Entrenching Violence

By  

Kòmbò Mason Braide, Ph.D.

Port Harcourt, Nigeria.

kombomasonbraide@msn.com

How To Absorb Trauma Patiently:

Politics frequently creates strange bedfellows, but so too does war. The warlords and local superheroes of the First Nigerian Civil War (1967~1970), and their “off-shoots”, whom, we are made to believe, Nigerians have always yearned for, begged, cajoled, eulogised, and even bribed to salvage their country from incipient collapse in the past, and now lead them, in their capacity as self-imposed, self-acclaimed elder statesmen, in the task of establishing a viable democracy in Nigeria, may be marginally less overtly despotic than their predecessors (who, incidentally, happen to the same superheroes and warlords: themselves!).

Unfortunately, Nigeria’s civil war superheroes still harbour, without qualms, the same innate aversion that they had for democracy in their capacity as military dictators, including their pathological resistance to any attempts at transforming the Nigerian society into a meaningful federation of consenting equals. Their continued application of a combination of naked intimidation, crude blackmail, coercion, or/and extreme violence as reprimands for what would be considered minor partisan political differences, or indiscretions in a true democracy, bears clear witness to their predilections: a passion for entrenching a culture of violence in Nigeria’s emerging political culture space.

Our messiah (who art in Abuja), hypnotised by his unbelievable success in exporting his so-called “home-grown” brand of “nascent” democracy, from Dodan Barracks, via Yola Prison, to the rest of the bloody civilian population in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, DRC, Sao Tome, Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia, and beyond, feels triumphant about his latest pet project: the complete subjugation and ultimate colonisation of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Again, as we all know, a cabal of super-predatory autocrats, intimately embedded within Aso Rock Villa, who accompanied Mr. President into power since mid-day, Saturday, 29 May 1999, had long ago betrayed their intentions to either control, or plunder the petroleum resources of the Niger Delta. And, like a huge mountain of putrid cow pooh-pooh, their plans lay fermenting in secret vaults, while patiently awaiting a 9/11-like event to occur in Nigeria, so as to trigger the explosion of some awful strain of political dog doo-doo all over Nigerians. Unfortunately, the resulting stench grows stronger, and stronger, day by day, and could remain with Nigerians for a long time to come, even if the doomsday scenario does not materialise.

Of course, a lot has been said and written about Nigeria’s arrested development in the past four (4) years, or so, of transition from military dictatorship to predatory civilian autocracy, under the direct supervision of Mr. President. We cannot help growing weary, or/and being bored of them. Some of us really desire, and deserve to turn down the volume, in the interest of progress: to stop having to read about dead, dying, or wounded rural folks and Nigerian soldiers, or the abduction of Nigerian or expatriate staff of multinational oil companies, in the swamps of the Niger Delta; to be blissfully ignorant about Nigeria’s ever-increasing mob of very angry semi-illiterate graduates; to forget the lousy national electric power supply infrastructure in Nigeria; to abstain from thinking about the diminished fundamental liberties of Nigerians, even in a supposedly democratic dispensation.

We have resolved to deliberately ignore the dire implications and consequences of institutionalised rigging of elections. We will pay no attention to glaring plans for a repeat performance of a 4/19-like outcome in the forthcoming local government elections in Nigeria. We have switched off completely, and will consciously refrain from being unduly radical, or feel disaffected by the constant barrage of Federal Government-sponsored official propaganda being force-fed down the throats of Nigerians by a theocratic mob at Aso Rock Villa; to not think at all about state-sponsored terrorism, or hired assassins, but armed robbers ONLY. We will not give a damn about budget deficits and other manifestations of gross fiscal indiscipline and financial mismanagement of the Nigerian treasury, or/and not even bother our brains if the on-going season of profuse executive impunity in Nigeria will ever come to an end or not.

When Nigerian soldiers invaded Odi, with the express approval of their Commander-in-Chief, it had nothing to do with jealousy or hatred of the Ijaw polity. The Federal Government simply established its dominion, and divine control of a portion of post-colonial Nigeria, just like the British did before Saturday, 1 October 1960. When the same Nigerian soldiers went on a punitive expedition to Zaki-Biam, it was not because the soldiers hated the freedoms that their (bloody civilian) fellow Nigerians enjoyed, but because the Federal Government was anxious to dominate every square millimetre of post-colonial Nigeria, just like the British did before them. Today, Nigerian soldiers are in Liberia, not because they represent any conscious belief, as Nigerians, to defend, nurture, or/and sustain democracy, be it at home in Nigeria, or overseas, which they know fully well that their Commander-in-Chief despises, but because they are simply hell-bent on enjoying some good old, finger-licking, mouth-watering warfront “estacode”, and other sweet dividends of military adventurism, just like their Commander-in-Chief did before them, in his younger days, some 35 years ago.

As the above examples indicate, there seems to be no tangible historical evidence to show that aggression is as a result of aggressors being envious of the way of life of their victims, except, of course, on Tuesday, 11 September 2001, as US President George WMD Bush (The Younger) would want the rest of world outside the USA to appreciate. Is it not a joke, actually, to think that high-profile Nigerian politicians are threatened or attacked by a tiny clique of faceless people who, we are told, are covetous of the earth-shattering successes of the current practitioners and custodians of  Nigeria’s “nascent democracy”, especially when one considers the fact that the attackers were “armed robbers”, as clarified in a perverted expression of simple-minded executive recklessness of tongue, and that the so-called “armed robbers” were actually willing to risk their lives to repeatedly strike lethal blows at key members of the prevailing status quo of a nation that they consider to be led by full-time inmates of a Nigerian lunatic fringe, acting under the full spell of the Devil?

No, it is not envy of the undeserved privileges enjoyed by members of the Nigerian political elite, but justifiable deep-rooted revulsion of Federal Government policies that have driven the Niger Delta region into extreme penury and sustained underdevelopment. The people of the Niger Delta know and feel that they have legitimate and un-redressed grievances against the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for meddling in, and stifling their social, economic, and political evolution as a people, for close to half a century now. Certainly a catalogue of such complaints could be compiled very effortlessly, but no matter how large the compilation, it could in no way justify the deliberate brutalisation of Nigeria’s oil producing communities.

It will be recalled that the United States of America invaded Afghanistan, ostensibly because the Taliban regime harboured Mujahideen Osama bin Laden. Well, as we all know, the Taliban were driven underground successfully, but, with the exception of a small portion of that country, the former warlords of Afghanistan are now back in power, complete with the blatant corruption that characterised their earlier rule. The same is happening in Nigeria right now, in slow motion.

The “Cat-and-Mouse” battle continues.

Kòmbò Mason Braide (PhD)

Saturday, 13 March 2004 @ 8:27 pm.