One of the national dailies recently carried a cartoon that captures effectively the fear of death that now haunts everyone in the land. The cartoonist says in part: "I retire to bed these days and sleep with an eye open. Reason: I’m not sure if my domestic staff are would-be assassins! ...When I'm being driven to and from work, my eyes keep darting from left to right. Reason: The driver of the car next to mine might be an assassin! ...I can no longer confidently check in at a five star hotel. Reason: A bomb might have been planted somewhere! ...Hmm. Finally I decided to go to Church to pray about all these - I had to pray with an eye open. Reason: One can never be too sure these days... The woman standing next to me might want to crack my head with a bottle!"
Nigerians are today perpetrators, victims and witnesses of multiple violence. We are recording each day a number of casualties of vicious crime, street thuggery, armed robbery, hired assassination, arson, stray bullets, police brutality, prison torture, judicial murder, plane hijack and bomb explosion. Those who have succumbed to the reign of terror in the last one year or so run into thousands. They include Gideon Akaluka of Kano, whose head is to this day still unaccounted for, Air Vice Marshal Tunde Elegbede, Captain Ashafa, Bishop Oluputaife, Professor Bandipo and 79 year-old Chief Alfred Rewane. Among those who escaped the jaws of death at the hands of violent criminals are young Bose Oyo, Prince Tony Momoh, Archbishop Olubunmi Okogie, and very lately, Chief Alex Ibru. Families have been callously thrown into mourning, children have been violently separated from their parents, spousal relationships have been summarily terminated, and large extended families have been brutally robbed of their sole bread winners. Ah, violence reigns in the land. It is a regime of agitation, tension, fear, and general insecurity of lives and property. The state security agencies, like the rest of Nigeria, appear helpless in the face of this eruption of violence. It has been a season of anomie or is it anarchy?
True, Nigeria has lost its criminal innocence. Nigeria is now a terrorised nation. Ours is now a nation held under siege and ruled by fear. We are living today perpetually haunted by death, sudden death, violent death. On the highways, innocent Nigerians are exposed to the deadly harassment of drunken security operatives who brandish their fully loaded guns menacingly at oncoming vehicles as if in the war front. Now and again these thugs in uniform empty the content of their barrels on innocent citizens and blame it on accidental discharge, if the victim is not framed up as an armed robber attempting to escape. Along the streets and alleys of our towns we are scared of death that may come in the hands of drug peddling and extortionist "area boys" or the vengeful destitute. Even amidst the traffic jam in our cities we are haunted by death that may come in the hands of some hoodlums that operate as hired assassins. In our homes we are haunted by death that may come in the hands of armed robbers. In our universities, polytechnic, and colleges of education, we are haunted by death in the hands of sadistic secret cultists or riotous students. That is not all. Nigerians are also haunted today by death that may come by way of acid attack in the hands of a jealous spouse, a vindictive political opponent or an aggrieved neighbour. And the latest dimension is that Nigerians are scared of death in the hands of classical terrorists and suicide squads by way of bomb explosions at the airports, hotels and sports stadia.
Not even the "area boys," and the destitute are spared in this dispensation of fear. The street people are themselves perpetually haunted by death not only by way of starvation and disease, but also in the hands of some overzealous agents of the Task Force on Environmental Sanitation. They are charged with the responsibility of clearing the streets of not only refuse and garbage, but also of area boys, street hawkers and the destitute. In the Lagos area they have become notorious for the use of bulldozers, horsewhips and batons, and they are alleged to have sometimes employed live bullets in the process of carrying out their task. So the task force agents are an abiding source of agitation for the helpless street dwellers.
Nigerians are entangled with death by way of capital punishment that is often carried out in the form of public execution by firing squad, or as in the case of the "Ogoni 9" by hanging. Sunday Concord of January 14, 1995, carried the embarrassing report that Nigeria now tops the world's list in execution of persons, with 586 convicts executed between 1985 and 1995! This figure should have increased now since a few more have been executed this year. Nigerians are haunted by death even when in government protective custody. Recall the gruesome beheading of Gideon Akaluka in a Kano prison, and the subsequent parading of the head on a metal spike through the streets of Kano on December 26, 1994. That was a celebration of death, and to this day the murderers of Gideon have not been brought to book.
Nigerians are face to face with death in our nation's prisons and police detention cells. A recent Newspaper report alleges that an average of 10 inmates die every week at the Kirikiri medium security prison alone. It is believe that as many as 15 people die every week in another prison in the Lagos area. Those still alive, especially in the "Awaiting Trial" section, are everyday frightened of a most painful death by instalment in the form of malnutrition, starvation, disease and physical torture. The ghost of Gideon Akaluka, and the ghosts of all other innocent victims of violent crime have continued to haunt the men and women of Nigeria. That is why when they drive, their eyes keep darting from left to right. That is why they cannot pray with both eyes closed. That is why they sleep with one eye open.
Nigerians have not been suddenly taken unawares by a whirlwind of vicious crimes. Nigerians have not just woken up to a deluge of violence. Nigerians did not just wake up one morning to discover that their otherwise peaceful and serene environment has been overtaken by terrorism. No. The handwriting has been on the wall for a long while. Though today they shout and curse and express outrage at the dangerous turn of events, the multitude of Nigerians are not innocent victims of violence. Not at all. Many Nigerians actually have their hands painted red with blood. Many of our country men and women have for a long while been wooing the agent of death. Many of our kith and kin have been unrestrainedly courting the messenger of death. Many of our brothers and sisters have been entangled in a protracted affair with the angel of death. It should be no surprise that we weep and gnash our teeth today, for by eating the sour grapes and the forbidden fruits we have expelled ourselves from the garden of peace, and are now exposed to the harsh realities of the Hobbesian state, where life is nasty, brutish and short.
Violence has its own dynamics. When presented as a mammal, violence is often conceived, gestated, bred, nurtured and it grows to maturity to later give birth to many of its kind. Seen as a bird, violence is often laid as an egg, it is incubated and hatched, it develops strong wings and then it takes to the sky and flies high. And likened to a tree, violence is often a seed that is planted, and when nurtured in a conducive environment, it grows to maturity to bear fruits in plenty. Violence is dynamic. It does not just occur. It does not just appear. It takes time to grow. Violence does not impose itself on any society. It is not an intruder. It is often sort after, invited or lured. Violence is often the child of a long-standing romance with evil, the off-shoot of an unholy alliance with death. Violence is often the outcome of deliberate acts or choices of individuals or of entire societies. Moses laid bare the choices available to the children of Israel in the book of Deuteronomy. He said: "I am offering you life and prosperity, death and disaster... if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen...you will most certainly perish...I am offering you life and death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live..."
Violence has its own distinctive form and character. Violence has its own culture. It operates by a determinable pattern. It travels along a predictable course. Violence does not just occur. The violence that today bestrides the Nigerian landscape like a colossus did not just emerge from the blues. It was courted, albeit unconsciously or inadvertently, by way of deliberate choices made by individual Nigerians and governments over a period of time. Today's violence had its precedents that go back in history. Today's vicious crimes, callous murders, senseless killings, and the new wave of terrorism had their foundations laid in our national landscape by way of layers of fraud, layers of lies, layers of deceit and layers of mischief that for a while have constituted the character of Nigeran governance. Today's armed robbery, street thuggery, widespread arson, hired assassination and bomb explosion had their seeds sown in our national polity by way of a multiplicity of social and structural injustices that have been left unredressed by a succession of vision-less, self-seeking and self-serving leaders.
The challenge before all peace-loving and peace-seeking Nigerians is to discern properly the source of the prevalent violence that is spreading so much fear, anxiety, agitation and tension through the land. Nigerians of vision must today distinguish between primary violence and secondary violence. They must identify the seeds of violence as against the various "fruits" or manifestations of violence in our land. They must distinguish the "mother" of violence from the "offspring" of violence. Nigerians of vision must refuse to be distracted by the individual manifestations of violence such as armed banditry, street thuggery, and even bomb explosion. Instead they must summon the courage to challenge the structural injustices which constitute the root violence in our society. While individual incidents of violence must be taken seriously, and individual culprits must be held responsible for every act of violence, it will be a futile exercise to ignore the superstructure of violence that sustains the individual manifestations we witness in the streets everyday.
Nigerians have sowed the seed of violence by their romance with the lie and their philandering with falsehood. The economic and political life of Nigeria has for some time been predicated on fraud and untruth. Nigerians, and particularly their leaders have often traded lies of many colours. They have openly canvassed deceit. They have given falsehood a royal stool. They have dressed fraud in executive garb. And in this way they have held truth in funeral helplessness. Nigeria is now a land where the truth is often held in chains or put behind bars. In today's Nigeria truth appears to have very few allies. But the suppression of truth, and the glorification of the lie, especially when it assumes the character of national governance, is suicidal.
The violation of truth is a primary violence which gives birth to a multiplicity of secondary violence. Truth is indestructible. Truth is indomitable. Truth is inviolable. Truth is free. Every attempt to suppress or domesticate truth ends in futility, for truth will always bounce back, but with a vengeance. Whereas truth is the precursor of peace, and whereas truth sets one free, the lie itself is a seed of violence. The lie is a dark cave. The lie is a frightening tunnel. The lie portends terror, that kind of terror that burns in the hearts of men and women like fire. In the structure of Nigerian governance, every act of deceit, every incident of fraud, and every occasion of false propaganda has constituted one more layer in the superstructure of violence. And this is primary violence which begets further violence.
Every act of injustice perpetrated in our land is a seed of violence. The political injustices suffered by various minority groups in Nigeria since independence are a primary violence. The suppression of minority voices, especially in recent times, the voices of environmental activists from oil producing areas of the Niger Delta, is a primary violence. The fraudulent annulment of the June 12 presidential election and the subsequent detention of the winner is a primary violence. The incarceration of several pro-democracy activists, the harassment, intimidation and coercion of human rights groups, journalists and social critics, are a primary violence. The intermittent raiding of Media houses, the seizure of printed Newspapers and Magazines, the proscription of Newspapers without due legal process, and the frequent incarceration of journalists, are a primary violence.
When The Concord, The Punch and The Guardian groups of Newspapers were proscribed for over one year, and they had their business premises sealed up by security agents, the Nigerian public suffered violence at the hands of the authorities. They were denied the right to free exchange of information. They were denied access to the most credible media of social communication at that time. This was a great assault on the sensibilities of intelligent citizens who were not convinced that the Newspapers had violated any law of the land. Many Nigerians stopped reading Newspapers in protest. Hundreds of journalists and thousands of other professionals were rendered jobless. They suffered all sorts of hardship, including psychological distress, as they could not put their creative ingenuity to profitable use. A few of them and some of their dependants are alleged to have died of poverty. The sealing up of the Media Houses therefore, especially when done without regard to due legal processes, is a primary violence. It begets further violence.
Each and every instance of human rights abuse is a primary violence. Each and every act of discrimination, whether on the basis of class, ethnicity, religion or sex, is a primary violence. Each and every act of executive lawlessness (and Nigerians have witnessed too much of it in recent times), is a primary violence. Each and every instance of corrupt enrichment, in as much as it robs the generality of the people of access to a fair share in the meagre resources of the nation, is a primary violence. It gives birth to more violence.
Governance by corrupt patronage or "settlement" is primary violence. The now widespread "rent-a-crowd" phenomenon known as arranged solidarity visits by which the resources of state and the public-owned media are used to wage a psychological warfare against the people, is a primary violence. The silencing of opposition voices, the suppression of public rallies, the crushing of peaceful demonstrations, and the harassment and brutalization of unarmed protesters, all constitute a primary violence. The passionate pursuit of power by way of election and census rigging or by way of the politics of bitterness and vindictiveness, and the engagement of murderous thugs and private armies that unleash a reign of terror during electioneering campaigns, are a primary violence. They give birth to further violence.
The humiliation and pauperization of the multitude of people via state policy, such as we have seen through the Structural Adjustment Programme implemented in the last nine years, is an act of violence. It is more so when we consider that after nine years, the policy has only succeeded in making the rich richer and the poor poorer. The deliberate policy of state that has abused and reduced the multitude of people to an existence of near destitution in a land literally flowing with milk and honey, is a principal violence. A structure that sustains the gargantuan disparity between conspicuous wealth and grinding poverty in the same society, is a structure of violence. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other Western institutions which promote or encourage these structures and policies in Nigeria and in other so-called Third World countries have proved themselves to be primary agents of violence in these countries.
In an environment where there are no adequate social welfare provisions, where there are no public shelters for the homeless, where the aged and the handicapped are not adequately catered for, where there are no unemployment benefits, where there are no soup kitchens for the hungry, and where there is no health insurance for the poor; in such an environment, to launch an aggressive policy of economic deregulation and currency devaluation, to promote large-scale retrenchment of staff and whole-sale commercialisation of public utilities, is to decree misery and agony for the generality of the population. The Structural Adjustment Programme is therefore a structure of violence, a primary violence. It sows the seeds of further violence. When a multitude of people are abandoned in squalor; when they struggle each day to eke a miserable existence under sub-human conditions, when their circumstances get worse each day, and when there is no hope of reprieve in sight, then the seeds of secondary violence are sown in plenty.
When a people are held down in poverty, deprivation and want for a prolonged period of time, and when their misery degenerates to the level of hopelessness, that society often experiences an eruption in violence. This is especially so where abject poverty exists side by side with conspicuous wealth. The poor victims of injustice in these circumstances reason that they have nothing to lose. When they cannot reach their oppressors, they even turn in on themselves, killing, maiming, harassing and abusing their fellow sufferers at the slightest provocation. This is what psychologists call transferred aggression. And the visitation of aggression in extreme cases can be indiscriminate. Thus in such societies innocent people could become victims of violent crime at the hands of the resentful poor, the frustrated youth, and the angry mob. The recent history of Rwanda is the most commanding lesson in this respect.
The genocide in Rwanda and Burundi has a long history behind it. The roots of the violent eruption in that part of Africa date back to the colonial times, and the unjust socio-political and economic structures put in place by the colonial overlords. Since the structural injustices were not redressed at independence, but rather re-enforced and maintained by successive indigenous leaders, the stage was set for the conflagration that must occur some day. And it did happen. The world had no reason to be shocked and bewildered when hell broke loose in Rwanda. The seeds of violence had been planted and nurtured over a long period of time. The monster was conceived, gestated, bred and nurtured to maturity for a period of nearly one hundred years before it broke loose and began to devour human lives in their millions. Now the world expresses outrage as if we were all taken unawares. The same is true of the territory that used to be known as Yugoslavia. The story is the same for Somalia, Uganda, Angola, Liberia, and Sudan.
Today South Africa has the reputation of having the highest rate of violent crimes in the continent. Should this be a surprise? For over forty years, the evil superstructure known as apartheid was in place. It unleashed all forms of violence and abuse on the black people of the land. The black people on their part, fought apartheid with their lives and limbs. Their children no longer went to school. Instead they learnt guerrilla warfare. They learnt to throw stones and shoot guns. The highways and alleys of South Africa were paved with the blood of the innocent, including women and children. In the process, human worth diminished in the minds of many. They lived with violence and death. Murder and arson became ordinary. Even after the collapse of apartheid, violence and death still reigns in the land. The process of cleansing will take a while. How true the biblical saying that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are on edge!
In Nigeria, the impoverishment of the multitude of people has not only led to increase in the violent crimes of murder, hired assassination, arson and bomb explosion, but also to an increase in the "area boys" phenomenon, school drop-out rate, street hawking, and street begging. It has led to an increase in domestic violence, child abuse, drug abuse, drug trafficking, and large-scale prostitution, involving students and youths, male and female. There are reports of the existence of international syndicates with strong connections in Nigeria, involved in the "exportation" of poor Nigerian young women to work as prostitutes in certain European countries. These are all part of the casualties of the ill-advised Structural Adjustment Programme recommended by the IMF, and implemented religiously by the military government of General Babangida, and continued by his successor regime, against the widespread protestation of the people that are rendered destitute. The Structural Adjustment Programme and the attendant withdrawal of petroleum subsidies and devaluation of the Naira, put many Nigerians on the death row and created for others a situation of emergency.
Extreme impoverishment is like a curse. Among human beings, civility often disappears when poverty degenerates to misery. They tend to lose part of their higher faculties when they experience great deprivation for a prolonged period of time. Indeed, when reduced to sub-human conditions, human beings often resort to an emergency ethics and a crisis morality. In circumstances of grave deprivation and want, human beings are known through history to have resorted to even the most bizarre practices, including cannibalism in order to survive. The act of cannibalism under such circumstances, despicable as it may be, is a secondary violence. It is not the primary violence.
True, reasonability is an attribute of wholesome humanity. Jesus Christ himself had asserted that it is from him to whom much has been given that much is expected. Those who have received too little of respectability, education, food, shelter and clothing; those who on the other hand have been raped, robbed and abused, cannot give much in terms of responsibility, reasonability and civility. To what extent can those who live each day by scavenging, who compete daily with vultures and rodents for a share in the contents of garbage heaps be reasonable? To what extent can these victims of severe abuse be expected to be reasonable? Modern psychologists maintain that abused children often turn out to become abusive adults. Before they became villains, they were victims. Violence begets violence. And the vicious circle of violence continues.
Our educational system, from the elementary school to the university, has suffered a fatal assault. The institutions have been criminally neglected and grossly under-funded, resulting in frequent strikes, violent demonstrations and prolonged closures. The few months of the year when the schools may be in session, they lack practically every facility needed for learning and for imparting knowledge. As a result the best of our intellectuals have left our shores and sort greener pastures elsewhere. The remnant of the teaching profession are like beggars on our university campuses. The callous neglect of the educational sector in a country like Nigeria which is blessed by the Creator with abundant wealth, is a primary violence. It has given birth to all forms of secondary violence, including the sordid exploits of secret cultists who kill and maim innocent students and staff, the widespread examination malpractice which does violence to hard-working students and the entire standard of education, and such other ugly developments as the now widespread student prostitution. It is said that the idle mind is the devil's workshop. It is a truism that wherever intellectual worth is depressed or despised, that society is cursed; and wherever the genius of youth is manacled or constricted, that society is doomed. Those who have pontificated over the reckless demolition of our once vibrant and enviable educational system cannot turn around to cry wolf when these institutions begin to breed violent secret cultists, armed robbers, prostitutes, thugs and touts. They invited these evils by their deliberate acts of commission and omission.
An average of two million Nigerians graduate each year from our schools and colleges, and they have no place to go. In a recent article in the Guardian Newspaper, Dr. G. G. Darah observed that over a ten year period, about twenty million such young Nigerians with broken dreams and aborted aspirations have been turned out into the world to seek vengeance. Yes, with hundreds of thousands of our youths out of school for most of the year, and with millions of young energetic people unemployed or underemployed, what do we expect? Violence breaks out with the slightest provocation, and it becomes an occasion for them to let out their pent-up anger. Exposed to the techniques of violent crimes via the mass media, many of our talented youths who cannot find gainful employment now experiment in violent crimes. They sometimes execute these crimes with such mastery and sophistication as will put the Italian mafia to shame. Often filled with resentment against the authorities for what they perceive as their contrived misery, many of these youths have no qualms renting themselves out as hired assassins and paid arsonists. They operate as armed robbers, street thugs and area boys and girls, and they visit their vengeance on many innocent people.
The world they say has become a global village, thanks to the phenomenal technological advancement witnessed in the twentieth century. Nigerians are not living in isolation in some remote island, oblivious of the modern concepts of human dignity, and the right to decent living and minimum comfort for everyone. Through the mass media, especially the television, they are exposed to the "good life" even as they eke a miserable existence in their slum dwellings. In their misery and want, poor Nigerians often know the comfort and well-being that they can aspire to as citizens of such a richly endowed country, but which remain far beyond their reach. Several exotic foods and drinks are advertised everyday on television, which arouse their appetite but which they are unable to obtain. They see on television attractive houses and household equipment and gadgets that enhance comfort and social well-being.
These things whet the appetite of the poor for the good life on daily basis, yet they live in the slum amidst heaps of garbage, or they dwell under the bridge and are exposed to the elements. While suffocating inside, or hanging dangerously on the mechanical contraptions known as "molue," and passing through the Island of Lagos, they see the wealth of this country displayed in the mountains of marble where the rich live, and in the towers of glass where they work. They see the riches of their motherland displayed in the private jets that fly over their heads daily, and in the expensive cars that parade the highways and exude poisonous fumes. While the wealthy are protected in their air-conditioned homes and vehicles, the poor take all the noise and air pollution from the modern instruments of comfort. The plight of the poor people in the oil producing areas of the Niger Delta is a classic example of this form of abuse. They are abandoned in squalor, taking in poisoned air and water, and lacking the basic necessities of life, while the beneficiaries of their natural resource fly over them daily in their helicopters and private jets. This is violence of the first order. It is a principal violence. It breeds anger and resentment, and eventually promotes crime.
While they eke a miserable existence on the edge of society, with no social welfare services, with no unemployment benefits, and with no access to public utilities, poor Nigerians are often assaulted by the flagrant display of wealth and the conspicuous consumption of the super rich. The enormous disparity between the over-fed and the starving in our country is a primary violence. The co-existence today of a class of people belonging to the "First World" and another belonging to the "Fourth World" in the same society, is a primary violence. Such a shameful reality breeds and nurtures violence in any society. The gargantuan disparity between wealth and misery in the same society, generates an environment of tension, provokes agitation and eventually results in violent uprising. The French Revolution remains an eternal lesson for humanity in this respect. But the embarrassing truth of human history is that human beings do not learn from history. And so tragedies in one part of the world are replayed in another part, and the legacies of violence in one generation are relived in another.
Our primitive police, security and penal systems are among those structures that constitute a primary violence in our land. Men of the regular Nigerian Police , the Mobile Police, the ad hoc Task Forces, the State Security Service, etc., often operate as recalcitrant and unsanctionable agencies. They are often a law unto themselves, intimidating, coercing and brutalizing Nigerian citizens like an occupation force. There has not been any marked difference in operational style between the Colonial Police Force that was put together for the sole purpose of subjugating the Nigerian people or coercing them into submission, and the post-Independence Nigerian Police. Perhaps no conscious efforts have been made since independence to transform the Nigerian Police into a civil agency that is aimed at maintaining order and protecting lives and property. Thus, for the slightest misdemeanour they often deal with "bloody civilians" in the bloodiest manner. At Police Stations, at public functions, and at regular checkpoints or emergency road-blocks, they harass, brutalise and torture innocent Nigerians mercilessly.
The Nigerian Police is far from being "your friend." Often aggressive towards his fellow country men and women, the police operates outside the law, but uses the law when it suits him to extort and to oppress. One only needs to see the Mobile Squad or the Anti-Riot Police at work, to recognise that they are not trained to keep law and order, but rather (as they have come to be known among Nigerians) to "kill and go." The security agents treat their fellow citizens as non-persons, or at best sub-persons. Before them the life of the Nigerian suspect is cheap and easily expendable. They have often deployed tanks and armoured carriers, and used live bullets to suppress students' peaceful demonstrations and dislodge mass rallies that are not favoured by the government. In an environment where rallies are regularly organised by government supporters, and crowds are rented everyday with public funds to sing the praise of the leaders, it amounts to violence of the first, when peaceful protests are brutally suppressed. The opposition in Nigeria experiences this violence on daily basis. And with the anger and resentment provoked, the seed of violence is nurtured.
Security agents who accompany top government officials in escort vehicles, and those of them who accompany cash carrying bullion vans, are often armed with guns, clubs and horsewhips, with which they whip and bash fellow citizens out of the road. The recklessness with which they drive their siren blaring vehicles, and the brute force and bravado with which they send other road users off the highway whenever they are passing, constitute a reign of terror. Since no one ever calls them to order, the impression is given that they are a law unto themselves. Those engaged in special task forces, such as the Lagos State Task Force on Environmental Sanitation, go around like trained bullies, with a loaded gun in one hand, and a horsewhip in the other, destroying wares, tearing human flesh, breaking human bones, and framing up outrageous charges against innocent and defenceless citizens. Rather than maintain peace and promote concord, these agents by the unrestrained use of the whip and the club, create an aberrant order (or disorder). This reality provokes anger and resentment in the poor Nigerian against the security agencies and the authority structure that sustains them. This is a veritable seed of violence.
Our detention cells and prison conditions are perhaps the most primitive institutions in the land. The structure which makes it possible for thousands of people who have not been tried or convicted of any crime to be cramped into over-crowded jails under sub-human conditions for upward of five or ten years, is a structure of primary violence. The system in which the police take liberty in using all conceivable forms of physical and psychological torture to obtain "confessional" statements, is a primary violence. The conditions of our detention cells and prisons all over the country today are such that hardly anyone goes in and comes out a normal human being. Far from being centres for correction and reformation, our prisons are chambers of torture. And after a period in the Nigerian prison, those who went in as criminals come out as hardened criminals. They become vicious and vindictive in their new criminal escapades. Innocent citizens who get thrown into detention, and who survive death via torture, starvation, and disease, often come out deranged, depressed or at best resentful. The society that nurtures such a brutal and primitive penal and prison system has sown several seeds of violence. Such a society is training monsters that will eventually devour the land.
Military dictatorship is, in our judgement, the mother of all violence in Nigeria or in any society for that matter. Military dictatorship stands in its own class as a superstructure of violence. It is a principal violence in as much as it suppresses the people's will, robs them of their sovereignty, and denies them their fundamental right to self-determination, including the freedom to elect the leader of their own choice. Among the fundamental human rights, many people today identify the right to self-determination as next in priority to the right to life. Military dictatorship sows the seeds of violence in as much as it suspends the nation's constitution which guarantees the people's basic freedom.
Military dictatorship has instituted violence in Nigeria as a weapon of state. With military rule, brute force, and not reason or popularity has become the legitimating instrument of government. The gun determines what is right and wrong. This is violence of the first order. Military coups according to the nation's constitution are an illegality. They are unconstitutional. What military regimes do is to forcefully legitimize and absolutise what is otherwise an illegality. This constitutes a nihilistic affront on all the hallowed norms and veritable prescriptions of a civil society. To that extent military rule is a structural injustice of the first order.
The privatization of state by a tiny oligarchy of military conquerors and their civilian collaborators is a primary violence. It scatters the seeds of injustice and secondary violence all over the land. The other name for military dictatorship is absolutism and autocracy. It is averse to due process, and contemptuous of the rule of law. A society overrun by military fiat stands at the threshold of nihilism, and gazes peremptorily at the abyss. The entire dispensation is a fertile soil for the blooming and flowering of the thorns and thistles which we see as vicious crimes, brutal murders, arson, hired assassination and bomb explosion. Yes, these are in large measure only off-shoots of the principal act of violence called military dictatorship.
Military rule in Nigeria is characterised by draconian decrees, retroactive decrees, and decrees that come with ouster clauses. It has also seen the whimsical appointment and removal of judges. Military regimes have not only assaulted but effectively emasculated the nation's judiciary. They have thoroughly devitalized Nigerian lawyers, and rendered Nigerian judges absolutely impotent. Under the military, ad hoc tribunals, which are often put together in the form of inquisitional bodies, have acquired the status of a supreme court, as those convicted by them often have no opportunity for appeal, except to the military ruling council. Though some of these tribunals sit in camera, their sentences are often held sacrosanct, not to be challenged in any court of law. But the denial of the right of appeal on sentences handed down by these irregular tribunals negates all principles of natural justice. The very structure of these tribunals is therefore a structure of violence. They are a primary violence. They sow the seeds of a multiplicity of secondary violence in the society.
The military is at home where the civilization of love is absent. The military is at home where true community is on recess. The military is at home where human solidarity is suspended. The military involvement in Nigerian governance has been one great encounter with absurdity. From 1966 to 1996, it has been a tragic celebration of violence. Our coups and counter coups have brought nothing but tension, pain, fear, tears, and death. The military has indeed succeeded in holding the country together as one, but at what price? We have been driven and banded together with horsewhips and jackboots. We have been coerced and conscripted into submission with the swinging sword and the dangling noose. The thirty years of military adventurism in our political landscape have resulted in a near-absolute militarization of the Nigerian national psyche. Totally overrun with military fiat, Nigerians are today struggling under the enormous burden of militarism, and this is a principal act of violence. The list of casualties of military nihilism in our political, social, economic, educational and even religious and traditional institutions is inexhaustible. Ah, military rule has been for us a curse, a plague, and a deadly virus, whose devastating potentials are well nigh unfathomable.
The resort to terrorism as a weapon of protest is damnable anywhere and anytime. It has brought no good to any society, and it will bring no good to Nigeria. Northern Ireland, the Middle East, and of late Algeria, where these dastardly acts have been perfected, have no gains to show for the widespread resort to terrorism. Yet the foregoing reflection has sought to demonstrate that the eruption of violence today in Nigerian has its seeds and roots in unredressed injustices, and in the prevailing socio-political and economic structures. The seeds of discontentment sown over the years now have a cumulative effect in the country to the extent that cynicism, nihilism and fatalism are beginning to bloom. The generality of Nigerians have demonstrated over the years to be a resilient and long-suffering lot. They have exercised heroic restraint in the face of oppression and intimidation. The phenomenon of terrorism in Nigeria seems to have sprung up out of frustration in some quarters with an authority system that gives no room for the opposition and recognises no need for true dialogue. The dangerous trend appears to have resulted from the anger, resentment and disillusionment of certain victims of injustice, or of members of the opposition who have been denied the opportunity to express their views, and whose every attempt to get across to government has been rebuffed.
Today we find ourselves at the edge of a precipice, gazing peremptorily at the abyss. Where do we go from here? How do we avert a fatal descent? How do we stem the tide of violence? How do we recover our sanity? How do we regain our sense of human worth and dignity? How do we dethrone the culture of death and doom that is now aboard and put in its place a culture of life and prosperity? How does Nigeria recover its lost soul? How does the giant of Africa redeem its severely battered image? Perhaps one way to truly move the nation forward is for our country men and women to rise up and demand value for every Nigerian life. To move forward, Nigerians must recognise that peace cannot be privatised. Nigerians must acknowledge that justice cannot be appropriated by some and denied others. We must acknowledge that we either all have peace or no one has peace. We must acknowledge that when one Nigerian is being abused, tortured or brutalised, all Nigerians are endangered. We must know that when one Nigerian is being robbed of his or her fundamental human rights, all Nigerians suffer along with the victim. We must see that when one Nigerian is allowed to die of starvation in such a richly endowed land as ours, the entire country is in a state of "dis-ease." We must rediscover our sense of corporate personality, communal responsibility and human solidarity. Yes, to truly move forward we must evolve a critical social conscience, and operate from the disposition that the injustice suffered by one Nigerian has a destabilising potential for the entire nation.
For Nigeria to know peace, the leadership and the followership must be truly committed to the process of repentance and reconciliation. The politics of exclusion and isolation will not get Nigeria anywhere. It is not by greater repression of perceived enemies of the government that Nigeria will move forward. For peace to emerge, Nigerians must be ready to face the truth, however bitter, and in whatever manner it challenges the status-quo. Nigerians are born free. They are slaves of no one, and they often resist any attempt to enslave them. The leadership must begin to listen to the faint voices of the oppressed poor, the aggrieved politician, and the deprived minority. This is the only way to break the circle of violence in our land. Above all, Nigerians of all classes, ethnic affiliations and religious persuasions must rediscover the place of truth, justice and righteousness in the evolution of a peaceful society, for as the prophet says, a nation without integrity has no right to peace.
