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The Elusive Treasure Called Peace By Abdullah Musa If one is an agriculturist, he or she best appreciates the necessity of right and suitable climate for the growth of plants. Without water either in the form of rainfall or in the form of irrigation, plants cannot grow. We have to accept with recognition of the existence of civilization, that human societies should either grow; stagnate; or even perish. We are thus prompted to look for factors that either promote growth or even hinder it. This we do in order to understand how we tackle the factors that hinder growth and how to nurture those that are amenable to the promotion of growth. Human development has come to be seen much in the form of how men and women are able to work to overcome environmental limitations in order to have better living. Even ancient civilizations were assessed on feats such as construction of canals, fortresses and the like. Recognition is given to the fact that civilization is built upon by succeeding generations. With the advent of technology, particularly to the level of mass production and factory workers, life patterns came to change to reflect the new economic arrangements where some are permanently workers and some capital owners. This economic arrangement like even the most primitive economic arrangements before it, require sustainability as the permanent platform. Traditional societies were mostly agrarian. They had to hunt also for cheap meat, and to a certain extent as training to sharpen their war capabilities. Threats of war, actual war conditions, had significant destructive effects on the agrarian lives of the then members of such societies. This necessitated the construction of walls and gates to encircle both the towns and the farmlands surrounding them. Ironically the human person suffered from predators just like animals. People were abducted from their farms and taken into slavery. This practice led to the decimation of certain geographical belts. What factor then becomes indispensable to the perpetuation of human development? The absence of peace: if your flowers wilt, if the grass dries up then you have no doubt that water or rain is missing. How do we know that peace is missing? The dividends of peace are easily distinguishable. Have you ever witnessed a man or woman running for dear life, fleeing from those who earlier on had no business (directly) with them? Had you ever watched a house being torched and the occupants being roasted alive or fleeing to escape with dear lives while life’s efforts in form properties are consumed either by fire or by the arsonists? Some were witnesses to the decapitation of men and women for reason of either not belonging to a particular tribe or to a particular religion. There is a consensus that human beings would only be able to live in peace when either of the following takes place:
The recurring exceptions: we have shown the possible ways which peace is ensured. But the reality is that nothing in human affairs is ever constant. If you believe that there was an attack on the trade centre in America by terrorists (some do not believe it was a terrorist attack) then you can see that arming your self to teeth may not thwart the destructive designs of one who does not wish you well. On the other hand, the earlier cozy relationship between Western powers and the then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein turned sour such that his country is now under occupation and he is facing trial. We may also note that similarity of values does not prevent people from going to war with one another: the case of Kuwait versus Iraq or Iraq versus Iran; nor did it stop Germany from trying to overrun the rest of Europe. Is peace a lost cause? from the foregoing we may have painted a gloomy picture of the impossibility of us being in perfect peace. If we are realistic we may have to accept that what predominates is relative peace just like relative happiness. What irks most of the people in Nigeria is that conflicts between its citizens takes on the form of conflict between nations. The ideal is that nations with stable political system should not have citizens going to war with one another. In Nigeria this recurs with increasing frequency that we have come to accept it as inevitable. Not only is it considered inevitable, but to some there is also dividend from such skirmishes. From the distance observers view the recurring scenario with utter helplessness. Individuals, nay even groups are not able to maintain peace just by being of good conduct. To create the absence of peace; or to rupture its highly fragile structure requires a single act: just like the explosive material with the strike of a single match stick. We are thus in a situation where a few groups can at whim decide whether there should be peace or carnage. Nobody needs to be told that we are a nation of different tribes and culture, also different religions. The fact that I and the Igbo man can speak to each other in English language does not really bring us close. It did not help the Hausa in Shagamu that they married Yoruba women and could speak Yoruba language perfectly. What this translates into is that animosities are deeply seated in the minds of Nigerians; such that the next conflagration is simply a continuation of the previous ones. The new threat: chief Obasanjo’s agenda to have the Nigerian constitution amended is seen as a threat to those who call the shots in the North. They see the scheme as a step towards the perpetual exclusion of the core North from ever holding the federal government of Nigeria again. This threat is viewed as being so serious that the recent Maidugri and related conflagrations are considered as a fall out of it. We are not in a position to say what would be the outcome of a conflict of this magnitude. Though not detracting us from our focus on the search of peace, we do know that in the permutations and combinations of human affairs, we should not always be certain that the normal outcome is what we will obtain. Observers of politics talk of the policy of brinkmanship. By this they may mean the tendency of the players to go the brink of destruction only to back out where they are unable to cow their opponents. In most democracies, the fact that most players are of the same race does not make friendly enough to take the contest lightly. Where we differ with them is that the level of acrimony does not reach to the level of destruction of lives and properties. We may note our peculiarity in that it is not only for the contest into the Presidential position that we kill and maim; this barbarity envelopes even gubernatorial and other positions for which elections are held. Again we are reminded that we do not have a single criterion to measure or understand why peace eludes us. What is disturbing is when the conflicts are viewed from the point of geography. The moment you kill someone in your area of jurisdiction, it means you have passed the death sentence on your brothers and sisters living in ‘enemy’ territories. A common prison? We are behaving as if we are prisoners in one cell who cannot come to terms with each other. If we kill each other because we find living with each other intolerable, who do we expect to bail us out; the ‘warder’/ meaning the colonialist? And if we do not expect nor desire any external help, why make the ‘cell’ more unbearable to live in/ These are questions that nobody would answer. Nobody is interested in taking far reaching decisions in order to create an environment that is amenable to the nurturing of the creative faculties of men. Interestingly, none of those killed in the organized arsons are beneficiaries of the Government’s largesse. They are people who defy the limitation of geography and culture to try and make a living elsewhere. These people are not from one tribal group, but are from all the segments of Nigeria. What is their crime? Their crime is that they believe that Nigeria is one nation and that it is governed by the system of law that guarantees individual’s right to life and property as long as that individual respects the laws of the land. But the Nigerian leadership from all classes of governments give room for the setting aside of this guarantee and in the process losses of lives and properties ensue. Those who do not believe in the Nigerian project; those who believe that they are better off without others, feel that such breakdown of law and order is the best way to express their rejection of the Nigerian state, since they either do not have the courage to create their own ideal state, or seem to believe that Nigeria is indivisible. Failure of a social system: such ugly work as destruction of lives and properties are done by miscreants; those who have never been schooled or groomed to respect the values which make society sane and relatively peaceful. Having been dislocated by either neglect or choice,(misuse of drugs for instance) they do not have any qualms destroying the efforts of others whom they see as enemies irrespective of their tongues or geographical origin. Which society is it that would accept to operate without a guiding set of values? Or where when such values are trampled the watch dogs of the society are either indifferent or even laud the effort? We are distressed because the meaning conveyed is that such a society is not a civilized society and the law of the jungle applies. When we refer back to our caption of ‘failure of social system’, we are referring to our inability to train a significant portion of the youths in our society. The net effect is the feeling of not belonging to the system and therefore no stake in whether it is stable or not. These miscreants are now foot soldiers to those for whom politics is a business. With aid of drugs and some paltry sums, human lives can be taken at will. The role of religion: it could have been easier to tackle the problem through the agency of men of God, who would be able to drum into the believers of their faith that you do not as individuals or group have the power to decide who lives or who perishes. But men of God of now a days are unable to speak out against current public opinion. If god says you should not kill without recourse to the process of law; but the public is already incensed against a particular tribe or believers of a different faith; the man of God may follow the line of least resistance by keeping quite. No cost? the general view of the society is that the only cost associated with these mayhems is reprisal. These reprisals are gauged and accepted where the perpetrators feel that ‘we have the upper hand’. There is no anticipated judgment from God and that life in future would not become more intolerable. The victims: like we showed earlier, the victims are those who usually have to live or trade outside their own geographical area. They and no other are responsible for the security of their lives and properties. No system exists that is meant to do that for them; nor is it any government’s preoccupation to provide same. Nigeria is a jungle. And people should learn from the hunters what the law of the jungle is.
Special Assistant to Governor On Societal Reorientation
Article published by Triumph on 02 March 2, 2006.
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