(Onitsha Nigeria, 26th of May 2016)-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. The link to the first part of our referenced
publication is contained here: http://www.intersociety-ng.org/component/k2/item/137-arming-us-at-night--aiding-us-in-the-day.
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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