Abia arrests and the manipulation of fear

It was Susan Dill, Leslie Vandivere and Shirley White in their thesis titled “Politics of Fear” (POF), who argued that when it comes to the subject matter, politicians were not different from other well-meaning interest groups competing for attention and money in other to promote their causes. They cited as examples, the stringent global campaign […]

It was Susan Dill, Leslie Vandivere and Shirley White in their thesis titled “Politics of Fear” (POF), who argued that when it comes to the subject matter, politicians were not different from other well-meaning interest groups competing for attention and money in other to promote their causes. They cited as examples, the stringent global campaign by interest groups against the AIDS scourge, climate warming, the extinction of species, or even the decreasing levels of clean water resources, among others. Those campaigns were all driven by a single defining strategy which is the concept of fear.
There was the deliberate attempt by the interest groups to heighten the level of fear among their targeted groups to compel them to do the needful to avoid the impending catastrophe. In most instances, such fears were exaggerated to create the desired effect. Politicians they argued are not different from such activists in many respects, except that theirs has often resulted in avoidable tragedy.
Politicians, they argued, want to remain in, or gain, power. To achieve their objectives selfish politicians deliberately manipulate the anxieties of their people in order to achieve their declared and undeclared objectives.
They can employ scare tactics to undermine their opponents or, in most instances, to gain the acceptance of the generality of the population. And over the ages it has become obvious that the concept has become a force in its own right in political dynamics.
The concept of fear as a classical political narrative dates back to the publication of Thomas Hobbes “Leviathan”. It was Hobbes, and not John Locke, or even the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau author of the thesis bearing the same name, who was the first proponent of the social contract theory.
They all warned of the dangers of autocratic rule especially of whole sovereigns on the basis of heredity and divine right and wanted in its place, a functional government determined by the collective who were also expected to cede their individual rights in exchange for the peace and safety of the new political arrangement.
The fear factor in Hobbe’s Leviathan came in the shape of the alternative arrangement of allowing individuals to do as they pleased for self-preservation. The attendant unrestrained competition for survival by individuals in such a state he warned was bound to result in costly anarchy for the collective. It was those two alternatives that Hobbes urged humanity to choose from, and fear, especially of the state of anarchy and its many perils, was expected to be the determine factor in whatever choice they made.   
  And yet, tragically, the politics of fear, humanity has also discovered at terrible cost, can be used by politicians for reasons that are less noble than those defined by Hobbes and the rest. As the renowned scholar Noam Chomsky illustrated in his 2005 narrative on the same subject matter, “The resort to fear by systems of power to discipline the domestic population has left a long and terrible trail of bloodshed and suffering, which we ignore at our peril.”
In his opinion, it was the exaggerated fear of the Jewish- Bolshevik conspiracy, along with the onslaught against civilization itself led in its crudest form by Russia and America, which the Nazis utilized to convince Germans of their ‘just cause’ in the infamy they proceeded to visit on not only German Jews, but humanity in general. Its vibrations are still felt in the Middle East and the entire world till today.
Somehow, the Nazis succeeded in spreading the fear that Germany was endangered species in the clutch of those two pincers – the Judo-Bolshevik conspiracy and the anticipated assault from American barbarism. They saw it as the responsibility of Germany, “the most metaphysical of nations” to lead the resistance to both.
And in towing the Nazi line otherwise reasonable Germans seemingly took leave of their senses. Most, including the most brilliant scholars and scientists, never realized the inherent dangers until it was too late.  They were helped by the most advanced developments science and military weaponry at the time. As Chomsky put it: “We should also not forget that these species-terminating weapons were created by the most brilliant, humane, and highly educated figures of modern civilisation, working in isolation, and so entranced by the beauty of the work in which they were engaged that they apparently paid little attention to the consequences.”
But recent history will be incomplete without a brief account of how the Americans have also been as culpable in the gruesome exploitation of fear in the political realm. It was evident in the manipulation of the communist threat in the days of the Cold War and beyond.
And on account of the primitive exploitation of such fear, ordinary American folk who had few quarrels with the Viet-Cong, were lured to the killing fields of Hanoi until it snowballed into their faces.
It was the crude exploitation of the fear of Al-Qaeda, after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, which precipitated the compilation of the dodgy security dossier sold to the UN and the world by the American Republican government led by George Bush Jr. Today, after costly military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans have seemingly become much more wary and less reluctant to do the same. But it remains an option that is never completely off the table depending on the government in power and the prevailing political situation in America.
I have gone through all this trouble to underscore just how dangerous the imprudent injection of fear into the political arrangement of nations can be so perilous to all, including those who exploit it to advance their narrow political interests.
If the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, or even the widely documented activities at Guantanamo bay have been widely regarded as kneejerk reactions to the threat posed by Al-Qaeda on the part of the Americans, the way the Nigeria has prosecuted the war against Boko Haram also calls for close scrutiny.
But first, let me make some important clarifications. Boko Haram and their ideology is a slur on all Nigerian Muslims who abide by the faith. Their wholesome slaughter of innocent souls is also happening against their will. Their siege against the Nigerian state therefore stands condemned in entirety.
That aside, there can never be any justification for any sort of ethnic or religious profiling on the part of the security forces on account of their actions. There can, therefore, never be any justification for the arrest and detention of over four hundred citizens of the country we saw in Abia State last week, on the basis of suspicion alone.
There are so many legal jargons I can cite to underscore their presumed innocence before trial, but I am more concerned about the damaging implications of the act at this material time. This, certainly, is the appropriate time for all right thinking Nigerians on the latest unbridled assault on our sensibilities because the same abuse could be visited on any one.
And if care is not taken, it could lead to reprisals with catastrophic implications for national unity and harmony. The challenge posed by Boko Haram has serious national security implications, no doubt. It is also obvious that defeating the sect will require a national effort and consensus. What these arrests have done is to play into the hands of the Boko Haram commanders who will be rubbing their hands with glee and shouting: “We told you so!”
This country is currently divided like at no other time in its history except during the unfortunate civil war. The government must not exploit the fear of Boko Haram to further divide us.