Recent events in Nigeria have forced me to recall my earlier efforts to understand the pathology of violence in a world that is ridden with all forms of violence. It all started with my M.A. Literature dissertation, which was submitted to the Postgraduate school, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria in 1993. The study is titled “Dialectics of violence in the novels of Ngugi Wa Thiong’o”. To get to the bottom of what violence is or isn’t, all sorts of literature were assembled from disciplines as wide ranging as philosophy, history, sociology, economics and political science. In my preliminary readings on the concept, I came across different dimensions of violence such as structural, institutional, physical and psychological violence. Although they are all related, each type of violence has its own specific nuances. However, my slant here is to probe structural violence (the other name for it of course is social violence) and how it induces other forms of violence in society.
Increase in the rates of violence in Nigeria is perhaps not unconnected with brutal social conditions that are everywhere dehumanizing individuals and groups, which are pushing people to extreme behavior. Thus, when commentators expressed concern over social injustice, they perhaps do so with the hope of averting the dangers of physical and psychological violence, and their debilitating consequences. Similarly, going by the rates of violence in Nigeria, I don’t think it requires the expertise of anybody to understand that Nigeria is indeed sliding into a full-blown state of violence.
Saferspaces.org.za, a South African website dedicated to spreading awareness on violence, has highlighted the difficulty involved in attempts to define violence, but eventually settles on World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition of violence in terms of “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm or maldevelopment or deprivation”. Simply put, that is what violence is all about!
The report further reveals that on a global scale more than 1.6 million people die annually as a result of violence arising from mostly situations other than armed conflicts. Surprising, isn’t it? In fact, violence outside war or armed conflicts accounts for more than 80% of all violence in the world. In economic costs, “the total impact of violence to the world economy was estimated at $13.6 trillion – a figure which is equivalent to 13.3% of world GDP”. From the preceding, it can be surmised that violence is a human phenomenon that is found in all circumstances and in all forms of social relationships, especially in contexts where injustice or inequality is most prevalent. However, all responsible authorities are therefore not sitting back to watch society slides uncontrollably into a state of anarchy through wanton acts of violence.
In Nigeria violence is becoming a cause for great concern. Before 1999, violence was not as pronounced as it is today. Violence used to be effectively managed by those institutions that were statutorily charged with the responsibility of enforcing the law. Even the spate of bloodletting attributed to antisocial behavior, armed robbery and sporadic communal clashes were also handled without qualms, without any sign of stress on the part of security agencies. All that is now history. Increasingly, violence has assumed an alarming proportion. It is rampant and intractable, and is increasing in intensity by the day. Somehow, there is a striking correspondence between violence and the excesses of elected officials in the country. Corruption and incompetent leadership at all levels seem to be fueling unmitigated violence in a variety of ways. To understand this, one needs to look at how violence and its threats are gradually engulfing all parts of Nigeria.
In the North, for instance, different theatres of violence are springing up. The violent insurgency of the Boko Haram group in the Northeast, though unparalleled in the history of Nigeria since the Nigerian civil war, is most devastating. Thousands of people have been maimed or killed through wanton and gruesome attacks by the fanatical members of the Boko Haram terror organization. Individuals and groups in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states have suffered tremendous lose of lives and properties in the hands of the Boko Haram insurgents. Hundreds of thousands of others have been displaced from their homes and places where they eke their livelihoods. Despite the efforts of government to bring it to an end, there is no sign that it is finishing any time soon.
Closely following the Boko Haram violence is ethno-religious violence that gripped North-central area. In addition, there are flagrantly violent herders attacks on sedentary farming communities, and vicious reprisal attacks on most often innocent people. In the Northwest however, it is a different form of violence. Rural banditry is spreading like bush fire. Kalashnikov wielding mobile bandits have been sacking rural communities and villages. The armed bandits organized merciless raids against rural communities, and the sacking and killing of inhabitants of small towns and villages across some states like Zamfara and Kaduna. There are rumors that some politicians are hand in globe with the bandits.
The story is not different in the South where armed militias such as IPOB, MASOB and several other militant socio-cultural organizations that have decided to take up arms, which they violently used to target the Nigerian state and individuals from other ethno-religious groups considered as settlers for reasons of perceived injustices and inequities of the federal system, desire to secede, economic grievances, and at some other times the reasons are not very clear.
Apart from those reasons, there is violence associated with the phenomenon of ritual killings. People are abducted in the Southwest, around Ibadan, Shagamu and Ikorodu through mysterious means. Often, some vital human organs are removed from their bodies for dark magic and satanic rituals. At the core of this dark practice are the elite who compete blindly with their peers for the acquisition of power and wealth. Until recently, human kidnapping for ransom is spreading like bush. Initially it started in the South, specifically in the Southeast and Midwest areas, but right now it has become prevalent in other parts of Nigeria, especially in the South-south where top officials of the oil industry were seized for ransom, and now kidnapping is rampant along Abuja-Kaduna highway.
The other type of violence, which is widespread in all parts of Nigeria, is the gender-based violence that takes place within the family spaces. This brand of violence is mostly the handiwork of men against women. Statistically speaking, violence of women against men as in the currently celebrated one by a wife who accidentally or deliberately killed her husband is rear, and is sparsely carried out. Along with that is another mode of domestic violence against children by parents or those who are entrusted with the custody of minors. There is yet another form of violence that is now threatening the fabric of Nigerian society is drug-induced violence among the youth. High frequency of violence carried out by the youth is ascribed to drug addiction. Some young people could not summon courage to kill or inflict injury on others without becoming high on all sorts of intoxicants and concoctions.
There is also the institutional violence meted against Nigerians caught in the net of our security apparatuses and law enforcement agencies. Although institutional violence is rampant, the media however overlook the excesses of the army, the police, the DSS and other paramilitary organs in the country. There are horrifying stories of violence against prison inmates and individuals remanded in the police cells. We must not overlook the allegations that some security personnel have been the masterminds of violent crimes in the country.
The most disturbing aspect of it all is in the inability of government to realize that structural imbalances, unemployment, poverty, corruption, incompetence and bad policies are directly and indirectly the bane of all forms of violence in the Nigerian society. And the government appears to be at its wits end as the result of soaring rates of violence in the country. Something more needs to be done to avert our pervasive state of violence by not just government, but well-meaning individuals and communities.
