The leadership of International Society for Civil Liberties
& the Rule of Law (Intersociety) had two days ago (24th of May
2016) released the first part of our special public statement in which we
expressed dismay, shock and alarm over “the gun-boat speed” with which Nigeria
and Nigerians are arming courtesy of the G8 Countries and their allies
including the EU as well as the Peoples Republic of China with steady supply
and shipment of small arms and light weapons to the country through licit and
illicit means.
Also internally, the authorities of the present federal civilian
government under Gen Muhammadu Buhari have made matters worse since the middle
of 2015 when it came on board. The embryonic dictatorial administration of
Muhammadu Buhari has introduced and entrenched the corrupt version of
constitutional and pluralistic democracy in the country. In all, State killings
and terrorism are common and routine. Enforcement of law and order is utterly
discriminatory. The secularity of the country is bastardized and no longer a
national priority. Economy is in tatters. Economic policies are harsh and anti
public driven. Naira notes have almost become “Mogadishu Latrine Toilet
Papers”. Regime laziness, incompetence and incapacity have tripled and
governance creativity is grounded at zero level. State borrowings are sourced
from right, left and center; stomached recurrently and misapplied
administratively.
Clannish and primordial interests have been promoted and upgraded
to national interests, snowballing into “full northernization and Islamization
policies and agendas”. Section 14 (3) of the 1999 Constitution directs that
“thou shall not sectionalize and privatize national public offices,
institutions and resources”; but President Muhammadu Buhari dares same and
counter says “I shall sectionalize and Islamize federal public offices and
institutions and nothing will happen”. Emergence of Gen Muhammadu Buhari as
Nigeria’s sixth civilian President has circumstantially become a semblance of
the rebellious emergence of an internal armed conflict rebel leader who
conquers a national political territory. Supposedly constitutional and
pluralistic democracy status of Nigeria has totally been displaced and replaced
with a diarchy and ethno-religious oligarchy.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is now akin to
military’s corrupted and bastardized “constitution”. Its provisions are acutely
selective in application and enforcement. State energies and resources that
ought to be channeled into the real and concrete governance of the country are
now channeled into the Buhari’s policy of “State crushing” or State violence
and terrorism. Judiciary is in quandary. Judges are now stampeded and
presidentially threatened, using graft blackmail via EFCC and DSS unless they
act according to presidential whims and caprices. Liberties are in chains. Citizens’
insecurity and other unsafe conditions arising from regime incompetence and
violence have spiraled. Lawyers are now harassed and framed up for exercising
their professional and constitutional rights of representing and defending the
accused citizens particularly those tagged “regime enemies”. Constitutional
liberties including fundamental human rights and custody rights are
bastardized, corrupted and breached by the State.
Mainstream civil society leaders and rights activists in the
country, majorly found in Lagos and Southwest no longer assert their
independence and speak freely without being threatened and blackmailed. Those
who dare to speak out end up retracting their dissent voices on account of
nocturnal and direct threat-calls. A good number of them are threatened by the
State and told to retract their dissent comments and retrace their steps or be
faced the wrath of the State via the EFCC over goodies they received and
invested from their “Lagos good old days” and “the 2015 project”. The ranks of
organized labour and leading professional bodies in the country are not only
broken, but also flooded with moles and government apologists. A clear case in
point being the recent failed industrial strikes where attempts made by
organized labour and CSO activists to wriggle themselves out of “Buharimania
bondage” crashed irreparably.
To compound the above named federal governance tragedies in
Nigeria, members of the G8 Countries, their allies and China have sped up their
project of “arming Nigeria and Nigerians at night and coming to their aid with
piecemeal development and humanitarian aids in the day”. Unlike their firm
policy against China years ago over the latter’s abysmal human rights records,
the named developed countries also encourage and support the regime anomalies
under reference. For instance, Nigeria has just been forced by the G8 and the
EU controlled IMF and World Bank to devalue its currency and effect oil subsidy
removal in return for harsh loans that will end up in “recurrent expenditures
and debt servicing” or piecemeal unproductive infrastructural maintenance.
This publication of ours, therefore, is properly timed; coinciding
with the 42nd Summit of the G7 and its allies in Japan as well as
“the one year in office of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari”.
We wish to clearly state that our firm belief in Nigeria of not present
arrangement but Nigeria of all peoples with charter of equality, secularity,
liberties, equitable and non-sectional sharing of political and security offices;
non sectional and discriminatory protection of the citizens and enforcement of
law and order; and balanced social and infrastructural development, etc, is the
motivating force behind our advocacy activities. In the previous federal
administrations since our inception in 2008, the same position was maintained.
Where Nigeria of all inclusiveness, unity in diversity and ethno-religious
secularism and demo-constitutional supremacy is not politically possible and
achievable, then “national question and its answer” becomes inevitable and
pacifist option. Our advocacy activities, therefore, are beyond who occupies
the country’s seat of power or where he or she comes from.
Our major concern is the pedigree of such occupant and what he or
she does in office. His or her pedigree matters a lot because “a rioter is
bound to run a riotous affair” and a thinker and pacifist is bound to
administer his or her people creatively and peacefully. We further wish to
repeat our earlier statement that “dictatorship or tyranny emerges not only
through the sole handiwork of a presiding individual, but as a result of
failure of democratic forces and institutions to rise to the occasion during
its early warning signals”. The greatest challenge facing and threatening the
supposedly present democratic dispensation under Gen Muhammadu Buhari in
Nigeria is that the mainstream democratic forces in Nigeria are
instrumental to the emergence of the Buhari administration. It is
therefore part of the law of nature that “one cannot eat one’s cake and
have it at the same time”. Also “one cannot probate and reprobate”;
“once saliva is spat, it can never be re-swallowed”.
Nigeria under the 12 months of the administration of Gen Muhammadu
Buhari is not only hellish, but has also experienced escalated
militarization or sharp increase in militarization of its polity. In Democratic
Theory, “formidable democracies rarely go to war against themselves or
against their external counterparts or opponents”, but under the present
Buhari’s civilian administration, “State violence and terrorism” has become its
cornerstone. This is worsened by the fact that Gen Buhari failed to avail
himself the opportunity of purging himself of war mongering and violent
approaches to issues of governance and State-citizen relationships through
available classroom and non-classroom courses on issues of constitutionalism,
democratic pluralism, political pluralism and tolerance, human rights, conflict
resolution and rule of law.
Totality of these regime anomalies and tragedies has heightened
tensions in Nigeria, snowballing into massive State and non-State arming.
Presidentially, they have made the Presidency of Muhammadu Buhari “a quarantine
presidency”. Other than reckless global trotting, the Presidency is now
cocooned to “Aso Rock”, “Daura” and “core Northern Enclaves” and scared away
from other strategic parts of the country. That is to say that even the
Presidency too is gripped by the perception of insecurity owing to fears in the
hands of the enemies made and enmity created in just 12 months, from right,
left and center.
There are two reasons behind State’s application of coercive
instruments such as small arms and light weapons: for public security and
safety including safeguarding the country internally and externally from
counter State actor and non-State actor aggressions; and for maintaining law
and order through controlling and prevention of street, border, bureaucratic
and cyber crimes; all within the confines of the Constitution, rule of
law and constitutional liberties. But reverse is fundamentally the case under
the Buhari administration.
When the State loses its legitimate capacities in these two
directions through hostile or oppressive policies and conducts; regime
incapacities and failures set in; resulting in aggressive resort to
self-help and uncontrollable militancy. When the State closes or suppresses
citizens’ alternatives to ventilate their angers against their government and
its harsh policies and conducts in non-violent ways and when such State is perceived
as democratically repressive and murderous; citizens take recourse to
self-violent and self-arming.
In all, the dangerous level at which the Nigerian State under Gen
Muhammadu Buhari is arming itself with “a balance of terror” response by
private and group citizens has already put the country in negative front as
Africa’s most illicitly armed State and possibly the world’s second most
illicitly armed country after Afghanistan; a country credited with 10million
illicit small arms and light weapons (SALWs) on average of one SALW for every
four Afghans. This publication is to be continued and concluded in the next
part (three).
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Barr Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law
Program
Mobile Line: +2348034186332
Barr Chinwe Umeche, Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program
Mobile Line: +2347013238673
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
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