A major issue of serious challenge in good governance relates to elections which provide the mechanism for building or rebuilding the legitimacy and authority of government. Elections must not only be free and fair, but must be seen to be transparent and accountable. In democracy, elections are the legitimate method of transfer of power and in most African countries, a source of political instability and violence. While elections are meant to provide choices for leadership among citizens, they are also to build, nurture and consolidate good governance, including peace and stability. According to Lindberg, “…every modern definition of representative democracy includes participatory and contested elections perceived as the legitimate procedure for translation of rule by the people…”? Participation is a major dimension of good governance and it requires not only regular, free and fair elections, but also continuous consultation in the formulation, monitoring and implementation of public policies, and cannot be achieved without sufficient level of civil liberties and political rights, as well as a functioning multi-party system. Elections should not be an end to itself, but a means to an end, therefore as Onyekpe mentioned, the people:
…must be mobilized for direct involvement, beyond elections, in political administration and governance. The role of the people must go beyond coming out…to elect the so-called government of the people and then return to the abyss until another round of “democratic” elections. The people must be mobilized fully, in such a way that ensures that in between elections, the government is by the people and for the people.?
The link between good governance and human rights is not in doubt as it is clearly stated in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services…” Again Art 26 further states that “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and foundation stages. Elementary education should be compulsory…” Human rights and the rule of law are inextricably linked, and the latter encompasses representative government; an independent judiciary; laws that are consistent with human rights standards; and proper system of accountability, which are crucial to the safeguarding of the former, to ensuring that individuals are treated equally before the law, and to also prevent those in power from acting in an unfettered or arbitrary manner. Likewise Hon. Justice Amina Augie linked human rights with good governance in the sense that good governance cannot be achieved without human rights, and that neither can human rights be enforced and observed without good governance.
Neither good governance nor sustainable development can be achieved without the civil society’s role prominent in the articulation of different views; in the monitoring and evaluation of government policies and programmes; and in the mobilization of local resources and expertise to meet local and community-based needs. Contributions of the civil society will include advocacy and awareness programmes; social mobilization; and community empowerment. The civil society can also be a partner in community development by undertaking to deliver essential services of water and sanitation; primary health care and education; environmental protection; and shelter. The media being part of the civil society is expected to play the role of the “watchdog” in order to monitor the activities of government and public institutions. A free media therefore is one of the fundamental building blocks of democracy, and the gateway for the realization of human rights. Alongside free media is the freedom of expression, also a fundamental building block of democracy, allows space for challenge and innovation; supports transparency and deters corruption; exposes human rights violations; and assures that people can exchange ideas and make informed decisions.
National Security and Sustainable Development
The issue of security appears to be paramount for this Round Table based on the fact that the organizers indicated that its “…programme is motivated by the unprecedented state of insecurity in Nigeria…”; identifying criminal violence and insurgency as the main focus; and also concluding that the “…security agents do not seem to have the capacity to cope with the challenges.” One can easily appreciate this concern especially because the maintenance of peace and the provision of security against both internal and external threats is a major role of the state. For us in Nigeria, and I believe in most of Africa with probably a few exceptions, our security challenges are internal, and this has been partly captured in your letter of invitation to me. While it is true that from the end of the Nigerian civil war till date, we have experienced all kinds of internal security threats beginning with armed robbery in the early 1970s, the period 1999 to date has also been experiencing various crises to include ethno-religious conflicts and civil disorder; the Niger Delta militancy; the OPC militancy; the MASSOB rebellion; electoral crisis and violence; resource-based conflicts over land, water and hydro carbons resources; citizens discrimination, the so-called indigene-settler dispute; political assassinations; ritual murders; kidnappings in the South East and Niger Delta; and presently the Boko Haram insurgency being the front burner.
Traditionally, emerging from the practices of international politics after the 1st World War, national security referred to the state’s ability to preserve the core values of its society; its territorial integrity; and the physical security of its citizens. This concept of national security which is limited to the security of the state has however been expanded to what to we now know as “human security” as provided by the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report. According to the Report, while human development is defined as “…a process of widening the range of people’s choices,” human security means “that people can exercise these choices safely and freely, and that they can relatively be confident that the opportunities they have today are not lost tomorrow.” The Report further noted that while there are two main aspects of human security that is “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want”, that the concept of security has always been linked only to the former. Accordingly, the UNDP Report maintained the necessity to adopt the all-encompassing definition from “security through armaments to security through sustainable human development.”
Human security therefore covers the personal and physical; the economic, social and political; basic necessities in food, health, education and shelter; and, community and environmental security. Nigeria ranks 156 out of 187 in the 2011 Human Development Report of the UNDP. With an average of 1000 maternal mortality per 100,000 of the population; under-five mortality rate of 138 per 1000 live births; life expectancy of 51.9; over 70% of population living below $1.25 per day; intensity of deprivation of 57.3; expected school years of children under 7 years as 8.9; the percentage of GDP expenditure on education at 0.8, Nigeria is among the lowest in human development in the world. With an estimated population of about 160 million, and being the world’s 8th exporter of petroleum, and the 10th in proven reserve, Nigerians still live in abject and grinding poverty with much of the population rural and destitute. This is a clear indication of bad governance spanning over several years of decay in most institutions that are near collapse. There cannot be a guarantee for peace and security without growth and development, and this is the point on which national security and sustainable human development merge.
The fact that we are holding this Roundtable within the premier university, and the very first one in Nigeria for that matter, there is the need to examine the role of education in national development. Universities in particular have the major role or responsibility in nation building through research and innovations in the fields of science, engineering, technology, arts and humanities, business management, and many other fields we can think of, and that can only be achieved when they provide value-based education to their students in order to positively increase their leadership potentials. Examining the impact of higher education on economic development, Larry Gigerich noted that higher education and economic development are inextricably linked to one another, and for any country to be successful in economic development, universities must be key partners throughout the process.? This partnership is not just with the government, but most especially with the private sector, whereby higher academic institutions must move beyond the traditional objective of providing either what the universities want to teach or what the students are interested in, because such traditional focus is usually not responsive to the needs of the private sector employers. It is a major reason why today many students graduate without translating such achievement into good jobs in a growing economic sector.
Higher educational institutions, especially the universities, are the progenitors of social change through the generation and dissemination of knowledge and new ideas, especially with the present globalization trends. We therefore see a strong connection in terms of the role education has in guaranteeing national security and sustainable human development, and of course development issues such as poverty alleviation, human rights, health care, education, rule of law, and all those issues identified in the UN Millennium Development Goals, are intrinsic to higher education. As a matter of fact the Millennium Development Report indicates that education is “…the key to the new global economy, from primary school…to life-long learning. It is central to development, social progress and human freedom.” Analysis of 47 World Education Indicators (WEI) in Europe under the UNESCO Institute of Statistics and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, found that better educated people were more likely to be in work and, if economically active, less likely to be unemployed. The WEI programme also found that access to, and completion of higher education is a key determinant in the accumulation of human capital, a pre-requisite for human rights and civil liberties, good health, clean environment and personal safety. As a result, it was also discovered that the labour force participation rates increased with the level of education attained by individuals; and better qualifications also attracted higher wages for individuals.? Likewise Sha Zukang, the UN Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, observed that there is a relationship between lack of education, poverty and poor health, conditions that diminish opportunities for social and economic advancement, especially among the youth. He concluded that lack of education is a major obstacle to accessing tools that could improve people’s lives.
In general, education system in Nigeria today is in a state of near collapse, from primary to tertiary. Most of our universities, for example, are no longer the ivory towers or centres of excellence or citadels of learning. Assessing the problems of the university system in Nigeria, Arikewuyo concluded that it has witnessed:
…a lot of turbulent experiences. The crisis has been characterized by a combination of chronic under-funding, rapidly increasing student enrolment, inadequacy of facilities, deterioration of physical infrastructures, a growing culture of arbitrariness and suppression in managing the institutions, demoralization of staff and students, incessant riots, and periodic staff strikes…?????????
Added to Arikewuyo’s observation, the 2010 UNESCO Report shows that in terms of public spending on education, Nigeria provided only 0.89% of her GDP for the purpose of funding education, and this is further corroborated by the 2011 UNDP Human Development Report which shows public expenditure on education in Nigeria as 0.8% of the GDP, ranking her 136th among the 136 countries assessed in 2010. Public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP gives an indication of how a country prioritises education in relation to its overall allocation of resources, and this includes instructional services; ancillary services; and research and development. The public education expenditure in EU countries rages from 6% to 8% of the GDP, and UNDP available data for some developing countries shows that 1995-1997 Jamaica allocated 7.5% of her GDP; and Malawi 5.4% for same period, but Nigeria allocated 0.7% in 1995 and 0.89 for 2011.? Likewise the recommendation for the percentage of annual budget that should be invested in education is 26%, but Nigeria’s allocation has never gone beyond 10%. It should noted that expenditure on education should help foster economic growth, enhance productivity, contribute to people’s personal and social development, and help reduce social inequalities. This can only be possible with adequate investment in education.
While Arikewuyo has captured the dilemma of Nigerian universities, he has left out a serious issue that has bedeviled the institutions of higher learning, and that is cultism. I understand that the idea began with the Pyrates Confraternity spearheaded by the Nobel prize winner, Wole Soyinka, in this very university in 1963, which eventually assumed a very dangerous dimension with tremendous negative effects on the overall education system and national development. Not only that cultism among students of higher institutions is a major social problem due to the abuse of hard drugs, prostitution, exam malpractice, and violent crimes associated with it, there is also the problem of its ability to destroy future leadership potentials along with the values of integrity, honesty, selfless service and loyalty which are required for national growth.??
Ethnicity, Religion and Corruption
How can any nation live in peace, guarantee its security, ensure sustainable development, and provide the environment for good governance if ethnicity, religious intolerance and corruption are pervasive, and to some extent they are the rule, rather than exceptions to the rule? To begin with, Nigeria started with the wrong foot, and even as at today that same foot is still the one forward. First, the British colonialists found it convenient to divide and rule, and not understanding that strategy, we accepted it. Nnoli’s views on the colonial administration reflected this problem in which states that:
…the colonial administration deliberately promoted ethnicity through policies of indirect rule, categorization of Africans by ‘tribe’, and promotion of separate settlements between natives and settlers of urban centres. The outcomes of the divide and rule oriented policies that led to the rise, spread and consolidation of ethnicity include: socio-economic competition, regional inequalities, lack of economic unity, rivalry in provision of amenities, low class consciousness, intemperate utterances, and factional politics, among others.?
Second, because we accepted a strategy that served only the British interests, and also in our quest for political power, we adopted that same strategy against our very own people, and that was what brought the issue of regionalism in the first republic. We never agreed that there was a nation called Nigeria, rather we only call people Nigerians simply because they reside within that geographical territory the British named Nigeria, and as the late sage and leading opposition of that period, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, of blessed memory would say, Nigeria “…is just a mere geographical expression.” Likewise, the late charismatic northern leader and Premier of northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, referred to Nigeria as the “…mistake of 1914,” thus obviously referring to the 1914 amalgamation of the northern and southern Protectorates.
The point is that as at today there are people who do not recognize Nigeria in the same manner for example Ghanaians or Japanese or Russians or Americans view their various geographical entities as nation-states. One of the major requirements for sustainable development is to identify the nation to develop in the first instance, but for some of us we are ethnic nationalities of 300-400 ethnic groups that range from a few hundreds to the three bigger ones (Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo) that are in millions. This is the basis of ethnicity in Nigeria, which unfortunately has led to citizens’ discrimination, as the case of the so-called indigene-settler conflict, which has no basis in democracy. Ethnicity is a core ingredient to conflicts, insecurity and instability; and the most direct way to sow the seeds of discontent among various groups.
There are calls for a Conference of Ethnic Nationalities or what others refer to as Sovereign National Conference, but I am not sure exactly how that conference would be conducted. Would it based on ethnic representation? Is the representation going to consider the population of each ethnic group? Who represents whom, and how is that going to be determined? I ask these questions and more, simply because we do not even know how many ethnic groupings there are in Nigeria. And by the way what is the definition of an ethnic nationality? Is it on the basis of language spoken or cultural similarities? In the southern part of Kaduna State alone, you are likely to have people speaking different languages in every five kilometers you move, so is the situation in Adamawa State. If It is going to be one representation per ethnic nationality regardless of population, then we should expect the vast majority of representation to come from the north east and north central, where there are over 300 ethnic “nationalities” combined, and we all know what that means. Let’s examine where we are now, the South West. If there would be one representation for the Yoruba ethnic nationality, from which part of the south west is such a person coming? If he is coming from Oyo state, for example, should he be from Oyo town, Ibadan, Ogbomoso, Ife or other areas of the state, and if such a person is coming from Ogun state, is he coming from among the Egbas, Ijebus or Yerwas or the more recently Ijegbas? What are about Osun, Ondo, Ekiti or Lagos states? Would Ife allow Modakeke to represent the Yoruba ethnic nationality or vice versa? Already there has been a controversy since Pa Awo died over who should fit into his shoes, or more appropriately, who should lead the Yoruba nation. Or would the Aguleri man represent the Ndigbo, when the Umuleri man is watching, and vice versa? Or would Ezza person allow the Ezillo (and vice versa), who are both Ndigbo and reside in same district in Ebonyi state, to represent him when they have been killing themselves for about a decade now over a piece of farmland? The situation is much more complex than what people think, I allow the Rountable to unravel these posers. There are those with the views that Nigeria should break, and I ask into what? Who determines the regional, religious or ethnic boundaries? When it breaks would there be peace, and would the security of each of the broken pieces guaranteed? Do we, for example, expect peace in a presumed Niger Delta Republic in which the Ijaws, Ogonis, Itsekiris, Ekperes, and Ika Igbos live peacefully because they are in control of the oil and gas resources? In fact do we perceive how the resources would be shared among them; who gets what and what percentage; and on the basis of what criteria? I am neither drawing any conclusion nor making suggestions here, rather I am presenting some posers for this Roundtable in order to provoke further discussions.
As a result of ethnic and religious sentiments we are unable to conduct census, and each attempt was marred by ethnic and religious controversies. There is a lot politics associated with the conduct of census in Nigeria, and because of that we are unable to know both the actual population of Nigeria in terms of number, and also the disposition of individuals and/or groups. Consequently, we do not have the capacity to determine who should pay tax; we do not know who lives where and what he or she does for a living; we cannot trace people when we need to find them for whatever reasons, including criminal offences; we cannot determine the number of schools or hospitals each community requires to take care of its population; we do not know the workforce Nigeria requires in order to generate employment; and it is for the same reason that we find it difficult to distribute even the inadequate electricity we generate, and much more. If we do not know our population, we cannot plan; and if we cannot plan, sustainable development would be hard to find, and in that case peace and security would elude us, because the idea of good governance would be impossible.??????
Corruption, defined as the abuse of power for private gains is said to undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of government; discourages investment; reduces tax revenue; limits economic growth; and lowers quality of infrastructures and public services.? Corruption poses a serious development challenge because it undermines democracy and good governance by subverting formal processes. For the executive and the legislature, corruption makes accountability, transparency and representation in policymaking, that are necessary ingredients for good governance, almost impossible. In the case of the judiciary, corruption discards the rule of law, while in the civil service it results in the unequal provision of services. Corruption erodes the institutional capacity of government because procedures are disregarded, resources are siphoned off, and officials are hired or promoted without regard to performance. It is instructive to also note that corruption undermines the legitimacy of government, including such democratic values as trust, integrity, and loyalty. In terms of economic development, corruption generates considerable distortions and inefficiency to undermine it. With the ranking of 143 in the 2011 Corruption Perception Index, Nigeria has been depicted as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. I just serialized all the ills of corruption in societies and the extent to which it undermines all the possibilities of sustainable development. Does it surprise anyone therefore why peace and security are eluding Nigeria? With corruption it is impossible to have good governance; without good governance, there would be no development; without development there can’t be peace; and without peace there will be no security.
Inter-communal Conflicts, Crimes and Criminal Justice
Socio-economic development is the foundation for peace and security. Nigeria is overwhelmed by the threats posed by all manners of conventional criminal behavior; militancy and insurgency; transnational crime syndicates involved in human and drug trafficking, advance fee fraud (419), and cybercrime; political violence, including election violence; ethno-religious conflicts, especially in the north, leading to violent deaths and destruction; and resource-based conflicts over land, particularly between farmers and pastoralists. Nigeria has been experiencing security threats from discontent/separatist groups such as MEND in the south south (Niger Delta); MASSOB in the south east; OPC in the south west; and the more recent serious threat from Boko Haram in the north east. The economy has been under very serious threats as a result of endemic corruption including the latest incidents of police pension scam, and fuel subsidy scandals. All these issues or conflicts are just symptoms of the disease poverty, which is enhanced by inequality and deprivation, and where there is the perception of exclusion by some segments of the society, there is bound to be instability. This is not a claim that poverty is the cause of crime or the inter-communal violence we have been witnessing in Nigeria because there are millions of poor people who are law-abiding, and as a matter of fact criminal behavior can best be explained on the basis of multiple causes. However poverty is the root of most evils, especially when citizens have the perception or experience of gross inequality, deprivation and exclusion, as a result of bad governance.
Crime is as old as human history and no society can escape from it, and as the French sociologist Emile Durkheim would say “…In societies crime is normal, because a society without it is impossible,” and went on further to note that to “…classify crime amongst the normal phenomenon of society is not merely to say that it is inevitable…it is also to affirm that it is a factor in public health, an integral part of healthy societies.”? But a society can only tolerate certain level of crime, and anything above the level of tolerance would endanger the survival of such society, therefore the need for prevention and control. The police have the primary constitutional responsibility to enforce law and order; and to prevent and control crime, and of course this is of universal applicability. To what extent then can we say that the Nigeria Police have able to carry out this responsibility? While many may point accusing fingers at the police, it is imperative that a holistic view of the problem of insecurity as it relates to crime prevention and control is adopted, so as not to risk isolating the police and pouring all the blames on just one of the three legs of the criminal justice system, the other legs being the courts and prisons.
The Nigeria police having the primary responsibility to prevent and control crime through arrest, investigation and possibly prosecution, have been accused severally of corruption, heavy-handedness and brutality, involving several cases of human rights abuses, extortion, and extra-judicial killings. In short they are viewed with suspicion and distrust; unfriendly and intimidating; dishonest and corrupt; and highly unprofessional in the way they handle their duties. It is on record that during the vibrant days of the OPC, the main target of attack was the police, and likewise the extra-judicial killings of Boko Haram members in 2009, which included their leader Mohammed Yusuf, attracted the wrath of the organization mainly against the police, with their constant attacks at police stations, especially in Maiduguri, Damaturu, and Kano. In some instances, the police have been accused of collaborating with criminals to either hire their weapons and ammunition or even take part in the criminal activities, the case of Iyamu and Anini is still fresh in our memory.
It is also instructive however to note that the Nigeria Police is ill-equipped to carry out its responsibilities; and the personnel suffer from extremely poor welfare in terms of their salary and allowances, education for their children, poor housing, and poor health care facilities. A fundamental issue that impedes the police from being efficient is the poor quality of manpower, and this is a consequence of its recruitment policy, and the situation is worsened by the lack of adequate professional training. Poor training and exposure to both domestic and international human rights norms are a major impediment to the observance of human rights by the police. All these problems make the police incapable of preventing and controlling crime, and enforcing law and order, to the extent that the military has been deployed almost permanently on the streets carrying out police duties against what they have been trained for. To a large extent the attitude of the police towards the public and the constant exposure of the military to crisis-prone areas for the purpose of internal security operations have led to the questioning of the credibility and integrity of both organizations by those who perceive themselves as victims of their brutality, and in some cases calling for their immediate withdrawal.
About 70% of the inmates in Nigerian prisons are persons awaiting trials, most of whom were incarcerated for minor offences attracting fines of small amounts of money. Many have been forgotten, and in some cases there are no records to trace their alleged offences after a very long time of incarceration without trials. Good governance requires the protection of fundamental human rights, including the right to fair trial in which there is presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and that in order to convict an accused person, the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt. It is evident that not only is the accused awaiting trial is subjected to inhuman conditions as a result of prison congestion which denies him the basic needs of survival, he is also not giving the opportunity and protection as required by law to ensure that he is given a fair chance to defend himself. Likewise, even for those convicted, there rehabilitation appears to be out of the question, simply because the prisons are not equipped for the reform of the criminal, and the expectation in the society is that such a person should have been reformed and rehabilitated after serving his sentence so that he not only becomes a law-abiding citizen, but also be gainfully employed. All that the prisons do is to either recycle criminals and make them hardened or even manufacture them.
The courts being the third leg of the criminal justice system are overloaded as a result of delays in trials, sometimes attributed to judicial corruption. The popular statement “justice delayed is justice denied” is apt for our judicial system, which is experiencing a lot unnecessary delays in the disposal of cases, and at the end of it all, it is the poor who do not have the resources to pursue the extended line of justice, that suffers. The new Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon Justice Maryam Aloma Mukhtar, the first female ever to be so appointed to that position, declared her intention to “cleanse judiciary” and ensure that the “…confidence reposed in the judiciary before is restored,” and that she would ensure that “the bad eggs…are cleansed.”? This statement shows that like the police and the prisons, all is not well with the judiciary.
Aside the problems that overwhelmed the criminal justice system, there appears to be a general disrespect and disobedience to our laws, and this behavior cuts across all segments of the Nigerian society. Most people, for example, have no regard to the ordinary traffic regulations, to the extent that it is now found abnormal for motorists to stop on red lights, while most motorists exceed speed limits with impunity. Laws are what create the environment for good governance, national security and sustainable development. It is with law that the human behavior is shaped; law expresses the ideals and values in society, and provides safeguards for the rights of individuals; the ideals of law as a means of governance are justice, equality, and the rule of law; and it is law that provides the platform for conflict resolution. If we must allow for good governance, guarantee security, and sustain development, laws must be respected and obeyed by all and sundry.
Proliferation of Arms and Circulation of Drug??
In its 2008 Report, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) assessed the security threat of drug trafficking in West Africa and noted that the sub-region was the hub for cocaine trafficking, with much of the drug destined for Spain and UK, the two largest cocaine markets in Europe. The Report also observed that Nigerian citizens were by far the most detected nationality among arrestees, but also noted that our share of couriers (57%) was close to our share of the regional population (53%). However, Nigerian couriers were the most commonly detected nationality on flights embarking from almost every country in West Africa, with over 60% of them embarking from Nigeria. In 2006, Nigerian nationals were the foremost foreign group arrested for cocaine trafficking in France, comprising 31% of the foreign cocaine traffickers arrested same year. Heroine also transits the West African sub-region, and largely handled by Nigerian couriers operating from Pakistan, and that Nigerian citizens were responsible for 81% of the 2.4 tons of heroine seized from West Africans on commercial flights between 2000 and 2008, according to the UNODC database.
There is no doubt that a lot of the drugs trafficked through Nigeria get trapped, increasing domestic consumption resulting in the serious problem of drug abuse, especially among the youth. Escalating drug abuse undeniably undermine the state, because drug trafficking and abuse can lead directly to increased instances of violent crimes and political instability. The high rate of crime that are often associated with the drug trade, and even the perception of high crime rates, is often enough to scare away the highly needed foreign investments, resulting in lower investment opportunities and stunting the economic growth needed to accommodate the growing number of the unemployed, especially our university graduates. Drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime indirectly damage the welfare of a society through illicit practices that create victims, while at the same time generating large amounts of wealth for the criminals, and if unchecked crime undermines the rule of law, thus creating an environment in which the government does appear incapable of providing security to its citizens. According to the UNODC, transnational crime, and in particular drug smuggling, is considered “…one of the major threats to human security, impeding the social, economic, political, and cultural development of societies worldwide.”? In the US National Security Strategy of 2002, it was stated that there is a link, directly or indirectly, between the drug trade and international terrorism, but while there did not appear to be any link between terrorism and the drug trade in Nigeria, it was very possible that it could exist, especially with the militancy activities in the Niger Delta, and now Boko Haram.?
Closely linked to drug trafficking is the trafficking in small arms and light weapons. The proliferation of small arms and light weapons has been recognized as one of the leading factors contributing to political instability in most countries, particularly in Africa.? It is not the influx of weapons into Nigeria that is the cause of the violent conflicts and violent crimes, but certainly the availability of weapons and easy access to them tend to prolong crises and make them more lethal. Proliferation of arms and the trafficking and circulation of hard drugs are in the category of what are referred to in the 2006 UN Secretary General’s Report as the “enabling factors” of armed conflicts, factors that are not sufficient on their own to cause conflicts, but either exacerbate the root causes or contribute to an environment that facilitates armed conflict.? There is no doubt therefore that illicit arms trafficking fuels conflicts, contributes to high crime rates, and feeds the arsenals of terrorists. Nigeria’s porous land and coastal borders provide ample opportunities for illicit trafficking in the small arms and light weapons used by criminals to perpetrate their activities.???
The Civil Society and the Media
One of the very important dimensions of good governance is strong civil society, which includes the media. The 7th Global Forum on Reinventing Government and Building Trust in Governance noted that the civil society’s role is important in the articulation of views and opinions; in the monitoring and evaluation of government policies and programmes; and in the mobilization of local resources and expertise to meet local and community-based needs.? Most importantly the civil society plays a “watchdog” role to monitor public institutions and governments. Being the fourth estate of the realm, media has a very important watchdog role in national development, in addition to its other roles as the gatekeeper, agenda setter, and force multiplier. However, if the Nigerian media were a physical object, it is possible to dissect it by half, with each side representing sectional or religious interests.
There is no doubt that the media in Nigeria (I prefer looking at it that way, than calling it Nigerian media because there is nothing Nigerian about it) is sectional, bias, sensational and plays a tremendous negative role in Nigeria’s national development. You only need to pick a newspaper and browse the headlines, and you would be accurate in assigning it to a particular section of the country in terms of the ethnic or religious interests it represents. Worse, the social media, a product of development in ICT, has become a source of political instability which faceless people using it as a platform to insult, abuse and defame the character of individuals and organizations that may not have the opportunity to be heard, or even seek redress. The social media has become a vehicle for spreading hate messages, which is most common among Nigerian users. It must be instructive to note however that as a general rule the media, so long it is free and independent; professional and objective, is a core ingredient of democracy, thus of good governance, national security and sustainable human development.
Conclusion
In conclusion, good governance requires respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law; compliance with accepted standards and norms; transparent, accountable and participatory leadership; an independent judiciary and institutionalized checks and balances; and free and fair elections for building legitimacy and authority of government. It is through good governance that poverty is eliminated; jobs and sustainable livelihoods are created; the environment is protected; advancement of women is promoted; education, healthcare, food and shelter are guaranteed; human capital is developed; and economic growth is assured. Of course, the success in good governance and sustainable development would guarantee national security, in which “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want” as fundamental rights of all persons, are guaranteed.
THANK YOU
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