By John Amoda
AFTER we have noted the following events reported in just one day’s coverage in the Friday July 22, 2011 Vanguard, we may see why Nigeria, typical of Africa’s post-colonial societies is portrayed as a polity of government without states and a society without government.

In the news section under the title: “Tension in Delta as Ijaw plans to build on razed Itsekiri villages”, the following is reported:

“Tension now pervades the Ugborodo Itsekiri community and its neigbouring Ijaw communities in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State, following recent moves by some Ijaw to erect a staff quarters on the Kpoko land in Ugborodo.

The land inhabited by the Kolo family of Ugborodo was sacked by the Ijaws during the Ijaw/Itsekiri 1992-2003 crisis. Similarly, another crisis is looming between some Ijaws of Gbaramatu kingdom and the Itsekiri of Kantu community sacked by the Ijaws also during the same crisis.

Though the military authorities had waded into the festering crisis in Escravos by stopping further development on the land by the Ijaw, Vanguard learnt that the Itsekiri owners were told by their Ijaw neigbours, that Kpoko was now a conquered territory… Some Gbaramatu Ijaws, who spoke to newsmen, yesterday, maintained that the land now belongs to them”.

The constitution makes no provision for the revision of boundaries within a local government on the basis of conquest. An instance of expropriation of territories by conquest signifies the total absence of the authority of government in that local government. Government exists to protect neigbours from their neigbours by maintaining, if need by force, the constitutionally defined communities and their traditional rights to lands by which also they are socially defined.

The 1997-2003 crisis is an instance, while the crisis was ongoing, of a society without government. And societies without government exist in conditions of anarchy. Anarchy is thus another way to describe a society where the whims and interests of any neigbours can be implemented by violence. Anarchy defines areas where the authority of government is not institutionalised.

How many such Ugborodo’s exist in Nigeria? Does the Jos crisis become more amenable to explanation when seen in the light of a condition of anarchy, where neigbours can redefine themselves territorially through war of expropriation and conquests?

Another instance of society existing in the absence of government was the Friday July 22, 2011 Vanguard story of an invasion of unmasked band of armed “bandits”. “Crime Alert gathered that the robbers who stormed the area around 11:30am invaded the premises of Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Zion Century, Assembly of God Church and New Covenant Church, all situated at the Fadeyi axis of Ikorodu, Road… The bandits said to be ten in number, had crossed over from the other end of Ikorodu Road, fully armed with double barrel guns when they struck at the churches.

Daniel Olugbemiro, a resident of the area and a faithful at the RCCG, who spoke with Crime Alert said the robbers were unmasked and they operated unchallenged— But the shocking aspect was that a police van from the other end of the road witnessed some of these incidents and they zoomed off, like they didn’t see what was happening. We also sent distress calls to the police and we didn’t see them until the robbers had gone”.

In this story, we see an instance of the replacement of government by an armed band of ten. In the instance in which peace loving worshippers could be attacked without challenge, they feel the ultimate vulnerability to armed violence in society formally governed under the authority of the Lagos State Government.

The two cases are used illustratively to describe societal conditions of anarchy where social existence is short, brutish and nasty. Many families and communities presently exist in condition of political anarchy in conditions in which they lacked the benefit of government’s protection and of the rule of law.

The examples given to illustrate the social condition of anarchy illuminates what anarchy structurally connotes. It calls attention to what happens in society where government is without state. Armed groups emerge who through force advance their private interests. These armed groups are unlawful bearers of arms and constitute a government to themselves.

Thus conditions of anarchy imply the co-existence within a society of a government of law side by side with unlawful government of force.

Thus it is conditions of anarchy that shows up the short fall in state capacity of governments. Anarchy describes territories of Nigeria outside of the control of government and it is the existence of anarchy that explains the origins of the institution of the state. Europe went through centuries of anarchy wherein any man of ambition, who could attract a following, whether outlaw or murderous villain could stake a claim to a kingdom and through war establish himself as a royalty.

The hundred years wars of Europe were wars fought to create the capacity to subdue rivals to political supremacy and to destroy rivals’ capacity to pose a threat to the group emerging sovereign through war. Threat to the sovereign could be instanced by banditry or competition among the nobility.

What Europe’s history teaches is that governments need to be secured by states, that it is by the elimination of unlawful bearers of arms, so that the condition of anarchy is also eliminated in society. Wherever government’s rule over its territories and its people are challenged by banditry or land grabbing wars there is anarchy instituted.

Anarchy is the fundamental security threat to sovereigns and a threat that is never contained but must be eliminated. The challenge to be addressed is thus the elimination of all instances of anarchy such that societies flourish under the rule of law and governments are governments of sovereigns with the capacity to eliminate all threats to its sovereignty.

Seen in this light Nigeria’s current concern with security is at bottom a concern with progress in the project to institute a sovereign over the territories and peoples of Nigeria.