By Malek Arol Dhieu
In the beautiful morning of Monday, where heavy duties are taken to compensate what is lost on two weekend days, a traffic police officer dressed up extra-smartly and deployed himself along the highway. He was so brave to stop any vehicle, except the ones moving with sirens. For a few drivers of private and public cars who know what a traffic police officer always wants when he or she (there are many “shes”) stops them, they do not bother them to ask for logbooks and other identities. But they just fold any amount of money in a fist and greet them with it.
Immediately, such drivers are allowed to proceed, but those who try to pull a rope with traffic police officers always have their keys detained and, when they accept what they are told to do, they are double-charged as a punishment. So, this particular traffic police officer was receiving a lot of money as many drivers were hurrying to their workplaces and that, they would not waste time telling the traffic officer who they are, instead of giving him a fist pregnant with money.
Each driver gave him a fist pregnant with money. For foreign drivers, theirs is always a special case. They are always pushed to a corner, not just a corner, but a dark one where they be drained properly. This traffic officer of ours pushed so many foreign drivers to a dark corner and drained them properly. Rumours were circulating that he targeted Ugandan drivers so much. Maybe because of the reason that they transport expired food products to South Sudanese.
But there was this foreign driver who had not wanted to comply with the orders of the officer. He was called to climb down the car, but he refused to obey the officer. Whether that driver was biologically a South Sudanese, but a Ugandan by upbringing, no one knows. He disobeyed the traffic officer at all and refused to climb down the car. So, the traffic police officer abandoned asking for money and began asking for a logbook, which he later mistook for Facebook.
The traffic police officer climbed up the car and said, bring your Facebook. The driver asked him, what do you mean? The officer repeated himself, “your Facebook, please you are delaying me”. The driver became confused, but because he was a Ugandan driver and, not a South Sudanese, he politely asked an officer, Sir, do you mean a logbook or Facebook exactly? The officer then got reminded and said, I mean logbook, yes, logbook. The logbook was found unexpired, but because whether everything is okay or unokay, something must be paid, the driver gave the officer a fist pregnant with twins.
Whether some traffic police officers are amateur traffic police officers or not, nobody knows. Whether some people just wake up in the morning, dress in white uniform designed exactly like a traffic police uniform and come to stand along the roads to scam drivers, no one knows. Whether some traffic police officers are completely uneducated or have received informal education during the British Condominium Rule, no one knows.
Whether some traffic police officers stand along the roads to perform duties of comedy, no one knows. Whether some traffic police officers are deployed along the roads to collect oil revenues and non-oil revenues, no one knows. Whether some traffic police officers are deployed to collect traffic tithes, just like it is done in churches, nobody knows.
Whoever is responsible for Traffic Police Service should look into the issue of random money collection and the deployment of traffic police officers who are too potential to bring shame, not only on the Traffic Police Service, but also on South Sudan as a country. Their activities should routinely be regulated, and if caught and found guilty, they should be punished in accordance with the law.
Thank you for reading “Sowing the Seed of Truth”.