The longer the military stayed in power in Nigeria, the more they damaged the fabric of the Nigerian society and destroyed the military professionalism of the Nigerian soldiers due to their ad-hoc policies.
Nothing the Nigerian military did had any rhyme or reason. They did everything to entrench themselves and desecrate all standards of civilized behavior. They turned Nigerians to people who have been conquered and under a foreign army occupation. Any of their daydreams became decrees. In order to wrest the land from the indigenous people, they passed all kinds of ad-hoc decrees. This is the Land Use Decree. This decree has cost the Nigerian more problems and discord than any of their pugilistic stance on freedom. Overnight land was forcibly taken from citizens and given to the government and the governor became the only person who decides who gets land. This is an extreme plunder.
This decree is still a law. The new leaders have not seen it proper to revisit and expunge it because the new leaders understand it is also a reward for them from ad-hoc culture. They don’t see any need for further debate. This most important issue of security became subjective. Security became a high expense commodity that can only be afforded by the billionaires they created, and these people in turn created their fiefdom that no one can question.
The longer the military stayed in power, the more welded they became to particular ethnic groups that started claiming ownership of our collective security which they now define as the ability to erase a village if they complained about pollution.
The Niger Delta became a high security concern. The security was not for the people but for the protection of oil installations, the economic base of the ruling class. All the things that are considered part of security were never done in this place that was considered high security for the ruling class. There was no safe drinking water, no electricity, access to good healthcare and roads. Infant and maternal welfare were nonexistent. We have dilapidated schools and the environment is a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other vectors that cause a high sick burden on these citizens.
All these mentioned are never under the umbrella of security by the ruling class that has adopted ad-hoc as a method of governance. A person who grows up under this kind of environment can only have false loyalty to the ruling class that is exploiting them. If they escape these horrendous conditions, they become more vicious and recreate the suffering they escaped for others, and we become locked in a vicious cycle of cruelty and nonchalance which becomes the fertilizer for criminality and religious extremism.
They are a keg of explosives just minutes to explode. This is the scenario all over the nation where ad-hoc is the rule and method of governance by leaders who have no sense of duty to the people. In this process, intimidation was the order of the day and fierce looking men dressed in battle fatigue patrolled the streets, not to protect the people but to save the oil installations from the people. They use High powered rifles against villagers who have machetes and knives for defense.
Under our very eyes, the village of Odi disappeared. Ken Saro Wiwa was plucked out. Then there was an outright rebellion against those enforcing the security codes against the citizens. While this Carnage was going in the name of security in the NIger Delta, citizens from other regions saw the unfairness and brigandage of those they elected and felt that the so-called leaders have no clue and no conscience.
Due to the ad-hoc system, there was no uniformity of the law. They saw soldiers go into villages, kill and maim people they swore to protect. No soldier was punished and the officers who engaged in that criminal behavior were either promoted or reassigned.
With every situation like this, the citizens start seeing soldiers in their vicinity as an army of occupation that are posted there to protect Nigeria from them, and they see every uniform person or government as coming to take away their security and subject them to indignity and servitude. They make the wise choice of becoming informants for the criminals. When they arrive at this, it means they have taken their security into their own hands. If there is no proper control, they like the government will adopt the ad-hoc that resulted in lack of security.
As I mentioned earlier, criminals will gradually move their activities to another community where they cannot be easily identified. The most effective security is invisible. It does not announce itself. It is so invisible that it does not intrude on the people’s conduct of their affairs. It does not seek to humiliate and intimidate the citizens. Security is there to prevent crime and mitigate the devastating effects of crime.
If a house is on fire, you get the people out immediately, attend to the injured and put out the fire. You don’t run into a burning building with AK 47 to maintain security. That is what Nigerians do, because there is no understanding that security is about the safety of people. No one thinks of the possibility that the building could catch fire anytime, so the construction and wiring of that building becomes ad-hoc and in the event of fire, everyone is trapped and the inferno consumes everything and everyone. This is where we are in Nigeria today.
Due to the ad-hoc strategy and lack of critical thinking, we are in an inferno that will consume all of us. The ad-hoc method has created a country that extracts everything from the citizens but gives nothing back.
When a nation gets this close to the precipice, the citizens start seeing the government as illegitimate and they start creating their own private gang to provide security for themselves. They start seeing government security as abusive and exploitative. This gives rise to the Boko Harams, IPOB and others. In this scenario, the protection is proximal and not abusive. The loyalty to these various gangs becomes very strong and they choose the most extreme to represent them. The gangs will take coloration of religion and Gumi becomes the spokesman. If it takes ethnic mien, then you have Nnamdi Kanu. They may be different but ad-hoc strategy produced them.
The Nigerian supplies his own water from his own borehole and provides his own power from his generator. He provides his own security. In some cases, he builds his own road. He is actually a country unto himself. It becomes stifling when the apostle of ad-hoc strategy wakes up one day and tells him he has to do sanitation every Saturday and pay more taxes for nonexistent presence of a government that slaps him around anytime he tries to do anything that the government is supposed to provide.
If Nigerians can help it, they would not want anything to do with the government. The Nigerian government has no history of rendering service to its citizens. All they do is impose ad-hoc levies and taxes which are injurious to the security of the citizens. It is this pervasive thinking that makes Nigerians see the many ad-hoc laws as mere suggestions that are obeyed by those who have no choice.
When the law becomes a suggestion in any society, anarchy reigns and the solution to crime is no longer punishment but negotiation with criminals. This is where Nigeria is at this time. Gumi is the chief negotiator for Boko Haram and others who are terrorizing Nigeria. Due to ad-hoc culture, those in charge gave this idea nobility and confirmed that Nigerian laws are mere suggestions.
We started negotiating with murderers and rapists for our security. We even started paying them to attend negotiation meetings where they have photos with the high and mighty of the Nigerian government. The criminals smiled at the bank and used their new money to open other fronts that will make the chaos more profitable.
The Northerners saw some semblance of normalcy. Then the Igbo said not so fast. Why can’t you negotiate with us? I may disagree with the Biafra separatists, but they have a point here. Why is it okay to negotiate with Boko Haram terrorists with cash and inducement and you are jailing members of IPOB? Are we not in the same country? If you can negotiate the law in the North, you should be able to negotiate it in the East. Anything less is callous and discriminatory.
On this major point, I agree with them. The Gumi negotiations were ad-hoc and brought Pyrrhic victories. Laws should never be subject to negotiations. These so-called negotiations made the Igbo to give religious coloration to these criminalities that eventually caught the attention of the US.
As we talk, we still don’t know how to confront this leviathan at our doorsteps. The leaders are still looking for an ad-hoc solution to this security problem. The ad-hoc method of governance is the origin of all this chaos because it leads to a situation where politics and religion blind one’s sense of justice.
The nation is not governed by laws but by men with a very morbid religious and political adherence. There is no clear and direct path to conflict resolution because the ad-hoc system has no template for reason and due process.
By the way, what is the function of that soldier who stands behind the president anytime he is giving a speech or in public? Is that his personal security or bodyguard? To me, it looks like a status symbol. That is not security.
Dr. Orette Writes from Houston, Texas, USA.
