The challenges for nation-building in Nigeria
Nigeria has always been tested. But the confluence of cold-blooded terrorism, rampant organized violence and virulent ideological insurgency by irredentist movements appears too much for the usual Nigerian good fate. If God is a Nigerian, he is certainly getting overwhelmed. Everyone in Nigeria today lives in fear; not fear of the unknown; but the fear […]
Nigeria has always been tested. But the confluence of cold-blooded terrorism, rampant organized violence and virulent ideological insurgency by irredentist movements appears too much for the usual Nigerian good fate. If God is a Nigerian, he is certainly getting overwhelmed.
Everyone in Nigeria today lives in fear; not fear of the unknown; but the fear of the known, the fear that sooner than later a bomb will go off somewhere, likely in a church, a supermarket or a car park and the victim could be either himself or herself or someone he or she know. That is the state of the federation. The fear of the known makes life in Nigeria too miserable and incapacitated for the civic life to flourish. One can argue that fear has always been the stimulus of our civilization. It is fear of the unknown that drives us to creativity and innovation that sustains the human civilization. Even Thomas Hobbes argued eloquently that it is the desire to escape the fear of the uncertainties in the state of nature that pushed our forebears to the first social compact. It might then be that this fear of the known will inspire us to a different social compact that will guarantee freedom from fear.
The present challenge of terrorism is the handiwork of a religious sect, Boko Haram, that is intent on rumbling down everything until everyone and everything in Nigeria accepts its version of the Sharia. Boko Haram may not be the only terrorists in the country today. We can point to attacks by militants in the Niger Delta as a certain kind of act of terrorism. But there is something different about the Boko Haram challenge. It is not just the indiscriminate killing of Nigerians and non-Nigerians. It is not just that the terrorists seem focused to attack places of worship in a multi-religious country. What sets Boko Haram apart as a repugnant terrorist group is that its form of terror undermines the very foundation of a nation-state.
Insecurity in Nigeria goes beyond Boko Haram nihilistic insurgency against the Nigerian states. In the southern region of Nigeria where Boko Haram terrorists have not made any inroad, insecurity is as high as in the terrorist havens of northern region. This lecture is taking place in the oil city of Warri. Everyone knows that some months ago it would be unadvisable to host this lecture in this beautiful city because of the rampancy of kidnapping and armed robbery. We are only here today because the city has been taken over by soldiers. We now have the peace and safety of a beleaguered city. In the South East of Nigeria, kidnapping has defied military solutions. Many Igbos residing outside the region don’t visit home again unless they are insured with battalion of Mobile Policemen. In these cities, kidnapping has become a cottage industry.
If there is a survey today on the biggest worry of Nigerians, overwhelming majority of Nigeria will answer that their greatest worry is being alive. Never has the simple fact of being alive in Nigeria become so uncertain. Anyone who is not bombed to death and is not kidnapped could still confront avoidable death on dilapidated roads. Travelling by air harbors its unique hazards. Do you know whether the aircraft is fit to fly; how do you know that it has enough fuel to get to its destination. The question is not if but when it will happen. And when it does, it does not seem like an accident. It seems like we have been working hard for it.
So, this is the state of the union. We are now a terrified people. We are not secured in the fields, not secured at home, not secured at places of worship and not secured at offices. This degree of insecurity and the inability to effectively overcome it encourage some to talk about early signs of state failure. The Foreign Policy Magazine in 2011 rated Nigeria as fourteenth in the Failed States Index. One of the main signs of state failure is the inability of government to provide essential services and protect lives and properties in a sizeable part of its territory.
Many Nigerians, including those who occupy high public offices, have lost faith and confidence in the future of the nation. They confess that Nigeria may not make it. The academic prognosis of an amateurish US Think-Tank that Nigeria may not survive as a country after 2015 is becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy in this climate of fear and hopelessness.
Today, those who ought to hold the lamp in search of true solutions to the challenges of terrorism, insecurity and bad governance are now groping in the darkness of an atavistic search for pristine identity politics that will not have the complexities that would task their inattention and lack of courage. Their only answer to the present crisis is a retreat to some form of identity politics or another.
In their thinking the problem of leadership and development in Nigeria will be resolved if we restructure the country according to ethnicity so that the Yorubas will manage their affairs in the Southwest; the Igbo will do the same in the Southeast and the Hausa-Fulanis will govern themselves in the North. It is not clear how the minorities in the north and south will do.
We can all be Yorubas, Igbos, Hausas, Ijaws, etc and still be proud and happy Nigerian citizens.
Excerpts of a lecture delivered by Dr. Sam Amadi, Chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission at the 7th Ralph Opara Memorial Lecture on November 2, 2012 at the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurum, Delta State