So a friend of mine wants to sell his car and gets contacted by a buyer who agrees to meet him half way at an Engen one stop.
When my friend gets there, the transaction is interrupted by police officers who magically produce diamonds that were somehow 'part of this transaction'.
The police inform my friend that this evidence automatically gives them the right to cuff him and lock him up unless he is willing to go with them to the closest ATM and top out his daily limit.
My friend is flustered, intimidated, has his young son in the car and does not know what to do so drives with them, draws the money and gives it to them.
They take his cellphone for 'evidence' and disappear.
We phone every manner of corruption line, friends who are also cops and connection we can get our hands on and they all tell us the same thing.
"It's a common occurrence, these guys are too well connected, there is nothing we can do". Evidently it's a standard thing for these syndicated cops, they target you via public sales platforms and depend on your naievity and fear for their rhythm to work.
Every cop we speak to is frustrated and angry, they feel powerless to do anything about the corruption because they could lose their jobs or, when they actually do something about it, the corruption goes so high that it gets mushed in paper work, evidence gets 'lost' or things simply get thrown out of court.Very few people who lay complaints are willing to move forward with the process because they are intimidated by the immediate threat to their families...
Our system is broken. Usually I am an optimist but right now, as I vent on this page I am angry and feel my optimism for this nation significantly eroded. i knew that we were in a bad way, but not this bad!
I have been held at gunpoint, been forced to watch my wife get assaulted (luckily not raped because she fought back with all her heart preferring death), been shot at, robbed countless times and, just like you, suffered the inconvenience of poor service delivery.
The blatant power of corrupt police, who represent the authority and order of our nation mind you, has put me in a mental place I do not want to inhabit.
We need some kind of revolution, seriously.The backbone of our nation is putrid, there are so many rotten Apples among the clean apples that it simply does not matter anymore. Either we need a new ruling party or we need to start running for the hills.
I still believe in education with all my heart but the two decades it will take for education to change the future might be too little, too late.
I dunno, what do you think?
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