Comrade Ogbu Alexander Amen
The Face of Legal and Illegal Criminality in Nigeria.
By Comrade Ogbu Alexander Ameh
The Dearth of rule of law,
Without recourse to the concept of the rule of law and respect for same, there exists a thine line between what is legal and that which is illegal.
Analogy of the days of the Mafioso nominating the political and business in the united States of America will suffice here. In every sphere of public and private life in Nigeria today, the strong and mighty who hold the reins of power dictate what is legal and that which is illegal.
Hence criminals and law enforcement agents operate in the same nodus operandi to extort, intimidate and terrorize the people.
Nigerians today are caught between the deep blue sea and the sharp edge of the a dagger as the hope of protection of life and property by the law enforcement agents had long been thrown to the wind.
In the face of this crass abdication of the social contract by the state, the citizens are left for the wolves in uniforms and their Illegal criminal counterparts to devour. Armed robbers, kidnappers and bandits on the one hand and the men in uniforms on the other hand are unified in life nasty, brutish and short for the people. It is no longer news in Nigeria that criminals and law enforcement agents use the same nodus operandi to extort money from the people. They both intimidate, terrorize and manhandled their victims to make them pay for their safety with the use of ATM/POS on the highway and in the bush.
In all of these illegality and Criminality, the state remain silent in conspiracy with the criminal syndicate by looking the other way.
Against the background of morality, law and retribution, no amount of law s and administrative justice system changes the system except a change in the social cultural and attitudinal dispositions of the people.
Negative social cultural and attitudinal dispositions of a people manifest in malfunctions in a society and the state lack of capacity to stabilize. Laws as instrument of social control becomes selective according to the dictates of the privileged political elites in power. Gradually, the state and it’s actors personalized by substituting the instruction with the person or people in positions of authority. When this happens, the state and it’s social political institutions become undermine to strengthen the power of the office holders to detriment of the people.
At such juncture in any society, the people as a matter of survival must urgently rise to intervene in taking back power from the irresponsible and irresponsive elites in power for the continuity of the society. There is no longer any other choice for the people than a collective rise in struggle to demand a revolutionary system change.
It is a clear manifestation of a very undermined, weak and incohesive center holding on to political power and lurching forward stubbornly under the burden of petrefugal forces beyond its ability to stabilize.
Must the people wait in passive inaction while the unpatriotic irresponsive and irresponsible political elites in concerted conspiracy plunge the state into anomie? They tactically resort to all forms of manipulation to gag the press, intimidate and impoverished the people as a ploy to have a fool paradise in Nigeria.