Policing the lockdown: accounts of police officers’ aggression and extortion of frontline health workers in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the many intersections between policing and public health, illuminating profound effects of the interactions and collaborative efforts between both sectors in Nigeria, which culminated into an industrial action by health workers in protest of police harassment and extortion. This study, which represents one of the first attempts at empirically examining inter-sectoral collaboration between police and healthcare personnel in the promotion of public health, explored health workers’ experiences with the police officers coordinating local shutdowns and enforcing stay-at-home mandates. Sixty-two health workers, comprising medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, clinical and patient services assistants, were interviewed in a qualitative study and a thematic analysis of the narratives was carried out. Findings indicated that participants were subjected to different forms of aggression and extortive behaviour from police officers at checkpoints, which negatively impacted on their official functioning as responders to the pandemic. Occasionally, these aggressive and extortive behaviours were specifically targeted at health workers based on officers’ impressions and prior unpleasant experiences with health institution and its personnel. These findings have important policy and practical implications, if the physical health and emotional wellbeing of frontline health workers are to be recognised and met, in supporting them in their role of combating COVID-19.

KEYWORDS:

• Aggression
• COVID-19
• extortion
• healthcare workers
• Nigeria police

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).