I have always been a man of principle, my definition of crime is not about the size of it, as long as it is against the law such act should not be tolerated. Laws exist to create order in the society to prevent us from falling into chaos, it does make it sound like all crimes should be punishable by law but not necessarily. Behind my strict compliance to the law I'm of the mindset that punishment should match the scale of a crime but here we are in an era when law is now a tool of extortion. It took me some time to process what my submission for this prompt will be because it doesn't really go in accordance to my personality. I mean willingly turning a blind eye to a crime, I would rather be the whistle blower than the opposite.
If only life was black and white wouldn't that make some life decisions a lot easier to make? My dad would say, judging people without understanding the reasons behind their actions is just as great as the crimes committed. I have come to learn that understanding the intention behind a crime before judgement is something that should be prioritised over punishment. They say a writer is a sum of their experiences, there are things that occur in this world that exceeds the world of imagination, which means you can only express it if you had been privileged to witness the unfortunate incidents that comes with living in this world.
My part of the world is a little crowded, majority of the communities around here are still underdeveloped despite existing in one of the most developed state in Nigeria. Lagos is a city of vibes and a location for extreme extortion, everyone here is trying to make money by doing anything within their power either lawful or unlawful which make things quite hectic for security operatives. All kind of criminals roam around the city in different sectors looking for who to prey upon, in fact the security operatives are no longer capable of curbing the rate of crimes it is now left for the citizens to protect themselves by being vigilant.
Amidst the chaos we also have other state operatives known as the "Tax collectors" not the regular kind of tax that you know of, this operatives exist in different areas in the city, some in the markets while others deal with the transportation sector. The existence of this people is not new to anyone that resides in Lagos. You might wonder, what exactly is the duty of this operatives? They are just regular men and women empowered by the state government to collect a specified amount of money from marketers and motorists on a daily basis by issuing tickets. Well for the marketers the policy is only potent at the state level, a means of generating revenue but for the transportation sector it goes as high as the federal level. Never really cared about it till I started noticing some of the abnormalities committed by this operatives.
What crime can I choose to be partial to? Well here is one, for the tax collector operatives that work in markets, they give tickets to the marketers in market areas, they used to have a boundaries in the manner they operate. Before now, they only give tickets to those that sell things within the market places but it is no longer the same anymore, this creatures go as far as chasing after those hawking in the roads near market areas. It doesn't really matter what you are selling, the ticket price remains the same, failure to pay whatever the person is selling will be seized. As if that is not absurd enough, even those pushing wheelbarrows to lift items are being taxed. I'm quite aware that this operatives are not doing this on their own, the state government are aware of it because they empowered them to do so without caring about their methods.
Will it hurt to let those who hawk go without being taxed? because they don't have enough to rent space in the market to sell their goods If they have so much will they choose to hawk? I know it is a policy enforced by the state government but what is wrong in being considerate about how the policy is being implemented? There was an incident that occurred last year around a popular market in Lagos called "Ketu". I did not witness the incident all I saw was blood traces so I was tempted to ask what happened from the commuters. It turns out that a teenager girl hawking soft drinks around Ketu market axis didn't want to pay the tax collectors, immediately she noticed the "tax collectors" operatives she started running and they chased her, she tried jumping through the BRT lane and was crushed by long bus, she died on the spot.
I don't know what was done to those operatives but this is just one of various incidents that occurs around Lagos as a result of the methods used by "tax collectors" to race revenue for the state government and yet this act still continue till today. Let me not even get started with what this tax collectors do to commuter bus, bikes e.t.c in the transportation sector. This operatives have heads at different district known as chairman, would it hurt to exclude some people from the implementation of this absurd policy without using extreme measures to extort money from people? It Is not as if it is a crime to be poor, why not let them breath?
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled "It is a justifiable crime" in hive learners community.
Cover image - 𝖣𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗀𝗇𝖾𝖽 𝗎𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖼𝖺𝗇𝗏𝖺
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