’s journey into the police force

 

In fact, you will mistake her for a corporate secretary of a conglomerate, especially her admirable corporate culture of courtesy.

But she is not only a woman police but also the Spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja South West Nigeria.

 Ngozi Braide’s journey into the police force wasn’t an easy one. Three times she attempted to abandon the career, but she got hooked once.

 Like Odewale, the classical epic character in Soyinka’s The gods Are Not To Blame: the man who killed his father and married her mother, the more he tries to run away from the divination of the gods from being fulfilled, the more he gets to the predictions of the gods. And so, the more Braide tries to run away from the police job; the more closely she engages in it.   

Though she never bargained police job as a career; her mother did it.

Braide had wanted to pull out of the Police Academy, when it became tough on her first week at the Cadet Course, but again providence played a good one for her and she changed her mind.

Before the Academy, she had also wanted to study Law, as police was the last thing in her choice of career. She was at the mercy of divine intervention not to leave the Force, when she refused to go for the Academy Course and went back to campus where she was in her second semester of her second year as an English Language student, she never knew that her days on campus was numbered.

But today, she speaks for the Lagos State Police Command.   

“It was tough and terrible. Yes, I withdrew but later came back. It was tedious. Then they would tell us, ‘you want to be an officer, it’s not a day’s job’..., she remembered. “They would tell us, ‘you have to work for it”.

 The cadet course was divided into three; the basic, intermediate and advance”, she added. “The basic and intermediate are the toughest. So my first day was like oh God”! She stated. “You know we were confined in a cage in a village called Wudil, a village in Kano State. There, you don’t have contact with anybody. This is a person coming from the University in the Eastern part of Nigeria and suddenly, you are now confined as if you are in prison. But all those things played out to give me strength because, I have strong spirit”, she stated.

Prior to her enrollment into the police force, Braide never believed she would take a police as a career. While she got admission to study English Language at Abia State University, Uturu, Abia State, after failing to secure admission into Law department of the University, she returned home one weekend to the stunning plan of her mother; to enroll her into the police force.

Oblivious of the fact that her mother had earlier purchased the police recruitment form and was waiting for her to return home and fill, Braide got the shock of her life.

“No, it was my mother that influenced me to joining police force. She was in love with the Nigerian Police, so she advised me to join the force; I was not the person that bought my form. So as I told you, I was in school when they bought the form, so my mother called me and asked me to fill the form. I said ‘P-o-l-I-c-e’’! She screamed.

“But my mother said, no! No! is not like that, you are not starting it from the scratch, you are going to go in as a cadet officer”.

“If I had completed my degree program, I would have come in as a cadet ASP”, she explained.

She said her mother encouraged her that it doesn’t matter the way you enter the Force and that if you are an officer, you are an officer; saying that she was going to start from the top.

“So, I went in and interestedly, I was admitted in the Academy and when they saw me, they all liked me due to my results. I made five- Alphas and three Credits at a sitting, so they loved it and age was on my side at that time”, she quipped.

Braide’s motivation and inspiration into the police force was her mother whom she says she wouldn’t forget in her life as she is the beacon of what she is today in the police force.

 17 years after she joined the Force, Braide has not only risen to the position of responsibility but have navigated through the police departments and moved to various Police Commands in Nigeria before landing into her present position. 

 “I left ABSU in 1996, the same year I joined the Police. I joined the force in 1996 as a Cadet Inspector. Before joining the force; I was already in the University at ABSU studying English language. So I left the school in the second semester of the second year to join the Police but unfortunately I couldn’t go back to ABSU to complete my program, I had to complete it here in Lagos at the Lagos State University, Ojo (LASU)”.

She said, “when I left, people told me that, by the time I completed my Police training in the Academy, I would be posted to my zone which is Zone 6, and that if I was posted to Imo State then, which is under Zone 6, it would be possible for me to go back to ABSU for my degree program but at the end of the day, I wasn’t posted to my zone”.

According to her, she was in the Academy for two years and when she passed out, she was posted to Ekiti State. In Ekiti, she did her one year attachment after she was then posted to Lagos and ever since then, she has been in Lagos.

“I have the opportunity of serving in different departments and units of the force. From November 1998, to 2002, I was in Interpol. I left Interpol in 2002 to Force Intelligence at Headquarters and I was there for another four years and I left for Special Fraud Unit and was there for another four years and from the SFU, I was posted   on second- meant, so that was where I was until I came to my present office and position”.

The queen of the cop said she drew the battle line to join the force after one year of the intermediate Course.

“When I came out during my one year attachment, I was getting compliments from people; people will tell me, ‘oh! You are on this rank, when, how old are you’? And stuffs like that”, she stated.

It was at the moment that she got hooked to police job and vowed not to look back

“Then I came to Lagos again, now as an Interpol officer and I started seeing certain things and getting exposed on the job, tracking crimes, and fraud related matters, and that was when Advance Fee Fraud (419), crimes were on the high side in Nigeria”. She said, “Nigerians would dupe European people and you see us working in collaboration with Interpol from other countries. At times, we travel, at times, they come, different countries and when they come, we work together and that was when we were taught how to use computer”. Immediately she left Academy, she went on several courses abroad.

In 1999, she was trained at American Embassy on how to use internet to track down fraudsters and crime and with the training, she said she was highly exposed.

The Okigwe Local Government Area of Imo State born Cop has one secret that made her to change her negative mind about joining the Force.

According to her, that secret may appear in her autobiography, which she would write after she retired from the Force.

“When I started, I went for the first training selection. I passed and was recruited in Owerri, Imo State. We were so many, the crowd was too much, yet I was selected. We came to Lagos again for the final interview, I passed. Then after the training I went back to school. I said I won’t go for police again. So I didn’t go to the Academy immediately. They had started, training for two months and I refused to go. But something happened in school, I don’t want to say the thing that happened to me that made me to change my mind again”, she explained.

“My case is like that of the Jonah and the fish in the Bible. Remember, God asked Jonah to go to Nineveh and he refused until fish swallowed Jonah and spewed him out in Nineveh, where he refused to go. Something terrible like that made me to go back to the Academy. Only my best friend knew about that”.

Braide wouldn’t like to share the thing that made her to decide to go back to take police as a career.

“No. I won’t tell you, it’s my top life secret. I won’t tell you”. Perhaps, it would be part of a page in her autobiography? “May be, may be. It is the most private part of my life. It wasn’t a dream. I had an encounter. Something happened to me and the thing just made me to leave the school, so I left and found myself in Police Academy and at the end of the day, they took me back”, she asserted.

Now, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer said she is enjoying every beat of her career and quipped that no career is better than the Police Force.

“I don’t think there is any other career that I can do except police and I don’t think there is any other career that is better than police or ‘sweeter’ than Nigerian Police. I love it so much; I love it with passion and with all my heart”, she stated.

According to her, it was not because of her present position and rank in the Force but for the job’s responsibilities to the society. She said her present position has made her a journalist in police uniform even though is tasking. “It’s highly tasking in all its ramifications, you know, you journalists are not patient, at times something will happen and they are trying to confirm a story from me and the whole crime correspondents will be calling me at the same time. And I keep saying; I can’t give information immediately. I have to get what happened together before making a statement. I don’t tell you something and later withdrawing it but they won’t understand,” she said, “so most times journalists are impatient and they don’t want to understand. And as they are calling, they will be interrupting my calls. They will be calling this number and the other one at the same time”.

On Media support from journalists,

“Yes, they have been quite supporting, I must confess because, when I came in, it was a new area of job working with entirely new different people. In fact, I see myself as a journalist in police uniform. I was like, how am I going to live with it but before you knew it, I see that even at times when they come and give you the impression that we are fighting; we are the same. The most important thing in life is friendship, is tighter and stronger when you quarrel and make up; that is when you have the best of friends. At times I disagree with few of them”.

The last thing the Lagos State PPRO says she would do was to get upset with negative report on police or start fighting the reporter that did the report.

 “No, no, I always call the journalist because it has happened on several occasions. You don’t go fighting the Press but I try to talk to that person in case of next time, don’t do it and I have done that to couple of them”, she explained.

Every day she receives a minimum of 200 calls per day from journalists while on duty and when adds other ones that are not from journalists, the number gets higher but she returns few calls.

“If I receive like 200 in a day, I may not reply the 200 because as I am with you now, my phone may be ringing and some of these calls that are ringing would be picked by my orderly and another thing is that they get angry when they hear my orderly voice. I suppose to reply their calls but because my office is very busy; as you are leaving another person is coming in, and if I try to call back, that person will be impatient again. I am not a machine, I am a human being”, she continues,

“You know, my job goes beyond interacting with the media. When something is going on at the command, am there to moderate the program or event. And when am moderating an event or program, am not supposed to pick my calls. When the Commissioner of Police (CP) is going on tour, I’m supposed to be there to moderate the occasion and at that time my phones are switch off but journalists won’t understand”.

On the poor image of the Police Public Relation Officers, especially on wrong presentation of fact when things happened,  

Braide said when she was not on top of the news, she don’t talk until after been briefed by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of that particular Station.

“When I’m not yet on top of the information, I don’t usually respond immediately. It’s better when you tell them the truth than trying to do control manage and if there is something you want to manage you can then do so”, she added.

“Since I came, I never lied to them; I will tell them the truth while also letting them know the position of the command on an issue”.

The PPRO works like every other journalist on beat. When a major incident occurred, she calls for briefs from the Divisional Police Officers of the particular station and gets her story in readiness for the inquisitive journalists who would be bombarding her phones for news confirmation.

“If any major incident happened the DPOs send the situation report to the Headquarter and the copy comes to me, when I want to get more clarification on any issue, I call the DPO directly to give me briefs and that is why I said journalists are impatient, because I may be trying to get the true picture of the case and the journalist is immediately calling on you to confirm the story when you have not gotten any brief on the matter”, she further explained.

On how women Police wards off sexual advances and harassment in the Force, especially the beautiful ones?

She laughed it over. “Anyhow, if you are serious minded, no man will take you for granted especially when they see you as a serious minded officer. They will respect you; since I came here nobody has harassed me. I have a lot of bosses and senior officers but none has harassed me. If you are mentally weak, lazy and cheap they can harass you and take advantage of that”, she adds. “As an advice, women police should be serious minded. You need to be independent minded, focused and organized in life. Today is not yesterday when women seat at home and allow their husbands to be doing all the running around. What if tomorrow the man is no more? How would you cope? You will start lamenting. If you are firm and strong nobody will take you for a ride”.

Concerning the risk associated with the police job, especially when it involves going after criminals, she said every career has its own hazards but according to her, love of the job doesn’t allow her to see the risks attached to the police job.

“When you are doing something and you are in love with that thing, you will put in your best, you won’t even see the other side of it, and there is no job without its hazards and glory. But when you look at it you will see that the glory of that job overwhelms the risk. I have been able to touch other people’s life especially in the course of my duty”. She said,

“I have come to love the job. The job placed me here. Even before the position I’m now, I was there before. I have come to know many people, my dream was to become a Lawyer, and somehow, it didn’t come to pass. I have come to know a lot of people and things”.

She said for those who don’t like their job, that they should not waste time being in it because, it doesn’t pay to continue to do things one doesn’t like.

 “I don’t know the people who said they do not like police job; if you don’t like your job, instead of you to stay there and create bad image to the Nigerian Police, you better quit. You should be able to know what you want. You can only do well when you love what you are doing. But if you do it and grumble, you end up giving negative thought about it, so those people that complain that they don’t like the job should quit because the IG loves this job with passion, and I love the job and I have passion for it. So, you won’t excel if you don’t have passion for what you do”.

There was apprehension when she was appointed as the PPRO in Lagos State because; some people expressed fear when woman was posted to Lagos as the Command’s PPRO.

Their fear was that women would not be able to do it. But one year down the line, the PPRO says she has been able to weather the storm of stress associated with this position.  

 “This section is one of the strategic sections of the Nigerian Police. And I have worked in several other sections and when you are recruited into the police, you don’t say, you are going to work only in one section. You could be posted to any where and I was not just brought here, we were screened and interviewed and at the end of the year, I was selected before I was posted here because they feel that she can do it. Coming here made me to leave my comfort zone. Because I was experienced in Investigation and that is what I have been doing even when I travelled out of the country on assignment. I am engaged in investigation, so when I came at the initial time, I knew that this time around, it was not going to be case files, cracking crimes. Now it’s all about managing information and the image of the force”.

The only time the PPRO felt irritated was her first week as image-maker of the police, “you know, now you don’t need to avoid calls because when you are in investigation, your job; you already know it- the case files, investigate, interrogate, you interview parties, suspects, complainants, and make your report and its all about using your brain and writing skills as things you put at work.”

“Now, it goes far beyond that. Now people are calling you, every body on the street, telling you this and that, they are passing by, and asking you to do something or they have an information they want to give, or your men are doing this and that and when they are calling you, they call with harsh tones. Actually if you don’t have patience, you won’t be able to withstand that. So, this office has made me to work on my patience level and my temper which you don’t need to lose, even when people are talking to you anyhow. You don’t need to lose it and take those things to heart. In fact, I don’t think there is a place I would be posted today, that I wouldn’t do well or work well”.

Briade says the PPRO job is also grooming her for greater height. “What am saying is that anywhere I’m posted to in this job; having worked in traffic department does not mean that I can’t perform. When you get there and you have passion, it won’t take you time to learn the job”.

Emeka Ibemere

At first look, her beauty and charm runs contrary to her present carrier- Police.

 In fact, you will mistake her for a corporate secretary of a conglomerate, especially her admirable corporate culture of courtesy. But she is not only a woman police but also the Spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja South West Nigeria.

 Ngozi Braide’s journey into the police force wasn’t an easy one. Three times she attempted to abandon the career, but she got hooked once.

 Like Odewale, the classical epic character in Soyinka’s The gods Are Not To Blame: the man who killed his father and married her mother, the more he tries to run away from the divination of the gods from being fulfilled, the more he gets to the predictions of the gods. And so, the more Braide tries to run away from the police job; the more closely she engages in it.   

Though she never bargained police job as a career; her mother did it.

Braide had wanted to pull out of the Police Academy, when it became tough on her first week at the Cadet Course, but again providence played a good one for her and she changed her mind.

Before the Academy, she had also wanted to study Law, as police was the last thing in her choice of career. She was at the mercy of divine intervention not to leave the Force, when she refused to go for the Academy Course and went back to campus where she was in her second semester of her second year as an English Language student, she never knew that her days on campus was numbered.

But today, she speaks for the Lagos State Police Command.   

“It was tough and terrible. Yes, I withdrew but later came back. It was tedious. Then they would tell us, ‘you want to be an officer, it’s not a day’s job’..., she remembered. “They would tell us, ‘you have to work for it”.

 The cadet course was divided into three; the basic, intermediate and advance”, she added. “The basic and intermediate are the toughest. So my first day was like oh God”! She stated. “You know we were confined in a cage in a village called Wudil, a village in Kano State. There, you don’t have contact with anybody. This is a person coming from the University in the Eastern part of Nigeria and suddenly, you are now confined as if you are in prison. But all those things played out to give me strength because, I have strong spirit”, she stated.

Prior to her enrollment into the police force, Braide never believed she would take a police as a career. While she got admission to study English Language at Abia State University, Uturu, Abia State, after failing to secure admission into Law department of the University, she returned home one weekend to the stunning plan of her mother; to enroll her into the police force.

Oblivious of the fact that her mother had earlier purchased the police recruitment form and was waiting for her to return home and fill, Braide got the shock of her life.

“No, it was my mother that influenced me to joining police force. She was in love with the Nigerian Police, so she advised me to join the force; I was not the person that bought my form. So as I told you, I was in school when they bought the form, so my mother called me and asked me to fill the form. I said ‘P-o-l-I-c-e’’! She screamed.

“But my mother said, no! No! is not like that, you are not starting it from the scratch, you are going to go in as a cadet officer”.

“If I had completed my degree program, I would have come in as a cadet ASP”, she explained.

She said her mother encouraged her that it doesn’t matter the way you enter the Force and that if you are an officer, you are an officer; saying that she was going to start from the top.

“So, I went in and interestedly, I was admitted in the Academy and when they saw me, they all liked me due to my results. I made five- Alphas and three Credits at a sitting, so they loved it and age was on my side at that time”, she quipped.

Braide’s motivation and inspiration into the police force was her mother whom she says she wouldn’t forget in her life as she is the beacon of what she is today in the police force.

 17 years after she joined the Force, Braide has not only risen to the position of responsibility but have navigated through the police departments and moved to various Police Commands in Nigeria before landing into her present position. 

 “I left ABSU in 1996, the same year I joined the Police. I joined the force in 1996 as a Cadet Inspector. Before joining the force; I was already in the University at ABSU studying English language. So I left the school in the second semester of the second year to join the Police but unfortunately I couldn’t go back to ABSU to complete my program, I had to complete it here in Lagos at the Lagos State University, Ojo (LASU)”.

She said, “when I left, people told me that, by the time I completed my Police training in the Academy, I would be posted to my zone which is Zone 6, and that if I was posted to Imo State then, which is under Zone 6, it would be possible for me to go back to ABSU for my degree program but at the end of the day, I wasn’t posted to my zone”.

According to her, she was in the Academy for two years and when she passed out, she was posted to Ekiti State. In Ekiti, she did her one year attachment after she was then posted to Lagos and ever since then, she has been in Lagos.

“I have the opportunity of serving in different departments and units of the force. From November 1998, to 2002, I was in Interpol. I left Interpol in 2002 to Force Intelligence at Headquarters and I was there for another four years and I left for Special Fraud Unit and was there for another four years and from the SFU, I was posted   on second- meant, so that was where I was until I came to my present office and position”.

The queen of the cop said she drew the battle line to join the force after one year of the intermediate Course.

“When I came out during my one year attachment, I was getting compliments from people; people will tell me, ‘oh! You are on this rank, when, how old are you’? And stuffs like that”, she stated.

It was at the moment that she got hooked to police job and vowed not to look back

“Then I came to Lagos again, now as an Interpol officer and I started seeing certain things and getting exposed on the job, tracking crimes, and fraud related matters, and that was when Advance Fee Fraud (419), crimes were on the high side in Nigeria”. She said, “Nigerians would dupe European people and you see us working in collaboration with Interpol from other countries. At times, we travel, at times, they come, different countries and when they come, we work together and that was when we were taught how to use computer”. Immediately she left Academy, she went on several courses abroad.

In 1999, she was trained at American Embassy on how to use internet to track down fraudsters and crime and with the training, she said she was highly exposed.

The Okigwe Local Government Area of Imo State born Cop has one secret that made her to change her negative mind about joining the Force.

According to her, that secret may appear in her autobiography, which she would write after she retired from the Force.

“When I started, I went for the first training selection. I passed and was recruited in Owerri, Imo State. We were so many, the crowd was too much, yet I was selected. We came to Lagos again for the final interview, I passed. Then after the training I went back to school. I said I won’t go for police again. So I didn’t go to the Academy immediately. They had started, training for two months and I refused to go. But something happened in school, I don’t want to say the thing that happened to me that made me to change my mind again”, she explained.

“My case is like that of the Jonah and the fish in the Bible. Remember, God asked Jonah to go to Nineveh and he refused until fish swallowed Jonah and spewed him out in Nineveh, where he refused to go. Something terrible like that made me to go back to the Academy. Only my best friend knew about that”.

Braide wouldn’t like to share the thing that made her to decide to go back to take police as a career.

“No. I won’t tell you, it’s my top life secret. I won’t tell you”. Perhaps, it would be part of a page in her autobiography? “May be, may be. It is the most private part of my life. It wasn’t a dream. I had an encounter. Something happened to me and the thing just made me to leave the school, so I left and found myself in Police Academy and at the end of the day, they took me back”, she asserted.

Now, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer said she is enjoying every beat of her career and quipped that no career is better than the Police Force.

“I don’t think there is any other career that I can do except police and I don’t think there is any other career that is better than police or ‘sweeter’ than Nigerian Police. I love it so much; I love it with passion and with all my heart”, she stated.

According to her, it was not because of her present position and rank in the Force but for the job’s responsibilities to the society. She said her present position has made her a journalist in police uniform even though is tasking. “It’s highly tasking in all its ramifications, you know, you journalists are not patient, at times something will happen and they are trying to confirm a story from me and the whole crime correspondents will be calling me at the same time. And I keep saying; I can’t give information immediately. I have to get what happened together before making a statement. I don’t tell you something and later withdrawing it but they won’t understand,” she said, “so most times journalists are impatient and they don’t want to understand. And as they are calling, they will be interrupting my calls. They will be calling this number and the other one at the same time”.

On Media support from journalists,

“Yes, they have been quite supporting, I must confess because, when I came in, it was a new area of job working with entirely new different people. In fact, I see myself as a journalist in police uniform. I was like, how am I going to live with it but before you knew it, I see that even at times when they come and give you the impression that we are fighting; we are the same. The most important thing in life is friendship, is tighter and stronger when you quarrel and make up; that is when you have the best of friends. At times I disagree with few of them”.

The last thing the Lagos State PPRO says she would do was to get upset with negative report on police or start fighting the reporter that did the report.

 “No, no, I always call the journalist because it has happened on several occasions. You don’t go fighting the Press but I try to talk to that person in case of next time, don’t do it and I have done that to couple of them”, she explained.

Every day she receives a minimum of 200 calls per day from journalists while on duty and when adds other ones that are not from journalists, the number gets higher but she returns few calls.

“If I receive like 200 in a day, I may not reply the 200 because as I am with you now, my phone may be ringing and some of these calls that are ringing would be picked by my orderly and another thing is that they get angry when they hear my orderly voice. I suppose to reply their calls but because my office is very busy; as you are leaving another person is coming in, and if I try to call back, that person will be impatient again. I am not a machine, I am a human being”, she continues,

“You know, my job goes beyond interacting with the media. When something is going on at the command, am there to moderate the program or event. And when am moderating an event or program, am not supposed to pick my calls. When the Commissioner of Police (CP) is going on tour, I’m supposed to be there to moderate the occasion and at that time my phones are switch off but journalists won’t understand”.

On the poor image of the Police Public Relation Officers, especially on wrong presentation of fact when things happened,  

Braide said when she was not on top of the news, she don’t talk until after been briefed by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of that particular Station.

“When I’m not yet on top of the information, I don’t usually respond immediately. It’s better when you tell them the truth than trying to do control manage and if there is something you want to manage you can then do so”, she added.

“Since I came, I never lied to them; I will tell them the truth while also letting them know the position of the command on an issue”.

The PPRO works like every other journalist on beat. When a major incident occurred, she calls for briefs from the Divisional Police Officers of the particular station and gets her story in readiness for the inquisitive journalists who would be bombarding her phones for news confirmation.

“If any major incident happened the DPOs send the situation report to the Headquarter and the copy comes to me, when I want to get more clarification on any issue, I call the DPO directly to give me briefs and that is why I said journalists are impatient, because I may be trying to get the true picture of the case and the journalist is immediately calling on you to confirm the story when you have not gotten any brief on the matter”, she further explained.

On how women Police wards off sexual advances and harassment in the Force, especially the beautiful ones?

She laughed it over. “Anyhow, if you are serious minded, no man will take you for granted especially when they see you as a serious minded officer. They will respect you; since I came here nobody has harassed me. I have a lot of bosses and senior officers but none has harassed me. If you are mentally weak, lazy and cheap they can harass you and take advantage of that”, she adds. “As an advice, women police should be serious minded. You need to be independent minded, focused and organized in life. Today is not yesterday when women seat at home and allow their husbands to be doing all the running around. What if tomorrow the man is no more? How would you cope? You will start lamenting. If you are firm and strong nobody will take you for a ride”.

Concerning the risk associated with the police job, especially when it involves going after criminals, she said every career has its own hazards but according to her, love of the job doesn’t allow her to see the risks attached to the police job.

“When you are doing something and you are in love with that thing, you will put in your best, you won’t even see the other side of it, and there is no job without its hazards and glory. But when you look at it you will see that the glory of that job overwhelms the risk. I have been able to touch other people’s life especially in the course of my duty”. She said,

“I have come to love the job. The job placed me here. Even before the position I’m now, I was there before. I have come to know many people, my dream was to become a Lawyer, and somehow, it didn’t come to pass. I have come to know a lot of people and things”.

She said for those who don’t like their job, that they should not waste time being in it because, it doesn’t pay to continue to do things one doesn’t like.

 “I don’t know the people who said they do not like police job; if you don’t like your job, instead of you to stay there and create bad image to the Nigerian Police, you better quit. You should be able to know what you want. You can only do well when you love what you are doing. But if you do it and grumble, you end up giving negative thought about it, so those people that complain that they don’t like the job should quit because the IG loves this job with passion, and I love the job and I have passion for it. So, you won’t excel if you don’t have passion for what you do”.

There was apprehension when she was appointed as the PPRO in Lagos State because; some people expressed fear when woman was posted to Lagos as the Command’s PPRO.

Their fear was that women would not be able to do it. But one year down the line, the PPRO says she has been able to weather the storm of stress associated with this position.  

 “This section is one of the strategic sections of the Nigerian Police. And I have worked in several other sections and when you are recruited into the police, you don’t say, you are going to work only in one section. You could be posted to any where and I was not just brought here, we were screened and interviewed and at the end of the year, I was selected before I was posted here because they feel that she can do it. Coming here made me to leave my comfort zone. Because I was experienced in Investigation and that is what I have been doing even when I travelled out of the country on assignment. I am engaged in investigation, so when I came at the initial time, I knew that this time around, it was not going to be case files, cracking crimes. Now it’s all about managing information and the image of the force”.

The only time the PPRO felt irritated was her first week as image-maker of the police, “you know, now you don’t need to avoid calls because when you are in investigation, your job; you already know it- the case files, investigate, interrogate, you interview parties, suspects, complainants, and make your report and its all about using your brain and writing skills as things you put at work.”

“Now, it goes far beyond that. Now people are calling you, every body on the street, telling you this and that, they are passing by, and asking you to do something or they have an information they want to give, or your men are doing this and that and when they are calling you, they call with harsh tones. Actually if you don’t have patience, you won’t be able to withstand that. So, this office has made me to work on my patience level and my temper which you don’t need to lose, even when people are talking to you anyhow. You don’t need to lose it and take those things to heart. In fact, I don’t think there is a place I would be posted today, that I wouldn’t do well or work well”.

Briade says the PPRO job is also grooming her for greater height. “What am saying is that anywhere I’m posted to in this job; having worked in traffic department does not mean that I can’t perform. When you get there and you have passion, it won’t take you time to learn the job”.

-Emeka Ibemere