Okechukwu Emeh Jr
7 September 2008
opinion
These are perilous times in Nigeria. The mounting wave of violent crimes in the country has prompted an atmosphere of fear, insecurity, uncertainty and total bewilderment.
In every nook and cranny of the polity today, the nefarious activities of armed criminals have posed a dangerous threat to hapless Nigerians and impinged on the ability of the Nigerian state to maintain law and order.
Indeed, the ugly situation is so surreal and horrible that one could nurse a déjà vu of a Hobbesian state of nature of the pre-medieval period when life was dull, brutish, nasty and short because of the nihilistic nudging and violence of men. Where do we go from here, as fiendish crimes like armed robbery, assassination, homicide, ritual murder, rape, cultism, kidnapping and gangsterism assume frightening dimension across the length and breadth of the country?
Against the backdrop of the national quandary presented by the upsurge of violent crimes in Nigeria, many concerned Nigerians have been cracking their brains on how to wriggle the country out of the severe crisis. One write-up in this direction, which elicited the interest of this writer, a social analyst, was the one published by Mr. Jiti Ogunye in March 2008. In an article, entitled "How to Rescue Nigerians From Armed Robbery And Firearm Crimes", Ogunye, a legal practitioner, canvassed for a gun ownership policy and legislation that will give every Nigerian above the age of 21 a regulated access to mass gun ownership and use. He reasoned that this was necessary and urgent considering a number of factors, including: the constitutional right of every Nigerian to self defence; the inability of the Nigerian government to guarantee the rights of life, liberty and ownership of property in these times of sharp increase in crime and criminality; non-existence of Crime Victims Compensation Law in the country, which enables family or dependants of crime victims to claim damages in the event of death arising from heinous crimes like armed robbery; the ineptitude of the Nigerian police in securing lives and property of the citizenry; the adverse socio-economic effects of mass poverty and unemployment and the resultant misery and frustration, which have instigated many Nigerians into armed criminality; and massive circulation of illicit arms that now fan the ember of violent crimes.
Other factors have also not helped matters in addressing the spiraling wave of violent crimes in Nigeria. These include: years of political misrule, corruption and economic mismanagement and the attendant human deprivation, privation, misery and despondency, which egregiously reached their climax during the immediate past regime of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo; the negation of the ideals of public good by majority of those in our political helm of affairs; the proliferation of slum neighbourhoods that have become breeding grounds for crime and violence; failure of the Nigerian Prisons Service as a criminal corrective/reformative system; drug abuse and the associated violence; spread of new generation churches that espouse prosperity gospel that arouses greed and avarice and the precipitate consequences like armed robbery, fraud and prostitution; breakdown of traditional family values through infidelity, incest, divorce, separation, ungodliness, distrust, juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy and violence.
Indeed, there is no doubt that the aforementioned factors have aggravated the crisis of violent crimes in Nigeria, a situation that has given impetus to the calls in some quarters for mass gun ownership for self-defence.
However, taking a perspicacious look at the idea, one can see it as a poisoned chalice in the search for solution to such crimes. For one, a mass gun ownership option could lead to the free flow of illegally acquired arms, which is at the root of the present surge of heinous crimes like armed robbery.
For another, instead of advocating for such a counter measure, the Nigerian government should be impressed upon to address the underlying factors that have eventuated violent crimes in the country. These particularly include abject poverty, chronic unemployment, social exclusion and the widening gulf between the rich and the poor, as all compounded by the insidious problems of poor governance, economic mismanagement, corruption and shocks of economic reform programmes that have gone awry and failed the generality of Nigerian people.
Experience from far-flung Western societies shows that they have been able to tame or mollify the morose feelings and frustrations that often ignite the human tendency towards abnormalities like crime and violence. This is achieved through political economy approach of tackling human deprivations, not through strongman anti-crime measures of increasing the personnel of security agencies and their accoutrement of law enforcement (including arms and ammunition), extra-judicial executions and mob justice, as grotesquely often witnessed in Nigeria. For example, in the Scandinavian countries like The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, a pro-Keynesian economic order that places high premium on economic growth with development and human welfare through sustained campaign against unemployment, poverty and social exclusion has reduced crimes to almost a zero level. This is not to ignore the bold fact that political leaderships there are implacably committed to good governance and liberal policy of social welfare.
The same humanistic response to crime and malignant criminality is re-enacted in African countries that have become symbols of political stability and economic development on the continent like Botswana, Mauritius and Tunisia.
Today, almost nine years of advent of civilian rule in Nigeria, the frontiers of hunger, poverty, unemployment and other forms of human misery are fast expanding and fomenting violent crimes and social unrest across the country. To ask: Under such world-weary situations, how can one vouch that mass gun ownership would not be a recipe for disaster or mass suicide? In truth, adopting such a measure at a fearful time like this would be tantamount to setting a tinderbox of Bastille type of social upheaval cum mass revolution in the polity. This is not to gloss over the license mass gun ownership could give to violent criminals or psychopathic individuals to unleash mayhem, or the unparallel killings and maiming of lives the policy would generate at the slightest provocation between individuals/groups in times of misunderstanding, especially mindful of the dog-eat-dog nature of our present-day society and considering also the aphorism that a hungry man is an angry man.
Considering the above depressing facts about the dangers of mass gun ownership, what is urgently needed in Nigeria to respond effectively to the skyrocketing rate of violent crimes that are threatening a social Armageddon in the country are structural and institutional approaches. Within the purview of structural approach, this would necessitate the Midas touch of a political economy that would engender a new order where socio-economic well-being and advancement of Nigerians would be rest assured by those in our political satrap. This calls for aggressive policy of creation of wealth and job opportunities for our teeming masses - victims of years of deprivation and privation of our successive regimes. This new order to roll back the menace of violent crimes in the polity would also require economic reform programmes that are garbed with a milk of human face. The order also equally demands an affirmation of a new Social Contract that hums with good governance and general good by political "leaders" at all tiers of government in Nigeria. The new order should be driven by populist and enlightened leadership that would be able to build a just and egalitarian society in the country where everybody will be happy to belong.
Emeh is a Public Affairs Analyst in Abuja
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