Civil_Order-_Nigerian_Example_-_Responsibilities_of_the_Nation

Responsibilities of the nation - Part 1 Any economic and social decline in Nigeria through the first twenty years of independence (1960–80) always appeared redeemable in the eyes of the Nigerian people, mainly because large numbers of the population had the ability to remember past crop sizes and variety, high export figures, sustainable law and order, economic stability, and good international trade relations. Many through the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s viewed these years as transitional, in the belief that quality of life, economic stability and more, would again be achievable under the independent state. Over the years that followed independence, I like many visitors to the region often noticed car stickers, such as ‘Farming the way forward’ and ‘Agriculture will be our savour’, and other promotional views of the country’s ability to be self-sufficient once again through its people, natural credits and resources. Once twenty years had passed, such optimism was difficult to find, with a high percentage of the adult population now having little or no recollection of the potential for lawful stability gained by a self-sufficient nation at independence. Having grown up with war, martial law, corruption and almost total dependency on the oil production industry, such a population soon had little or no reference to any other way of life. Forty years on, by the year 2000, children, parents and grandparents have only the same reference. Nigeria, like many African states, reached a point around 30 years beyond independence, when its young adult and child population have no way of harnessing the potential of the nation’s natural resources; with a culture now based on instant financial gain, corruption, lawlessness and quick fix economic policies, with an obvious lack of investment or national development, leading to high inflation and continued economic and social decline. Without any wide knowledge or reference by the population to a nation’s lawful stability and potential for self-sufficiency, an almost irredeemable state of affairs exists, with any positive changes limited to small gains heavily outweighed by social and economic losses. For example, many African states have achieved economic lifelines from events such as the discovery of new oilfields, but their overall social well-being, health and quality of life continue to decline, because there is no reference to the potential to harness the nation’s natural reserves through investment and development. Any such economic lifelines once again only serving the quick fix financial culture of an immediate pressing need for limited relief to a badly managed economy. 1.1 Political Failings Blaming the system; although electoral models provide the foundation to any country’s economic and social stability, and the correct choice of an electoral model will always play a major role in giving nations a better chance to arrest any social or economic decline. We must also consider the responsibilities of a nation’s people and parliament regarding the role they play in the country’s stability. 1.1.1 The nation’s role Any parliament elected whether by a fair or unfair electoral system can only govern given an acceptable degree of civil order as a starting point. With civil order below a controllable level, any system of governance will fail to stabilise the economy or arrest social decline. Existing conditions of fixed uncontrollable social habits within the population will not improve by changing the government, system of governance, electoral model, or any other part of the applied political model. There must be an acceptable order and social structure to govern. The people themselves have a responsibility to provide the nation with a degree of social behaviour to allow efficient governing of their country. 1.2 Social responsibilities of the population 1.2.1 Joseph’s story Joseph, a company driver, arrived at my house as requested. In the back of the car was a young Nigerian man sitting expressionless and unresponsive to my greetings as I got into the car. ‘Who is this young man'’ I asked Joseph. ‘He is a thief’ he replied. ‘What is he doing in the car with us'’ ‘I am taking him for a beating’ ‘Why'’ ‘He promised to take my shirts for cleaning but tried to sell them instead.’ I questioned the young man regarding Joseph’s claim, but the man remained unresponsive, staring ahead and avoiding any eye contact with Joseph or myself. We soon arrived at a patrol post near Kaduna oil refinery, still the young man made no attempt to avoid, postpone or otherwise save himself from a beating. This puzzled me greatly as the stories I had heard of such beatings indicated they often resulted in severe injury or even death, yet this young man seemed resigned to the fact that he would have to endure it. The car stopped, Joseph got out and led the youth over to the patrol post. I watched as Joseph spoke to the patrolmen. Discussions between Joseph and the officers soon turned into argument; after several minutes Joseph and the young man returned to the car; no beating had taken place. Throughout the time I had been present no words had passed between Joseph and the youth. On their return to the car Joseph turned to me and announced, ‘They will not beat him.’ ‘Why'’ I said, ‘Because he is my son.’ Having heard stories relating to the horrors of such beatings I was now even more puzzled, the thought that anyone would allow their own son to undergo such beatings seemed beyond belief, let alone the fact that Joseph had deliberately instigated such an event. I sat silent for a while trying to comprehend how Joseph could make such a decision. Could he knowingly risk the life of his own son for such an act of youthful irresponsibility' Could Joseph justify to his family any injury, suffering, scaring or any other physical and psychological effect of such a beating' Joseph dropped me off at my place of work and headed off with his son. Later that day Joseph returned to drive me home, having spent the afternoon considering the events of the day, I now had many unanswered questions. It soon became clear from Joseph’s answers that his community relied on levels of self-discipline they believed necessary to achieve social stability. At the time (1996), throughout Nigeria, particularly in the south of the country, many communities were lawless, with the civil police having little or no influence on the corrupt behaviour of many civilians and military personnel. Such communities often fell victim to crimes committed by the very people appointed to keep law and order (the Military). In the presence of such a breakdown of law and order, many Nigerian communities had one of two choices: accepting lawlessness or adopting the levels of self-discipline needed to preserve an acceptable social stability of civil order. Joseph’s community like many others made the choice to rely on themselves for any practical levels of civil order. Once Joseph's son had committed an act of theft, Joseph was then in the unenviable position of having to adhere to the strict practices of his community. Failure to do so could have resulted in Joseph and his family being outcast and driven from their community. Having taken his son for a beating Joseph preserved his standing in the community. Although the patrol officers refused to beat Joseph’s son, I am certain the community itself provided a solution of punishment. Equipped with this new-found knowledge of the existence of self-policed communities, my view of Nigeria changed radically. In all the past years visiting the region, having spent most of my time contending with challenges of life within many lawless corrupt communities. I now found myself not only aware of the existence of other low crime communities, but making a deliberate effort to seek them out so that I could study and compare them. Responsibilities of the nation part 2 Grass-roots – self-discipline From observation of such areas, it soon became clear that many self-policed communities while seemingly achieving lower crime, faired no better than the lawless communities regarding personal liberties and social well-being of the people. Throughout Nigeria this self-discipline within communities often reached the extremes of vigilantes and other self-appointed law enforcement groups who often dished out violence and many other forms of abuse in the name of justice. This so called justice was believed to include extra-judicial killings, public burnings, mutilations, torture and unlawful detentions, with keeping order normally used as the excuse by any group wishing to achieve a position of power and dominance within their community. Often well-intentioned groups of a community such as religious factions also chose to resort to extreme repressive means, invoking fear, dictatorial control and other overbearing constraints to achieve the social order they believe should be in place. Many communities did however achieve workable levels of self-discipline without relying on fear and other repressive means. However this seemed due more to luck than judgement, with such a balance often achieved through the correct mix of people by pure chance rather than any planned social scheme. The observed communities achieving this low tolerance of crime all did so with stricter regimes than many equivalent law-abiding societies of the West. Communities resorting to high degrees of self-discipline to gain social stability are far from ideal as the solution to achieve a lawful community, as this leaves them open to all the pitfalls and abuse associated with vigilantes and other power-seeking groups. Unfortunately societies throughout Africa often find themselves with no other choice due to the unreliability and inconsistencies in their county’s law and order. 2.1 Required levels of self-discipline While many African communities do have unacceptable regimes of self-discipline, there is always, however, a certain degree of self-discipline within any society that must be in place and upheld to preserve law and order. Without acceptable levels of order communities fall victim to organised crime resulting in mob rule, black marketing and gangland culture. Such circumstances often result from a breakdown in law and order nationally. Whatever the cause of this breakdown, whether it be due to civil unrest, ineffective or inappropriate policing, extreme social decline, corruption within the law and order system itself or other means, once this breakdown occurs nationally few options exist to restore it. Martial law is normally seen as the answer but unfortunately this often only adds to the social problems of the nation. This form of lawlessness does not confine itself to Africa or the poorly governed nations of the world and can arise within any community when law and order becomes difficult to preserve. Many instances of civil unrest have taken place in communities throughout Europe and the United States in areas that became difficult to police. However the localised nature of such breakdowns in civil order normally ensured no compromise of the main policing structure of the nation as a whole, allowing greater success in the short-term use of martial law, civil guard or paramilitary groups as a means to restore order within the isolated communities. Most localised civil order breakdowns within Western societies during the late 1900s were often resolved in relatively short periods of time, resulting in local order being quickly restored and policing returned to a nationally accepted level. Unlike the civil unrest instances of the late 1900s experienced by the USA and UK, for nations with less stable conditions of law and order any breakdown of civil order presents greater problems due to no nationally accepted levels of control to restore to. Also for many African nations such breakdowns are not normally spontaneous in nature like those of the UK and USA, but often set in gradually over time, resulting in a national social decline into the gangland culture of black-marketing, vigilante groups and tolerance of unacceptable levels of organised crime. This leaves communities resigned to the belief that they are on their own with no practical form of governance, law and order or policing strategy. Although the signs of this social decline are there for all to see, the gradual nature of it brings about day-by-day acceptance of the change, with many former law-abiding citizens finding themselves as much a part of the black market culture as that of the organisers of the crime-riddled subculture itself. As time passes for many African states caught in this gradual decline of social behaviour, the 30-year post-independence or post-conflict crisis point fast approaches. For some it may have already passed, leaving communities with little of their population knowing any other way of life. Once the 30-year point passes, the children, parents and many grandparents of the population only have reference and experience of life within this socially unacceptable subculture, at which point little or no desire exists to seek a society unknown to them. 2.2 In your hands Like many communities throughout the world any arrest of social decline within Africa will always rest in the hands of the people themselves. As stated earlier, any Parliament elected, whether by a fair or unfair electoral system can only govern a state effectively given an acceptable degree of order as a starting point. In practical terms any policing strategy to achieve law and order to a nationally accepted level must be one that does not demand an overwhelming or unrealistic amount national resource. For example policing a lawless nation riddled with civil unrest will always consume large amounts of national funding and place a heavy burden on available security personnel, in comparison to that of self-disciplined communities achieving acceptable social stability and low levels of crime. Once a nation requires an unrealistic amount of national resource to preserve even low levels of order, it can concern itself with little else. Such circumstances would never be able to allow any practical economical stability or growth, and can at best only arrest the rate of decline. Many examples of such states of affairs have emerged throughout the world, with certain cases achieving only low levels of order at costs exceeding 80 per cent of the national budget. Throughout Europe and the USA many communities displaying civil unrest, social decline and high crime figures in the past have now taken initiatives of self and family discipline to ensure levels of social behaviour that allow practical policing of their community. Likewise in Africa many communities such as those of Nigeria, discussed earlier, rely on community-wide levels of self-discipline to achieve social stability, while avoiding the pitfalls of vigilante groups or other unacceptable suppressive means. Responsibilities of the nation part 3 Why discipline ourselves' What are the government doing' Law enforcement organisations throughout the world continually show that, no matter how much labour force or funding they pour into gathering criminal intelligence, the community itself will always have higher levels of information, intelligence and ability in identifying criminals, criminal activities and other antisocial practices. Thus only people of the community have the means to identify and rid themselves of the root cause and propagation of such antisocial behaviour. Working throughout the world alongside people such as the Irish, Nigerians, Arabs and many others from countries with a history of civil unrest, once accepted by the local community it was not long before I found myself being given unsolicited advice or invited into debate about everyday social issues. I constantly heard comments warning me against associating with the identified ‘wrong sort’ and receiving advice such as ‘Don’t involve yourself with him, once you do a favour for his sort they keep coming back’ or ‘Keep away from them, they’re not the kind you should mix with.’ All of which soon made me realise that while just about everybody you speak to make claims that they are the victims of poor social behaviour, with such comments as ‘We need to stop this corruption’, ‘We want peace’ and ‘Why are the government not doing anything'’, it soon becomes obvious that they are the only people that have the answer, that know the bad element of their community and who can identify and remove social problems. Waiting for the authorities to do it will not work. It would take massive resources even to scratch the surface of the intelligence needed and already known locally. So in any society when it comes to organisers and perpetrators of antisocial behaviour, the police can’t know them all, the security forces can’t know them all, the politicians can’t know them all. Despite massive efforts by many governments world-wide to rid societies of corruption, black marketing, terrorism and other socially unacceptable practices, the only people that can identify and remove the bad element within any given community is the community itself 3.3 Day One To achieve any acceptable levels of social stability and order, at some stage a community needs to take on this responsibility and oppose these socially unacceptable practices. Many clichés exist referring to this ‘Day One’ philosophy, such as ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’, ‘The longest journey begins with a single step’ and ‘This is the beginning of the end’. All of which capture the premise that to achieve something, you can’t wait for it to happen – you must initiate the solution yourself, and no task can finish unless it has first begun. While it is easy to wait, hope, pray or dream that solutions will apply themselves, everybody knows they won’t. To achieve any solution to social problems means you and your community must decide to apply your 'Day One'. When or if political improvements come along for those countries of Africa crying out for it, without their 'Day One' little hope exists for reversing any social or economic decline. The degree of order required by any system of governance to achieve social and economic stability is still in the hands of the community itself. 'Day One' involves presenting any fairly elected parliament with communities of a self-disciplined level to allow practical policing to preserve acceptable levels of law and order. Throughout Africa communities of many nations continue to fall below this required level, removing any real hope of social or economic stability for the region. To reach the required levels of social stability individuals cannot assume someone else will do it. They themselves must change the lifestyle that preserves the corrupt subculture and stop being part of the black market way of life or seeking favour by unfair means. Individuals and whole communities must look beyond the quick fix financial gain and stop assuming their small part in the corruption is insignificant. It is everyone’s responsibility to identify and act to remove the core element that keep their community below the levels of order required for any elected assembly to govern effectively. If, as with the community in Joseph’s story, this means identifying family members and acting to prevent them carrying out the deeds that sustain this corrupt subculture, then so be it. Only individuals themselves know their own failing in these matters, whether it be their own actions directly, or deliberately ignoring the actions and known activities of people close to them. Now the bad news: unfortunately application of 'Day One' within a badly governed country such as Nigeria can at best only improve the stability of the local community itself. However such improvement is valid and welcomed as it normally moves that community away from many social problems suffered in the past. Nigeria is not alone: throughout Africa many countries have communities that achieve their own 'Day One'. Unfortunately such districts must often remain isolated to preserve their stability while still being part of a failing country, which frequently leads to community polarisation throughout the nation. Communities which are close to one another, in particular those around the major towns and cities, may find themselves permanently on the brink of civil conflict, with civil unrest ignited from any small deviation in the fine balance between tolerance and the deep-rooted differences existing among such communities. Often the lawless communities inflict their antisocial and criminal behaviour on their more socially stable neighbours, doing so in the belief that any increased quality of life experienced by the more stable communities is also a sign of increased prosperity within that district, making them appear a more profitable target for criminal activity. For 'Day One' to be successful it must be widespread enough to avoid or minimise polarisation of communities, and when possible applied under a fairly elected competent system of governance. Presenting a badly run country with acceptable levels of civil order is of little use nationally if the system of governance is incapable of preserving law and order. In practical terms the 'Day One' philosophy can achieve positive results almost instantly, as once any community unilaterally applies it the benefits begin. In reality, however, the time taken for acceptance of the 'Day One' philosophy by a large enough percentage of the community is the true time taken for it to be effective. For many 'Day One' will never take place but that is their choice. If they cannot pull together as a community to endorse such a philosophy, then without a 'Day One' or similar strategy, any existing social decline can only continue. Only widespread promotion and subsequent acceptance of 'Day One' will ever achieve it. All in all, whether the required social stability of a nation results from a deliberate 'Day One' strategy, martial law, or other means, it remains the responsibility of individuals and their communities to present the country with acceptable levels of civil order. Thus the economic and social stability of many African countries relies not only on achieving a fair electoral or political model, but on a combination of electoral and political improvement coupled with acceptable levels of social discipline and behaviour. While those directly involved with any political improvement may be willing to accept the challenge and responsibility for economical and social stability through a fair system of governance, the same must be true of the country’s population. Both the elected representatives and the nation's people themselves must play their part to arrest and reverse the present social and economic decline experienced by many African countries. Neither a unilateral 'Day One' initiative nor an acceptable political model alone can achieve this without the presence of the other.