By Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja

The current Hon. Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice is a lawyer for whom I have absolute respect for.

My respect for him is rooted in his capacity for legal research and legal advocacy to identify aspects of our legal system and jurisprudence that requires changes and to follow through with such changes.

It is in this spirit that the AGF, in his erstwhile position as a lawyer for Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi (RCA) made an indelible contribution to the jurisprudence of Nigeria in the case of Amaechi vs. Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and others (2008) In that case the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled that votes belong to the political party and not to a candidate, that is how CRA was installed as Governor of Rivers State although he never featured or contested in the Governorship election.

It is in this same spirit of making contributions to the jurisprudence of Nigeria, that I am writing this open letter to the Hon. Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

This letter is an appeal for the Hon. AGF to reconsider his previous position where he stated as follows:

“The appointment of Egbetokun which took effect from 31st day of October, 2023 would have come to an end on his attainment of 60 years of age on 4th day of September, 2024,” the statement reads.

“However, before his retirement age, the Police Act was amended to allow the occupant of the office to remain and complete the original four-year term granted under Section 7 (6) of the Act, notwithstanding the fact that he has attained the age of 60 years.

“This has, therefore, statutorily extended the tenure of office of Egbetokun to and including the 31st day of October 2027, in order to complete the four-year tenure granted to him.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Egbetokun’s continuous stay in office is in line with the provisions of the Police Act amended in 2024 which allow the occupant of the office to enjoy a term of four years effective from the date of his appointment as IGP, in this case, 31st day of October 2023.”

Contrary to the foregoing assertions by the Hon. AGF, I hold the view that it is only through an alteration of Sections 214, 215 and 216 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as altered) that the tenure of the Inspector-General of Police can be extended.

The logic behind this argument is that, the office of the Inspector-General of Police is a direct creation and established by the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria therefore, it is only through an alteration of the said Constitution that changes can be made to the tenure of office of the said Inspector-General of Police.

For the avoidance of any doubts, Section 215, of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution is reproduced hereunder:

“Appointment of Inspector-General and control of Nigeria
Police Force

(1) There shall be –
(a) an Inspector-General of Police who, subject to section 216(2)
of this Constitution shall be appointed by the President on
the advice of the Nigeria Police Council from among serving
members of the Nigeria Police Force;”

In support of my assertion that, an alteration of the Constitution is the ONLY method to achieve tenure extension of the IGP, I respectfully urge the Hon. AGF to consider the Fifth Alteration Act, No.37 of June 8th 2023 wherein the 1999 Nigerian Constitution was altered to provide a uniform age of retirement and pension for all judicial officers of the courts that were created by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution.

The reason is because the offices of the judges of all the aforesaid judicial officers were created by the said 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as altered), therefore changes to their age of retirement must equally be effected through an alteration of the same 1999 Nigerian Constitution.

Respected Hon. AGF knows fully well that by an application of the BLUE PENCIL RULE and Section 1 (3) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as altered), the said Section 7 (6) of the Police (amendment) Act, 2024 which purports to extend the tenure of the IGP is unconstitutional to the extent of its inconsistency with the provisions of Sections 214, 215 and 216 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as altered).
This view is supported by the judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in the case of Attorney-General of Bendel State vs. Attorney-General of the Federation (1982) NCLR 1

There is an additional issue that I respectfully urge the Hon. AGF to consider. This view was canvassed in a recent case when we (Association of Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners-ALDRAP) filed a law suit at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria to challenge the attempt by the National Assembly to enact a law to extend the age of retirement of the Clerk to the National Assembly from 60 to 65 or from 35 to 40 years of service whichever comes first.

In that lawsuit, we argued as follows:

“Nigeria public servants in established and pensionable cadre of the Federal Government Service do not hold their offices at the pleasure of the Federal Government. Rather, their appointments are based upon rules and regulations, statutes, or memoranda of appointment, citing Morakinyo v. Ibadan City Council [1964] 1 All NLR 219 and paragraph 11(1) of Part I of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution.

That since the Public Service Rules, statutes, or memoranda of appointment, all derive from the Constitution, they all have constitutional force, citing Olaniyan v. University of Lagos [1985] 2 NWLR (Pt. 9) 599 and Shitta-Bey v. Federal Public Service Commission [1981] 1 SC 40; [1981] LPELR-3056(SC).

That by virtue of the Public Service Rules 2021 (as amended), the compulsory retirement age for all grades in the Service shall be 60 years or 35 years of pensionable service, whichever is earlier. Accordingly, that no officer shall be allowed to remain in service after attaining the retirement age of 60 years or 35 years of pensionable service, whichever is earlier.”

Following from the above, by enactment of the Police Act, 2020, the IGP and all other police officers are now classified as “public servants” by virtue of the definition of”public servants” as provided under the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, therefore, it logically follows that their age of retirement is the same with other public servants as defined by the same Constitution, which pegs it at 60 years of age!!!

On this note, I rest my case and await your re-consideration of your stance on this matter, failing which we (ALDRAP) shall file a lawsuit at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria to seek a clarification on this subject matter!!!

Yours faithfully,
Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja,
Secretary, ALDRAP,
31st January 2025.

By Rev. Fr. John Odey

I believe that the regular readers of the articles I post in different social media platforms must have observed that I post each part of the series every four days. It is also pertinent to point it out that while the articles always bear the dates they are posted, they are normally written one or two days before they are posted. On January 27, 2025, I posted my article, Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System: The Book That Made Dele Farotimi an Epic Celebrity. About two hours later, I read on the social media what I am in the best of dispositions to describe as a Happy Coincidence. It is this: Afe Babalola Withdraws Suits Against Farotimi. The first paragraph of the article explained:

“Aare Afe Babalola SAN, the Founder of Afe Babalola University in Ado Ekiti, announced in the early hours of Monday his decision to withdraw the legal actions against activist and lawyer Dele Farotimi…Farotimi faced trial for alleged criminal defamation at the Ekiti State Magistrate Court and for alleged cyber-bullying at the Ado Ekiti Division of the Federal High Court. However, following the intervention of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, and other prominent traditional rulers during a midnight meeting, Babalola declared at ABUAD that he would instruct his lawyers to withdraw the criminal case.”

The journalist who reported the incident gave the names of many prominent and respectable Yoruba traditional leaders who prevailed on Babalola to withdraw the suits. Other people who are also reported to have persuaded him to settle the case out of court include former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the man that every peace-loving Nigerian would be happy to associate with and to listen to, Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese. Among other reasons, having been disposed to withdraw the suits, the legal luminary, Afe Babalola, SAN, is reported to have given the following as his reasons for the withdrawal:

“There is nothing I am going to gain from his imprisonment. There is nothing I am going to gain from so-called damages. I am not in quest of more wealth, rather how to spend what I have for the benefit of others. The only time I am happy is when I give. The request is simple; take away this criminal case in court. When Obasanjo wrote, he came here, I said no, when Kukah phoned and came I said no, but on this occasion, I say yes. Thank you, Kabiyesis. I will speak to my lawyers to withdraw it.”

This is good news. Many thanks should go to all the prominent Nigerians who brokered peace by making the withdrawal of the suits from the court possible. Many thanks should equally go to the legal luminary, Afe Babalola, SAN, for being modest enough to accept the appeal made by a horde of respectable Yoruba and other people. The Yoruba traditional leaders have sufficiently displayed the wisdom for which they are known. Afe Babalola has equally proved to Nigerians that he deserves all the respect given to him. The decision to withdraw the suits clearly demonstrates his wisdom.

However, in addition to the reasons Babalola declared I am more inclined to believe that there are more fundamental reasons for his decision to withdraw the suits. In my first article on this issue, Dele Farotimi: A Martyr For Truth And Justice, I recalled the warning that was given to the British by Prof. Gilbert Murray of Oxford University which was cited by Louis Fischer, an American journalist, in his book, Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World. Winston Churchill who was then the British Prime Minister and Gandhi’s chief antagonist in his fight for the freedom of his people from British oppression was warned that he would lose the battle because he was fighting with a man who did not care for anything in the world except for what is right and just.

Gandhi did not care for sensual pleasures. He did not care for comfort. He did not care for praise. He did not care for slander. He did not care for adulation. He did not care for insult. He did not care for demotion. He did not care for promotion. Above all, he was a man who, once he made up his mind to do what he believed to be right only death could stop him. The only thing he feared on earth is moral transgression. For this reason, the British were warned that Gandhi was a dangerous and uncomfortable person to deal with by any enemy because he had crossed the Rubicon of fear. Gandhi eventually won. He single-handedly secured political independence for India.

Anybody who carefully listens to Dele Farotimi each time he talks about the endemic decay in Nigeria, the hopelessness that decay spreads through the very essence and foundation of our being, and his readiness to surrender his life, if the need arises, in his battle against the decay, should understand that he is not a man to be taken for granted. In my first article mentioned above, I recalled certain statements of his which should have informed whoever decided to deal with him that he was dealing with a man who had conquered fear and so should have been circumspect. Let me refresh the reader’s mind with those statements once more. He said:

1. It is alright to have fears, what is wrong is to receive the fears in one’s spirit, and to then allow these fears to dictate your actions and inactions. When fears stand in the way of your purpose, you must find the grace to discount such fears, except reason advises otherwise.
2. Fear narrows perspectives and thereby limits your capacity to see your options clearly, enforcing tunnel vision on the afflicted; flight or fight. Look again; those are only two of the several options available to the unafraid. Get rid of you fears, your fears, fear you.”
3. Tyrants do not scare me, and I am completely unfazed by their kept dogs, be those in uniform or out. Faced by those shorn of fears, they are naught but scarecrows. Men of straw in need of darkness to be men!

For those who have not seen and have not read the controversial book, it has only 96 pages in all. This must have accounted for its description as pamphlet by Afe Babalola during his meeting with the Yoruba leaders. All the same, the contents of this pamphlet have shaken the nation’s judiciary to its foundation and made every corrupt judge in Nigeria jittery. The book is small but mighty. It is a small axe that has felled a mighty and dreaded Iroko tree.

Anybody who carefully listens to Dele Farotimi each time he talks about the endemic decay in Nigeria, the hopelessness that decay spreads through the very essence and foundation of our being, and his readiness to surrender his life, if the need arises, in his battle against the decay, should understand that he is not a man to be taken for granted. Granted that what he has been saying about his readiness to surrender his life and everything in the cause of truth and justice if the need arises were not enough to convince his detractors that he was not playing on words, he reiterated the same in the book in the following two remarkable statements:

1. I have absolutely no problem with meeting every single writ that anyone might care to issue for libel and the evidence of the truth that I have told are largely in the courts’ records.
2. There are times in the history of men and nations when the purpose, personal or corporate, becomes more important than our own lives. The truth of the putrefaction of our country as typified by the stinking corruption of the judiciary is urgent and by far more important than my personal convenience and or life. If I must self-immolate for you to behold the extent of the rot, so be it. But I urge you, my dear audience, not to allow my sacrifice to be made in vain.

Irrespective of the reasons given by Afe Babalola for withdrawing the suits, a more critical assessment of the situation persuades me to believe that these two statements and the following other factors constitute the real reason for the withdrawal.

We saw the moving video where Dele Farotimi was overwhelmed by emotion and cried in appreciation of the breathtaking solidarity he got from Nigerians during the 21 days when he was incarcerated in Ekiti prison. We saw how he thanked Nigerians for not minding his ethnicity and religion but stood with him and spoke for him. We heard him speak about the chains which corrupt judges and corrupt politicians have fashioned to hold us down as their helpless victims while they continue their insatiable plunder of the country’s wealth to our collective detriment. He said:

“We stopped being humans because we became Nigerians. They divided us and we fell for it. Because you would not see me as a Yoruba man, you spoke for me. You would not see me as a Christian, you spoke for me. Because you spoke, Nigeria could not happen to me. You found your voices, I became you and in our collective, we could not be silenced.”

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Champers, Afe Babalola’s law firm, wanted the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) to disbar Farotimi from legal practice for their so-called unethical conduct. But the LPDC refused, assuring his detractors that the allegations against him had to do with the book he wrote and not with his practice as a lawyer. Farotimi is a lawyer who is committed to using the instrumentality of the law to dethrone injustice and enthrone justice. Why should he be debarred? Like the Socrates of old, he is the stinging gadfly that Nigeria needs most if she must ever come out of the current asphyxiating criminal justice system. Instead of debarring the only one we currently have, more Dele Farotimis are urgently needed to sting back to life the dead consciences of corrupt judges and politicians who in all vanity imagine Nigeria to be their personal property while the rest of us are mere slaves labouring to maintain their luxury.

These are the real reasons Babalola had to withdraw the suits. He is a big fish. But he discovered that it is dangerous for him to swallow Dele Farotimi. Farotimi made a mockery of fear. He became so daring in the face of threat that fear began to fear him. The worst thing anybody can do to a man who feels that he is so powerful that people must either praise him or keep their mouths shut even when he is wrong is to confront him squarely with his wrongdoing. A small fish like Dele Farotimi publicly declared that tyrants do not scare him, that he is completely undeterred by those in uniform who play the role of personal watchdogs to tyrants and terrorise innocent Nigerians. Farotimi is so daring over the issue at stake that any reasonable person engaging him in a battle, no matter how powerful he is, should learn to apply all the brakes.

Whether one has read law or not, the basic meaning of libel as defined by the English dictionary is that it is “a false and published malicious statement that damages somebody’s reputation.” Let us break down this definition to see if it can help us understand what has happened between Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi. The keyword in the definition is False. If it is true that what Farotimi published in his book about Babalola is false, he would be charged as guilty in the court for damaging his reputation. In that case, the court would determine the amount of money he would pay as reparation to the man whose reputation he damaged, or how long he would be jailed. On the other hand, if it is discovered that what Farotimi wrote in his book about Babalola is True would Farotimi still be considered as being guilty? In that case, my layman’s understanding of the law tells me that Farotimi would not be said to be guilty in that case since what he said in the book is true. In other words, if what he said is true, if there is any damage of reputation emanating from that, it is the person who did what he should not have done, which is written in that book, that damaged his reputation and not the person who told the world what he truly did.

The truth is that the withdrawal of the suits is not an act of magnanimity on the part of Afe Babalola. Knowing that Farotimi would have exposed him more in the court and seeing how determined Nigerians, irrespective of religion and ethnicity, were in their solidarity with Farotimi, he had no option than to look for a way to wriggle out of the battle he suddenly discovered he was bound to lose. He certainly crashed against a formidable rock in the person of Dele Farotimi. But the Yoruba leaders in their wisdom rallied round in the nick of time to save whatever vestige of his reputation that had not been destroyed by the controversial book. He is very lucky. As the saying goes, the reader should use his tongue to count his teeth.

Corrupt judges and corrupt politicians have destroyed Nigeria. But as Martin Luther King Junior said in his book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? “When evil men combine, good men must unite. When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb good men must build and bind. When evil men conspire to preserve an unjust status quo, good men must unite to bring about the birth of a society undergirded by justice.”

Dele Farotimi has demonstrated to good people in Nigeria that there is an urgent need for them to unite; that they must plan to thwart the evil plot of corrupt judges and politicians; that they must unite to fight the conspiracy of corrupt judges and politicians that are bent on perpetuating the preservation of unjust status quo; that they must unite and fight the endemic decay in the judicial system in order to bring about the Nigeria of our good dreams where truth, justice and peace will reign.

Nigeria needs two-pronged battle, the battle of wits and the battle of courage, to pull her out of the judicial putrefaction where corrupt judges and politicians have lured it into. By combining wits and courage, Dele Farotimi has shown us that Nigeria is not beyond redemption. But the battle is too cumbersome for him alone. I want to believe that the unprecedented solidarity that Nigerians have been giving to him since December 3, 2024 when he was arrested in Lagos and extradited to Ekiti State is a proof that many people, particularly legal representatives, are prepared to fight the battle with him. We pray let it be so.

My new article describes a transformational role universities can play in catalyzing sustainable development by emphasizing social science disciplines and research methods that assist local communities’ planning and implementing projects for the future they want to create.

By Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir
Marrakech

Most of our world is experiencing a time of public discontent that now necessitates accomplishing a better and different driver of renewal for our cities and rural places. Let us consider a new approach, rooted in a long-held understanding of the purpose of education, in which the experience develops the student’s critical consciousness and capacity that is integral to the process of social change. To that end, a proposed new type of institution, the University of Participatory Learning and Action (UPLA), would serve the need for community development and innovation.

Few academicians in humanities today actively pursue social change as an inseparable part of their research and as a purposeful outcome of their work. Most social scientists stop once they are able to provide explanations for causes of social problems that they decide are most important to the public. Some of them continue to detail inherently top-down solutions based on their analysis of (usually) limited quantitative data gathered from extractive questionnaires and interviews. Much of this research methodology creates the very attitudes they then measure.

Whether a crisis in public health, natural disaster response, or social and economic stability, our resilience depends upon exceptional support for local communities to advance smarter and equitable enterprises. UPLA will be a generator of local people’s projects that they then manage so as to meet community-wide needs in food security, health, livelihoods, education, and other sectors of life. It will be a planning and implementing hub for students and educators from all backgrounds seeking sustainable, widespread prosperity by assisting community-driven research and action.

A hopeful pattern we are seeing in our world is that universities are requiring students to engage in volunteerism with human service organizations. Universities increasingly seek to impact in the best of ways their neighboring communities and beyond. Still, the social sciences, even if born from humanity’s journey to improve the general welfare, see most of their practitioners not embracing their own disciplines’ activist identities, lest their investigations be labeled as “biased” and they are no longer viewed as scientists.

The social science pendulum has been swinging in recent decades, alongside the global ascendency of knowledge (from practice) that communities’ self-described development priorities and solutions are most determinant factors for sustainability. Ethnographic data therefore really matter. UPLA’s time has come. Our collective urgency for widespread growth, security, and a new environmental dawn, must now bring UPLA’s arrival.

UPLA students and faculty will facilitate inclusive dialogue on local project design and implementation (participatory action research). Within two years, with a student body of 600 guided by 25 faculty, hundreds of projects in the civil, public, and private sectors will have been identified and be ready for implementation, initiatives that reinvest and build cohesion, transforming lives and counties. UPLA graduates will be empowered and will empower, forged from the transformative experience of remedying social disparity.Humanities in our time must engage people to discover and act.

UPLA will offer the following 13 social sciences that have strong foundations in service and collaborative learning and research, and advancing community participation: Adult Education, Anthropology, Applied Economics, Architectural Planning, Communications, Development Studies, Geography, Psychology, Public Affairs and Politics, Public Health, Social Work, Sociology, and Women’s and Gender Studies.

UPLA will also be an international education center for students and professionals to receive coaching in applying field methods with people of towns, villages, neighborhoods and districts—women and men, young and older—to collectively analyze their situations and opportunities for enhancing their livelihoods. Then, based on their information and consulting with technical experts and partners, local communities will fulfill their self-determined action plans.

Methods come from hundreds of such activities that exist across the disciplines and sectors, that go by as many names, with “participatory” being in a number of them. Such methods are primarily qualitative and promote interaction and information-sharing. They assist communities in forging visions and goals, in defining timelines and detailing budgets. They use visual tools not requiring participants’ literacy, and illuminate contextualized realities so beneficiaries can fashion strategies conducive for success.

UPLA will be a house of the people’s knowledge that assists their decision-making about their futures. It could therefore not only appropriately inform the frameworks of global commitments, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, but also dramatically help accomplish them. UPLA will be at the forefront of pedagogical entrepreneurship that enables global communication pathways to gain broad grassroots perspectives across nations, a compelling new form of interaction to strengthen solidarity.

How do we establish UPLA? We begin with the relationships that we have, in the places where we live. There are many ideal locations for UPLA in the United States. Unrelenting poverty in upstate New York, for example, has left abandoned educational centers, the renovation and use of which could provide economic stimulus for those communities.

Likewise, while the High Atlas Foundation has collaborated with Moroccan public and private universities to provide “learning-by-doing” development workshops, it would be more productive to catalyze all research of academic programs with local people. We could directly and measurably improve conditions with a UPLA center in the northeast of the country that is struggling for realized opportunity, toward the mountains south of Marrakech, or north of Errachidia where systemic poverty is concentrated.

Are there public officials and agencies, corporate leaders and businesses, and individuals, who are willing to partner, to dedicate a building, to fund a community’s entrepreneurial idea, to embed or advocate embedding UPLA into national and global rebuilding plans? We must do this together in order for students, teachers, and communities to achieve sustainable societies with full action-research capabilities.

Students of Ibn Zohr University in Agadir (Morocco) experientially learning the participatory planning method, Mapping Our Community (Photo by HAF; 10 December 2024).
Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is a sociologist and President of the High Atlas Foundation based in Marrakech, Morocco.

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By IfeanyiChukwu Afuba

Between 1985 and 2000, the Aka Circle of Artists was a prominent feature in Nigeria’s art scene with her yearly group exhibitions. On the occasion of her 1990 outing, Nsikak Essien, a member of the 13-man fraternity, came up with a work titled Armageddon. It was a montage of horrifying news stories, each as shocking and saddening as the other. The long run of tragedies, natural and man-made, all happening in a few years, truly evoked a feeling of damnation. Where are we headed, was the natural reaction the artist’s portrait elicited. And yet, those were the days of “innocence” compared to the present hellish times. Thirty – five years ago, we heard of kidnapping only in thriller fiction. Today, kidnappers, ritualists, cultists, killer herdsmen, bandits, separatist gunmen, and what have you, rain havoc everywhere, leaving the streets flowing with blood. The violence of criminality has inflicted a climate of desperation on many of us; eroded reason in much of Nigerian society, triggering an upsurge in the terrorism of jungle justice. We seem caught helplessly in this double tragedy that tears at the moral fabric of our society. Where do we go from here?

Daily, the base side of our being is on the ascent, nurturing and spewing hate; as it were, overwhelming the natural instincts of compassion and brotherhood. How have human beings, born with emotions of pity and fear turned into beasts; into unfeeling sadists; into savages with insatiable appetites for torture? This is the question that comes to mind when you watch videos of the harrowing experiences kidnap victims are subjected to in the bush. What kind of heart condemns fellow humanity to sleep in thick forests, exposed to the elements? How do the captors activate the cold-mindedness to beat their hostages routinely and ruthlessly in the bid to speed up ransom payment? Are their ears sealed with wax that they do not hear the anguished cries of their captives? Are their stimuli castrated that they cannot be moved by the painful cry of the tortured? In one particularly heart-wrenching video, the sadistic gunmen set fire to a plastic container and let the balls of fire drop on the hostages. Are these monsters or human beings? Can anyone who has not sold himself or herself to the devil act so outrageously?

And there are responsible – looking men and women who collaborate with these heartless barbarians in various ways. Theirs too is another abhorrent story; an equally dangerous angle draped with deceptive cover of respectability. There are the spies who monitor the roads for the terrorists, who feed the criminals with information on security deployment and movements. They communicate the ruffians in the bush on the location of checkpoints, the strength of security personnel manning them and when the patrol teams depart. There are the other set of spies who identity and mount surveillance on individuals with high kidnap value. Their daily routine is quietly studied, processed and followed up for some time to determine regular movement patterns. This intelligence gathering is provided by harmless-looking individuals in our communities who nevertheless know the horror that awaits those they prey on. We have those who help the extortionists collect and put the blood ransom to use. At this stage, you must wonder, how with the flow of funds that pass through their hands, these outlaws always look gaunt and wretched. And there are those who provide them with needed supplies on a regular basis. These accomplices mingle with other citizens on the streets daily, managing to put on calm, smiling faces. Where is their humanity?

We also contend with the unrestrained violating the sanctity and dignity of life, right on the streets, in our homes and neighbourhoods. What do we make of the scary stories that make headlines in both traditional and social media? In the second week of January 2025 we had: “Man Rapes 3-Year-Old Girl”; “Female Corper Butchered By Gospel Singer”; Man Sets Lover Ablaze During Argument in Abuja”. And there’s the video of a lady staff accused of theft in a boutique being brutalised by three men. And so on and so forth. Now, it seems a worst case scenario, a vicious cycle of violence that we have on our hands.

Except a formidable security team intervenes promptly and decisively, a suspect caught at public crime scene will most probably receive jungle justice. And people do not flinch at the thought of deliberately setting a human being on fire. Some of us can stand at close quarters to watch the victim writhing in unspeakable pain of consuming fire – without wincing empathically. Then, one more form of dehumanisation – stripping and parading suspects naked. This madness of the mob is not restricted to crime suspects. Sexual offenders are also subjected to this sleazy assault. A few days ago I saw photos of a young man and woman accused of adultery in Cameroun forced to squeeze themselves into a pair of jeans trousers!

What do the mobs gain from these contemptible humiliations of accused persons? How does stripping a fellow of his human dignity address the wrong they presumably committed? The very idea is sick; enforcing such arbitrariness as social order is nothing but descent to animal level. And as always with mob action, the danger of condemning innocent persons guilty is always there. Remember the Aluu 4? In the blind rage of a mob, four young gentlemen, undergraduates of the University of Port Harcourt were pronounced robbers, beaten black and blue, then slowly burnt to death on October 5, 2012! And here was one of them, cringing and drawing his body away from the flames only to be pushed back again and again to the furnace of excruciating pain. The video I watched showed an acquiescing crowd comprising teenagers, youth, middle-aged and a sprinkling of elderly people. If you could not save the young men, did you have to encourage the murderers in their evil deed?

Perhaps, psychoanalytic theories offer some help in understanding extremist behaviour. They are generally viewed as bordering on “maladjustment and personality dysfunction.” While some experts believe that abused childhood could trigger violent reactions later in life, Freudian studies indicate that an individual’s id, quest for power and dominance could brew a monster. Thus, care should be taken not to adopt a simplistic explanation of barbarism.

Would the rationalisation of abandonment and dispossession by society advanced in analysis of those camped in the forests also apply to domestic aggressors? If want of money alone was the prod to crime, what do we say about rising cases of hostages killed even with payment of ransom? Even in cases of ritual killing to make money, we must distinguish between need and greed. Just as the ego and superego offer the means to overcome raw instincts of the id, modern society still produces heroes of humanity. These testaments of universal brotherhood, accommodation of the other, empathy for the distressed and the common good have the capacity to heal society if widely embraced.

On a hot, dry afternoon sometime in 1977 or 1978, we idled about in the dormitory at College of the Immaculate Conception, Enugu, waiting for the lunch bell. We were generally tired after the day’s classes. But from one end of the dormitory, I heard rising voices, a growing altercation, scuffles and seconds later, a fight broke out. As efforts were made to separate the two boys locked in tight grips, word got to the housemaster who lived close by. Five minutes later, the two combatants and a small number of house members were at the court of Mighty, the house master, sitting on the porch of the quarters where he lived. After listening to the accounts of what led to the fight, he went inside the house. Everyone was expecting him to emerge with canes. Reappearing shortly after, he held two ten Kobo coins, emitting shimmering rays of fresh mint, in his hands. “It’s the hunger”, he said as he stepped out. We all moped at him as though he had spoken Greek. Handing out a coin to each of them, Mighty continued. “You buy a loaf of bread for yourself. A hungry man is an angry man.” The assembly erupted in excitement, and as it did so, tension, ill feeling, grudges gave way to lightheartedness, grace and sense of overcoming.

The likes of Mr Auwal Dankode, a cleaner, who in August 2024 returned ten thousand dollars found in an aircraft in Kano, counter the argument that poverty compels resort to crime. Nelson Mandela proved himself a hero of humanity when on becoming President of South Africa, he resisted the temptation to take revenge against those who put him behind bars for twenty – seven years. And this was a man whose mid life, the crucial stage between youth and old age when major achievements are recorded – had been brutally taken away from him. But he came out from prison preaching reconciliation. On May 13 1981, a Turkish gunman, Agca Mehmet Ali fired four shots at Pope John Paul II at close range as he greeted a crowd at St Peter’s Square, Vatican City.

The Pope was hit in the abdomen, right arm as well as left arm and had to undergo a four-hour surgery. On regaining consciousness, the pontiff made a short broadcast assuring that he was out of danger, and asked for prayers, not for himself, but for his attacker. On discharge from hospital, the Pope promptly visited Agca in his cell and told him: I forgive you. Following a release application by the now-acclaimed saint, Agca was set free in 2000. Many would have seen the picture making the rounds on social media of a white lady picking up a thoroughly emaciated toddler said to have been abandoned somewhere in Calabar. The kid, so skinny, could barely stand. But there’s an accompanying photo of the same lad, now an able-bodied youth, beaming with smiles on matriculation gown with the angelic lady hugging him. What a powerful win for humanity!

By IfeanyiChukwu Afuba

Col Ben Odogwu, Biafra’s Director of Military Intelligence, titled his war memoir, No Place to Hide. I guess that can be said of Nigeria of the present. North, south, east, west, every part of the country is reeling from an upsurge in violent criminality. Bandits continue to wreak havoc in parts of the north. On January 16, 2025, news broke of the shocking abduction of wife of a retired AIG, Mrs Hakeem Odumosu at the gate of her residence by heavily armed gunmen. And still on very daring assaults by criminal gangs this January, thirty – six passengers, including three soldiers were said to have been abducted from a passenger bus in Enugu State.

Then, with an unmistakable flash of deja vu, a trader, Mr Sunday Okafor was reported to have been killed with a parcel bomb at Onitsha. Given the alarming scale of crime for some time now, it’s not surprising that extreme, nay, dangerous measures are being proposed as solutions. One of such controversial proposals came from the Human Rights Writers Association (Huriwa), which canvassed the return of Bakassi Boys in Anambra State. Coming from an enlightened organisation, and a known voice in civil society, there’s the likelihood that sections of society may waive necessary scrutiny of the seemingly attractive call to embrace it readily. Often, there’s a heavy price to pay when populism is the major consideration in statecraft. So, let’s put the matter in context.

Under the headline “Huriwa Seeks Return of Dreaded Bakassi Boys to Tackle Insecurity in Southeast”, ThisDay, January 17, 2025, reported that National Coordinator of the body, Emmanuel Onwubiko made the proposal at Abuja.

“We suggest that since the existing security measures in place, including the establishment of state-wide vigilantes, have proven insufficient to bring about the defeat of these armed terrorists, there is now the need for the governments of the South-East of Nigeria to consider re-introducing the dreaded Bakassi Boys, train them, arm them, provide strict regulations with adherence to the Rule of Law, so these armed but regulated Bakassi Boys can be authorised to confront the South East based terror gangs.

We call on the governor of Anambra State, Mr. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, to consult the defunct leadership of old Bakassi Boys in Anambra State, to provide strategic guidelines for the new Bakassi Boys to adhere to so as to degrade, decimate and liquidate these armed terrorists, kidnappers and hoodlums unleashing violence of massive scales in all of South East of Nigeria. but more especially in Anambra State.”

Notwithstanding that the Anambra State Homeland Security Law 2025 has just come into effect, a broader view of the insecurity problem is necessary for better understanding of underlying issues. This appreciation will subsequently aid the recommendation of effective strategies and tactics for containing the situation, including the possible connection with Bakassi Boys and other formulas. It’s to be noted that Nigeria’s security challenge is a mixed bag. While they all pose threats to lives, property, political as well as socio-economic stability, there are differences in type and space of occurrence.

Boko Haram is conceived in the mould of the Taliban and ISIS and so presents a caliphate threat to Nigeria’s sovereignty. For now, the group’s operation is located mainly in parts of the northwest and northeast. This is to be differentiated from the onslaught of killer herdsmen pushing to appropriate grazing land in the middle belt, southwest and southeast. Separatist agitation produced its own brand of militancy in the southeast. Theirs is a campaign to coerce support for power ambitions using the secessionist framework. Then, of course, there is criminality common to all parts of Nigeria, exemplified by armed robbery, kidnapping, cannibalisation of public infrastructure and so on.

From this outlay of crime nature, we can distil their sources – a vital requirement for projecting panacea. Interestingly, there is a convergence on the motivation for much of the violence the country is facing. There is a common foundation in ideology. Thus, the insurgency in the north borders on extremist religious ideology; the bloody attacks misleadingly labelled farmers-herders clash, is also driven by ideology, belief in ethnic superiority and expansionism. Likewise, separatist movements in the southeast are rooted in perceptions of discrimination and suppression of the region. For all of these campaigns, the very task of asserting their respective missions creates violent conflicts.
These violent movements irrespective of their orientation, realise that they are up against the power of a State; of constituted authority.

They realise that their organisations are burdened by both illegitimacy and lack of resources. A critical reading of their operations suggests that the entities have placed financial capacity ahead of legitimacy. It should suffice that demonstration of their power ultimately accords them recognition as stakeholders to be negotiated with. But the demand of keeping their machinery running had to be immediately met. This rationale most probably gave rise to the wider reign of kidnapping as it provides funds for the prosecution of the organisations’ agenda. Some terrorist groups also go as far as imposing taxes on communities at their mercy.

As already noted, there are other shades of criminality. In this regard, we talk about crime influenced by purely economic consideration and criminality as a function of health cum personality disorder. Certainly, robbery and kidnapping are strictly business ventures for many gangs. Economic reasons would also account for oil bunkering, pipelines theft, cannibalisation of transformers and cables, ritual killings, human trafficking and a host of other vices. On the other hand, psychology tends to view extreme abhorrent behaviour such as those exhibited in cult killings and senseless gang wars as incidents of health disorder. Given the varied character of criminality ravaging the country, it follows that effective managing of the crises must reflect both the general and specific causes.

This discourse does not intend to address the former beyond the common thread of arms proliferation. The need to tackle the easy acquisition of firearms cannot be overemphasized. How do the gangs – big and small, organised and loose – how do these gangs terrorising Nigerians procure their assault weapons? Are they smuggled into the country or manufactured locally? Are there security breaches of institutions lawfully permitted to bear arms that provides a conduit for arms transfers? Confiscation and control of illegal arms trafficking must be the starting point of a war against insecurity. If the government puts a strong check on the illicit flow of arms, many criminal groups would be incapacitated.

Aside the military operations against insurgency, the situation in the northwest and northeast calls for educational campaign. For decades, the north has been at the bottom of pupil school enrollment statistics. This numerical relegation is a major reason behind the concept of “educationally disadvantaged states”. The significant population of out-of-school children are vulnerable to the indoctrination of religious terror cells. As the saying goes, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. The body of illiterate and unemployed youths presents recruitment pool for terrorist militias.

The government should stave off this danger by ensuring that school-age children are not left to roam the streets. They need access to quality education as well as orientation on citizenship. It’s good that History is back in the curriculum. The study of Nigerian history will help promote the cause of citizenship consciousness. However, it needs to be emphasised that orientations on national values should be accompanied by state empowerment programmes. A felt impression of the government’s concern for her citizens is necessary to ward off anti-State activism.

Relatedly, the execution of anti-crime strategies across the country will achieve little without attention to the dire socio-economic condition of the average Nigerian. Governments at all levels need to remember the maxim that a hungry man is an angry man. Nigeria’s underdeveloped status poses enough social challenges for the citizenry. Added to that is the bandwagon effect of withdrawn subsidy in Nigeria’s fuel economy. Even the middle class can barely afford the high cost of food today. As it were, the threat of starvation alone is a powerful motivation to crime. At no other time has the case for welfarism been so forceful as now. Considerable funds will be freed up for public service if there’s strong crackdown on corruption. Even when government pleads lack of funds to operate a welfare system, government will still spend money to feed prison inmates and run correctional services. As De Courson puts it, “more unequal societies tend to have higher crime as well as lower social trust.” From the perspectives of sociology, psychology and criminology, Nigeria’s current crime situation is probably a rebellion against the injustice of our system.

And what solutions can the Bakassi Boys bring in Anambra State; in the southeast? Although the advocacy for the Bakassi Boys did not spell out their superior mechanism in crime fighting, the takeaway from their previous outing between 2000 and 2002 was summary “trial” and execution of suspects. The purported trial of arrested suspects was nothing more than the hunches of the interrogators. However, many held the belief that the conviction of suspects was by fetish means. To complete the circle of barbarity, condemned suspects were allegedly mowed down with matchet cuts. It was a dark period of savagery when Anambra State’s landscape was painted red with blood. One therefore finds it shocking that a human rights community, of all constituencies, is recommending the very antithesis of human rights and due process. What contributions did the Bakassi outfit make to crime investigation analysis? What value did the body add to crime detection methods? What trail did it blaze in crime prevention strategies?

What legacy did the gun and machete-totting militia leave except that of cheapening human life and dignity? The clause of “providing strict regulations under the rule of way” does not take away the danger posed by such militia. Emergency vigilantes are often under pressure of expectation; and not being organic bodies, and without the conditioning of self-regulation, tend to put result before rules. And this is the challenge the Agunaechemba Security Service recently launched in Anambra State is likely to have. The haste to deliver in the face of massive outcry against insecurity usually pulls unorthodox security outfits on the slippery road of excesses.

A proactive approach to crime fighting, and one with emphasis on intelligence gathering, offers higher dividend than reliance on physical prowess, however intimidating. In the long run, a professionally-driven, permanent and civic-oriented security service holds out better prospects for protection of the public space. That qualification lies in State Police.