By Olu Akanmu
“To this war of every man against every man,
this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and
wrong, justice and injustice, have no place.
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and
injustice are none of the faculties neither of the body or mind “
-Thomas Hobbes
Elected representatives of the people are climbing high
fences in agbada and three piece suits with their shoes falling off behind
them. The hallowed chamber of the people’s representative is tear-gassed. Elected representatives of the people struggle
with handkerchiefs to clean their red and peppered eyes from police tear-gas
inside their hallowed chambers. A judge is slapped by an elected governor with
the police as spectators. Thugs invade a court and its judges take to their
heels with their robes flying behind them like parachutes. Seven or is it nine
legislators impeach a speaker of a twenty-six member parliament. The Speaker and the legislators go into
hiding. Journalists supposedly representing the free press, covering an event
which the President would have attended in the Delta are kidnapped under broad
daylight by war lords with the official security of the state as on-lookers and
later negotiators. In the basins of the Benue river, armed bandits invade
farming communities, slaughter the men and destroy farmlands. No-one knows the armed bandits. They come,
they go as they wish, marauding Nigeria’s north central region. Close to the
Chad, armed bandits invade a town, behead the men, capture the women as objects
of war and shoot the Emir. The animal
state is here.
The animal state is where the rule of law is suspended or no
longer holds, where might is right. Anyone who controls the means of coercion
whether legitimately or illegitimately can break the law, use the means of
coercion as he or she wishes without recourse to the rule of law. It is the state
of war of all against all. The self-interest of the controller of means of
coercion is what matters. In non-animal states, where the control and the
deployment means of coercion is legitimately delegated to managers of a state
as a government, by the people as sovereign, the managers of the state must act
not in their self interest but within rule of engagement or the law given by
the people sovereign. It implies that the right to control the means of
coercion and security forces can be abused by managers of the state if they act
in their self interest outside the rule of engagement of the law.
In non animal societies, where there is law and order,
no-one else controls the means of coercion, which is largely arms or an armed
body of men, except the government. A legitimate armed body of men and the
state are so organically linked that Vladimir Lenin was famously quoted to have
said that the state in the last analysis consist of armed bodies of men. Essentially,
on the long run, state power is wielded by absolute use of force. It must
however be done within the rule of law. The tragedy is that in Nigeria today, we
have several armed bodies of men with means of coercion existing independently
of the state such as the Boko Haram, and the diverse ethnic and riverine militia
operating across the country. These private armies enforce justice according to
their own rule and interest making the state look increasingly like a jungle
where anything goes like an animal state.
While it was not palatable, we seemed over the last few
years to have reconciled ourselves as a people to these illegitimate private
armies and private police operating outside the control of the state. We tacitly
accepted that ours in Nigeria is a state with failing security, law enforcement
and judicial institutions where people largely have to resort to self-help in
pursuit of their self-interests. Essentially, we tacitly accepted those who
have invoked the law of the jungle on our collective psyche, that you can take
the law into your own hands especially if you can build your own private means
of coercion, your own private army and enforce your self-appointed rule on the
larger society. That is why until Chibok
woke us up, we seem as a nation to no longer blink at news of kidnappings and
the criminal mass murder of young children. We just move on especially if it did
not happen near us.
If we tacitly accepted the marauding illegitimate private
armies and private police, coercing us as they wish as in the jungle, the last
we should accept is the capture of the legitimate security institution of the
state by a narrow political elite using it to enforce its wish and will on
society. This will be tantamount to a double jungle, a double jeopardy. If Boko Haram, the ethnic and riverine
militias are operating with laws of the jungle, we cannot afford our official security
forces to act and operate the same way outside the rule of law. If they do, the
double jungle situation akin to an animal state will quickly tear down our
fragile social cohesion along the visibly open sectional, religious and
demographic cracks. It is therefore critical
that the managers of the state act within the law and the rules of engagement in
the deployment of the police and the army.
While the executive arm of government has a legitimate obligation to
control and deploy the security forces, it must recognize that this obligation
comes with a sacred moral responsibility to rise above politics and
self-interest in the deployment of the official security apparatus of the
state. If not so, it will breach social trust as a government of all.
Our political experience is showing that we need to
strengthen the rule of engagement of our security forces, especially the police
to prevent them from being abused by executive arm of government. The office of
Inspector General of Police needs to be made more independent of the executive.
The National Judicial Council should nominate the Inspector General of Police
and his or her appointment ratified by the Senate for a fixed constitutional
term. He or she should only be removed from office by a two-third majority of
the national assembly just as it applies to the office of the Chief
Justice. As it has been canvassed
severally, the office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the
Federation should be separated. Prosecutorial powers of the state should be
taken from politicians and given to an Attorney General appointed for a fixed
term who cannot be fired by the President except if he is so recommends to
parliament and parliament accedes.
The legislative arm of government at federal and state
levels also need to become more independent of the executive for check and balance
and moderation of executive powers. Our
executive-legislative relationship at several levels of government has been
rather too incestuous. It is an open
secret that because the legislative arm of government tends to be financially compromised
or settled by the executive, it tends not to command executive respect. The
tear –gassing of the hallowed chamber of the House of Representatives of the
people show how low, how un-hallowed the executive and its organs takes the
legislative arm of government. Whatever crises are in the national assembly,
the executive and its organs should leave the national assembly to resolve it
within themselves or with the courts as a de-facto independent arm of
government. The national assembly
especially the Senate must take all necessary actions to reclaim its respect
and independence after the recent national assembly events. If not, some day, in
the future, an overbearing executive, using the precedent of recent events, will
sack the national assembly akin to a constitutional coup, just because the
national assembly refuses to kow-tow to it.
