Eze Onyekpere([email protected][1];
08127235995)
On a daily basis, the reports coming out of different parts of
Nigeria present the reality of a county at war with itself, an
ungoverned territory where life has become “brutish, nasty and
short.” The Nigerian security story is not one of perception but
the story of real flesh and blood, of people who are murdered and
these victims have relatives who have the unfortunate task of
burying and grieving over them. The body count has become
embarrassing while all our claims to the ability to govern
ourselves fall flat on the face of this failure of governance.
This discourse seeks to proffer a jurisprudential postulate of a
few ideas which could possibly offer insights into this orgy of
blood. The starting point is to confirm that the right to life is
the most fundamental of the human and fundamental rights. Rights
and duties are only for the living and as such, the right to life
is the fulcrum upon which other rights revolve. Dead persons have
no rights. Government primarily exists to protect life and property
and to maintain law and order. It is the first duty and test of
governance, development, civilisation and showcasing of our
humanity. Any country, state or community where lives are lost as a
matter of routine, that the living no longer gets shocked by the
body count as happens in Nigeria, has lost it all. The leadership
of the three arms of government in the executive, legislature and
judiciary must come to a full understanding of the primacy of life.
If they do, it will be the first step towards protecting the
sanctity of life. All the political actors must come to a
bi-partisan understanding of the challenge to the right to life so
that decisions will not be subject to political manipulation.
In the three duties of the state in matters of human rights,
including the right to life, the state must respect, protect and
fulfil the right to life through ensuring that it takes no positive
steps to deprive people of their right to life. The state should
refrain from arbitrarily and unnecessarily interfering with the
right to life. This is a negative obligation and may seem easy and
straightforward. In this respect, using arbitrary gun licensing and
ownership laws to deprive people of the means necessary for
survival and self-protection from criminal elements may amount to
an interference with this negative obligation. Also, attempts by
the Federal Government to unduly challenge the mobilisation of
human and material resources by states to support the local
policing and security architecture may amount to the deprecation of
this first obligation. Respect for life under this umbrella
includes respect for the means of livelihood because no one can
live without the means of living. Thus, any state action that
unduly undermines the lawful and legitimate means of individuals
and communities to survival may be tilting towards depriving the
victims of their right to life. Even in war situations, contrary to
the popular Nigerian belief arising from the civil war, starvation
is not a legal or legitimate instrument of war. Officials behind
such a campaign, if properly documented, may be liable to genocide
and war crimes.
Also, all political actors who recruit and arm thugs and
criminals during elections or use the official agencies such as the
police and the army to perpetrate violence leading to death come up
for strong condemnation. Overflowing evidence shows that light
weapons are particularly very available during political campaigns
for elective offices and the weapons have in fact been used for
warlike political manouvres like the 2019 Rivers State elections.
Who collects back the weapons bought for these criminally minded
elements after the elections? When political leaders deliberately
import non-Nigerians to swell up the numbers and vote for them, who
ensures that those illegally allowed in leave and go back to their
countries after the elections? Is it true that some of these
criminals do not even speak English or any known indigenous
Nigerian language as reported in the media coverage of some
murders?
The second obligation, being the duty to protect, mandates the
state to take steps to stop third parties from violating the right
to life. These third parties could be natural or artificial
persons. This appears to be the obligation that is most
disrespected in Nigeria. It is the duty of the police and other
security agencies to maintain law and order and protect the social
dynamics and equilibrium of society. There is a state obligation to
prevent the crime of murder through uniformed and undercover
officers and agents. Where reports come from locals about impending
attacks, there is also a state obligation, while verifying the
information, to deploy more men and resources to protect the
communities. In areas prone to attacks, there is the need for the
combination of brain and brawn. Intelligence gathering,
infiltrating the criminal gangs, especially now that they are
known. In some parts of the country like the northwestern state of
Katsina, the leaders of these criminal enterprises have also come
out openly for negotiations and even signed a truce with the
government – a truce they have gone back on while continuing their
murderous pathways.
The third obligation is to fulfil which requires administrative,
legislative and judicial interventions by the state through steps
taken to the maximum of available resources for the realisation of
freedom from murder. This obligation evokes a plethora of
questions. How much have we voted for the protection of the right
to life in our budgets? Assuming we have voted enough resources,
how have they been utilised? Who monitors and reports on the use of
security votes by governors in these states where bandits have
virtually taken over? How is the procurement of arms and
ammunition, security and defence equipment done? Is there value for
money and transparency? Or is it an opportunity for the most senior
cadre of the respective agencies to feed fat on the treasury? These
questions if answered honestly will show that a good part of the
resources dedicated to the protection of life have been frittered
away by those entrusted to use them for the benefit of all. For
procurement to be value for money, the acquired goods and services
must serve the purpose for which they were acquired. Thus, if the
budget vote is geared towards getting men and materials to stop or
reduce murder to a minimum and after expending the vote, the
challenge escalates, we cannot in all truth and honestly state that
we derived value for money.
Policies and administrative actions that set free, for instance,
Boko Haram murderers, in the name de-radicalisation and loosen them
on society without sufficient evidence of their having repented and
without any punishment for their sins and deprivations of the life
of others, cannot in any way fulfil the right to life. It emboldens
men and women who do not belong to this age and who are bereft of
conscience to commit more murders.
If the Nigerian state meets its obligations under national and
international human rights law, the right to life and other rights
would be respected, protected and fulfilled.