One fine Sunday evening I went to the Tam-tam neighborhood for a roast fish treat with a couple of friends. On my way home I was pulled over by the traffic police on the Mvolye hill. The officer presented himself and requested to see my photo ID and vehicle registration documents. I confidently gave him the file with everything in it (or so I thought). He briefly examined the documents, checked the road worthiness sticker on the wind shield and told me in French “Madam, your road worthiness certificate is absent”.
It is then that I realized the reason for its absence. I had given my documents to be photocopied the day before, and the lady probably put that specific certificate alongside the other photocopies which I left at home. I decided to photocopy all my car documents since the event in Mokolo market whereby my handbag was snatched from me with all the car documents in it (See my blog entry of Monday November 2nd 2009 entitled Mokolo: Organised petty crime).
I tried to make the officer understand that to forget is human, but he won’t budge. He told me that the car will be impounded if I cannot produce the missing document.
9.30pm and my pleas were getting me nowhere. The officer went away to continue pulling over other vehicles, thereby completely disregarding my presence. I was thinking that he will get tired of keeping me there and let me go (he was keeping my car documents and ID card). His supervisor came over and told me to “discuss” well with the officer who had my documents.
Realizing that I didn’t want to drive 24km to get the missing document, I finally decided to propose a one-off win-win corruption offer. When the officer came over to me and asked what I have decided to do, I told him, “Here is a thousand francs, please return my documents so I go home, it's getting really late for me”. Just then, two guys on a motorbike arrived and alerted the police officers to arrest the guys in the taxi just behind them, for they had just been robbed by the occupants of the taxi. In all the commotion the officer told me to drive on and wait for him a few meters ahead, he will come and liberate me. I did as he said. I waited for about 20 minutes in vain. I decided to do the right thing: go home and get the documents and show the officer. As I drove home I said to myself, “this is a good police officer, he deserves a promotion”.
It was almost 10.30pm when I got home, collected the road worthiness certificate and reported back to the Mvolye hill. The police officer told me he came to look for me as arranged but I was nowhere to be found. I told him after waiting for 20minutes I decided to do the right thing. I gave him the sheet of paper and he said I should give him a few moments. He just continued talking with this lady like I wasn’t waiting on him!
I walked up to him after a few minutes and said, trying so hard not to raise my voice, “Officer, here is the document that was absent, it’s getting late and I have to get back home, can I please have my car documents and ID card?” He replied, “Go towards your car and I will be with you shortly”.
He came over to me and said, “So what are you saying”? I was just staring at him like he wasn’t there, wondering what he meant by the above statement. I politely repeated what I said above and requested that he gives me the documents. He just kept on looking at me, hoping I will act otherwise. Finally he uttered, trying so hard to be pleasant, “So what about the 1,000frs you proposed before”? Duh! I couldn’t believe he just said that! Fortunately I had a ready answer for him, “I used it to fuel the car to go get the document”.
Just then he realized he wasn’t about to get anything off me. He reluctantly handed over the file jacket to me, and I smiled in my heart as I walked to the car, knowing that I did the right thing after all, even though I ended up getting home very late that night.
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