By Tonnie Iredia
In the recent past, many highly placed Nigerian leaders found cause to educate our people on the subject of self-defence. Former Defence Minister, General T. Y. Danjuma was probably the first to call on Nigerians to defend themselves in the face of daunting insecurity in the land. That was March, 2018 when Danjuma spoke at the Maiden Convocation Ceremony of the Taraba State University, Jalingo.
In the speech whose objective was arguably to speak truth to power, the General accused the military of aiding the killings in some parts of the country. He therefore urged the people to rise and defence themselves, adding that “if you depend on the Armed Forces to protect you, you will all die.”
Although the Army denied the allegation, there is doubt if many Nigerians including some military operatives believed the rejoinder. People generally felt that Danjuma, a respected former Chief of Army Staff was in a position to know the truth especially as he was not known to be garrulous.
The current Minister of Defence, Major General Bashir Magashi alluded to the same admonition for self-help by the people when he attributed the unending security crises in the country to the failure of Nigerians to square up to bandits who had been terrorizing several communities in the country. Magashi’s comments which urged unarmed Nigerians not to be cowards but to stand up to armed bandits came a few hours after gunmen abducted dozens of people which included 27 students of the Government Science Secondary School in Kagara, Niger State.
Only last week, the Katsina state governor, Bello Masari, pointedly submitted that “it is the people’s meek submission that emboldens the bandits to continue with heinous activities and murderous frequency adding that the people must divorce their minds from the mistaken notion that security is government’s sole responsibility.”
It is extremely difficult for those of us who are far from the corridors of power to comprehend this strange strategy of pushing the assignment of public security to the ordinary people. The narrative obviously seeks to reverse the age long Social Contract principle. Early history tells us that from origin there were small city states where people catered for themselves but with the growth of large populations, it became necessary for the people to fashion out how to ensure their peaceful cohabitation, more so, as some strong persons developed a habit of annexingweaker communities. Thus, each community had to nominate people to serve in a ‘protective team’ to ensure the rest of the people were protected from invading imperialists. This was how a two-sided agreement known as the social contract evolved between the people and their nominees.
While the people accepted to submit to the rule of the nominees, the latter were mandated to ensure the safety of the people. On their part, the people were required to meet basic civic duties such as payment of taxes to be used for development. They were also to vote at intervals to renew the mandate of the protection team known in modern time as government which had a clear mandate to ensure the security and improved living standards of the people. Even our often castigated 1999 constitution did not fail to formally provide in its Section 14 that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
It is against this backdrop that we marvel at the ingenuity of our leaders who are gradually reversing the logic that informed the letter and spirit of the provision. The new storyline which started a few years ago was an appeal to the people to assist government to succeed – an assistance which now appears to be conveniently turning into an obligation.
It is becoming popular to hear the political class using such self-serving terms as “security is everybody’s business.” While it is true that the people are the main beneficiaries of societal security, the job is formally and expressly assigned to the government. Nothing in our constitution makes it a shared endeavour between the official state actor – government and the ordinary people who are classified as non-state actors in the subject.
It is perhaps for this reason that only the government collects and spends huge sums of money as security vote without accounting to anyone. It is therefore uncharitable to eloquently or stylishly transfer the assignment to the people. Interestingly, every person seeking election into a political position in Nigeria is always confident that he/she can solve all our problems but during governance the same person that claimed capacity to do what the people desire the most, would turn around to say government cannot do it alone. In truth, what the politicians can ask for now is the cooperation of the people in the area of intelligence gathering to help government combat all security challenges
But if the people are to protect themselves as some of our leaders are now demanding, it would be difficult for anyone to comprehend the purpose of government. This is why it was intriguing to hear that leading Nigerian groups such as the Arewa Consultative Forum, Ohaneze N’digbo, Afenifere etc. reportedly supported the call by Governor Bello Masari for the people to defend themselves.
However, one needs to know the details of therather simplistic support from the groups. The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) for instance,premised her support on the condition that Masari should be ready to go a step further to arm the people to defend themselves. According to the MBF, the governor should help the vulnerable communities to not just acquire weapons but to also licence them so that local vigilantes in such communities would be able to face any security threats by terrorists.
If our armed forces equipped by government have not been able to repel the bandits, how can vigilantes do the magic? The ACF appeared to have answered this question with her observation that in Adamawa state, Boko Haram dreaded local hunters more than the combined team of the army and police
For a nation to handover its security challenges to the self-help principle has several adverse implications. Apart from the fact that it could demoralize our gallant armed forces, it could turn Nigeria into an object of ridicule in the comity of nations. Three days ago, the opposition presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was quoted to havesaid that”bandits ravaging the country with impunity would soon register formally with the Corporate Affairs Commission and the Nigerian Stock Exchange.” Some Nigerians may have discountenanced it as the comment of a political rival, but some outsiders would note it making it obvious that our government needs to urgently take control of Nigeria’s security.
Our self-help sermon needs to be put in proper perspective because of its capacity to spread collective disturbance. We must not unwittingly give mischievous people the excuse to harm other people underthe guise of self-defence. Our people need to know that to successfully use self-defence as a basis to attack any person depends on some considerations.
First, the attack being defended must be unprovokedand must threaten imminent injury or death. The degree of force, used in response must be objectively reasonable just as the fear which informed the supposed counter attack must have provoked an objectively reasonable fear of injury or death.
The call on Nigerians to rely on self-defence should therefore not be randomly madeto defend the establishment, rather it must be crafted as a public enlightenment message which puts in the sub consciousness of all that in law,self-defence is not an automatic justification. It is safer for government to deal with security challenges than to leave it to self-help by citizens.
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