IS LIFE SO CHEAP IN NIGERIA?

BY EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO 

For once in my life, this writer was traumatized beyond belief while sitting in the small comfort of his Abuja office, following his sighting on the page three of The Guardian of September 18 th 2008 of a graphic picture of a man [a total stranger] that was shot dead in traffic jam near Toyota Bus stop on Mile two-Oshodi Express Way, Lagos State, by unknown assassins right inside his sport utility van, a FORD EXPLORER with registration number KA 751 AAA. Though my early childhood involvement in the Boys Scout activities did not sufficiently equip me with the needed strength to overcome morbid fears which explains why I am often gripped with fear each time I see a human Corpse, but the sight of this particular unknown man wasted on the busy Road of Lagos as captured by an eagle -eyed photo journalist of The Guardian brought home the question of whether life has become so cheap in Nigeria. Is Life so Cheap in Nigeria? If one may ask.  

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The other day in the nation's capital of Abuja, erroneously perceived by some Nigerians as the safest and most fortified city in Nigeria, this writer witnessed first hand, a well coordinated armed robbery incident during which a man was shot at severally by some dare- devil armed robbers who later sped away with a colossal sum said to have been withdrawn by that man from his Bank somewhere in the Central business District of Abuja amounting to over eighteen million Naira. More than fifty of us who were driving on the same Muhammad Buhari Road in Abuja scampered for safety while the operation lasted but we later returned to discover to our shock and amazement that the robbers succeeded in escaping with their loots and that the police arrived almost twenty minutes after the operation which witnessed sporadic shooting of sophisticated weapons in a place that is approximately a walking distance from the nation's Armed Forces Headquarters and the command Headquarters of the Nigeria Police in the nation's capital. My shock is not borne out of the fact that the Nigeria police operatives arrived late to the scene of the robbery in Abuja or could not apprehend any genuine suspect from that crime because it is already known that the Nigeria police operatives always arrive late to such scenes because of variety of reasons among which is the total lack of training, incompetence and total or substantially lack of good equipment to battle these robbers who are usually armed to the teeth with sophisticated weapons purchased from God knows where. That the Nigeria police is not sufficiently equipped has been rightly traced to serious corruption on the part of some of their members of the police hierarchy because one of the past Inspectors' General of police, a certain Tafa Balogun was arrested, charged and convicted at an Abuja High Court and amazingly sentenced to just six months imprisonment for allegedly looting several Billions of Naira from the Nigeria police funds. My shock stemmed from the ruthlessness and the nature of violence that characterized that particular robbery incident in Abuja because we returned to discover the blood of that man littered all over the tarred Road. 

On the same date that The Guardian carried the graphic picture of this unknown man that was wasted on the traffic jam in Lagos, the Punch Newspaper also ran an editorial on the KILLINGS IN AKWA IBOM which specifically dwelt on the recent killing of eleven Nigerians while five hundred houses were burnt in Ikot Akpan Udo Village of Ikot Abasi Local Governemnt Area of Akwa Ibom State during a communal clash involving the community and their Amazaba counterparts in Eastern Obolo Local Government Area Council over a disputed land. Again the Punch Newspaper was right to have asserted that the killings are a clear manifestation of the failure of the state security apparatus to perform its statutory duty of protecting citizens' lives and property. The newspaper also rightly questioned the intelligence gathering capacity of all the Nigeria Governemnt/taxpayers' funded security agencies like the State Security Service [SSS], the Nigeria Police among others since they failed to proactively prevent the crisis from exploding leading to these untold consequences of lost of precious lives and property.  

Again, I ask is life so cheap in Nigeria? Human Rights Watch, an international organization had at the wake of the April 2007 General elections which saw the killing of undetermined high number of Nigerian voters, released a report based on a research it funded which revealed that over eight thousand Nigerians have been killed in several violent political, religious and ethnic oriented upheavals in Nigeria since the return of civil Democracy in 1999, essentially fueled by political Godfathers associated with different ruling parties in the different segments of the Nigerian society, but the Federal administration hastily disputed this credible findings and in a statement signed by my good friend and in-law John Odey, the Federal Government hurriedly asserted that the federal Governemnt is determined to respect the Human Rights of Nigerians which fundamentally includes the RIGHT TO LIFE. Several months after this public statement by the Federal minister of information, it is clear to most Nigerians that the current Government has abysmally failed to protect the sacred Right of the Nigerian citizens and other citizens of the World resident in Nigeria to enjoy their inherent RIGHT TO LIFE. The president swore to an oath to enforce the provisions of the chapter two of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which importantly embodies the provisions of the fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy. Section 14[2] [b] of the Constitution of the nation stated that "THE SECURITY AND WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE SHALL BE THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT". Specifically, in the OATH OF OFFICE OF PRESIDENT encapsulated in the seventh schedule of the extant constitution of Nigeria, the president among other key solemn pledges swore to "…strive to preserve the fundamental objectives and directive principles of State policy contained in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…." 

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The failure of the current Government to protect lives and property of Nigerians is worrisome and must be immediately reversed for the over all national interest. Major General Sarki Mukhtar, the National Security Adviser to the president had in a lecture at the 2007 Economic and Financial Crime Commission's annual anti-crime National Seminar in Abuja delivered on his behalf by Ambassador Imohe, the Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, blamed syndicates who masterminds illegal smuggling of SMALL ARMS into Nigeria for the high rate of violence in Nigeria. Titled aptly, THE NIGER DELTA CONUNDRUM; FOCUSING ON THE REAL ISSUES, the presidential security Adviser stated that "Arms proliferation remains a major source of concern in the region [I dare say Nigeria]. Militants and cultists engage in criminal activities, such as armed robbery, kidnapping, piracy and illegal bunkering, to raise money for ARMS PROCUREMENT in order to promote and protect their criminal activities. In the process, terror is unleashed on the populace, with regular loss of lives and property. In order to check this menace, the Governemnt is already discussing with stakeholders with a view to finding solutions".  

But again, we have heard similar pledges in the past by the nation's top security chiefs but the violent crime has continued. Government must accept the truth in what the erudite Theologian and social commentator Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kukah wrote in his recent international lecture titled THE DEFENSE OF LIFE AS A CONDITION FOR THE LEGITIMACY OF DEMOCRACY that "The first challenge for us is to provide a context as to why the defense of human life and Human Rights is the condition and basis for the legitimacy of Democracy. We can do this by properly explaining that the province of Human Rights should be the sacred ground for the drama of politics in any Democracy." President Umaru Musa Yar'adua must demonstrate more than just a passing determination to protect and promote the Human Rights of Nigerians by embarking on a holistic Police reforms targeted at uprooting the forces bent on keeping Nigeria in perpetual insecurity and the intelligence gathering capacity of all the State sponsored security agencies must be expanded, modernized and enhanced. Life should not be cheap in Nigeria because the sacred cultural attribute of most African traditional ways of life is the recognition and respect conferred on the RIGHT TO LIFE BECAUSE LIFE IS SACROSACNT IN AFRICA. 

+EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO heads the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA.