In 2002, after 35 years of service, she retired as a deputy superintendent from the Nigeria Police Force, while her squad mates did as superintendents, assistant commissioners and deputy commissioners.
Wine glasses were raised up on the day they retired, all laughing and dancing to have served in the Force and retired alive, and not killed while on the job. Some others were not that lucky. Nonetheless, she wasn’t happy and maybe she still isn’t.
Thirteen years are gone now since her retirement, but anytime she remembers the treatments meted out to her by her male bosses, the agony returns. But for the passion she had for the job, she would have long quit, but she stood up against them, fought them with everything at her disposal – for the most years she spent in the Force.
They were bent on frustrating her – and they succeeded, at least to some extent.
First, her promotion through the ranks was always delayed; second, her name was dropped at least twice from the inspectorate and assistant superintendent of police calls – promotional training courses for members of the Force; and finally, she was always asked to perform duties that were below her capability and strength.
Whether her female colleagues succumbed to the threats of their senior male colleagues for them to have retired at higher levels in the Force than her, she couldn’t tell.
“What I know is that I kept myself pure, I never compromised,” she looked in the eyes of our correspondent and managed to flash a brief smile.
Clara – not her real name – joined the Nigeria Police Force when she was around 25. The Enugu State indigene, who pleaded not to be named for fear of being a target of attack, was young, pretty, slim, with a chocolate skin colour and a great dress sense. Unknown to her, these qualities endeared her to many of her male bosses.
“I was getting too much attention from almost every senior male officer, and before I knew what was happening, I was being asked out by most of them. It took a while for me to know I was going to pay dearly for turning down their proposals,” she said.
She joined as a recruit, a spinster at that time, and immediately, she became a victim of sexual harassment. To make matters worse, she didn’t marry a policeman, which she said could have helped in stopping the harassment, but she chose to marry someone else, her true lover.
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