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Annual Report 2001

Insights:
The Persistence of Social Violence in Nigeria

Two years ago I made a sweep ing statement at a seminar with 40 young people from the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I told the youths who appeared enthusiastic about our seminar that the violence in their society was much more difficult to heal than the one I have worked with in Sierra Leone. Surprisingly for me, I immediately lost the young people after this statement. They took me to task and disagreed vehemently. I honestly regretted the statement and blamed it on my usual spontaneity.

However, two years after that sweeping statement I still cannot convince myself that it holds no truth. Instead, more and more I am convinced that the violence in Nigeria will be more difficult to heal than the terrible atrocity I have seen in Sierra Leone. The difference between the two countries is that Sierra Leone’s violence is primarily political while the one in Nigeria is social.

That one is political or social does not suggest that their manifestations are necessarily different. They both ravage communities, destroy lives and properties and grossly violate the sanctity of life. However, political violence is the violence that is ignited and enabled for political motives. The prize for this brutal contestation is the control of state power. As long as power is in question and is there for the taking, political violence will rage on.

Because political violence threatens the state, international diplomacy has some remedy for it. For example organizing elections to transform the violence into a more noble and acceptable competition and the imposition of sanction on noncompliant groups have been used to end political violence.

In Sierra Leone’s political struggle there was less and less manipulation of social difference. The conflict did not polarise the society nor did it thrust itself in the psyches of groups. The slogan is still clear—that the rebels are fighting to stamp out corruption and to establish good governance and that Liberia’s Charles Taylor is to blame. The violators of human rights are not associated with any tribe. They are essentially members of groups that are held responsible for their crimes. The groups themselves are political and military entities whose members are drawn from every tribe.

In another seminar, Dr. ChiChi Catherine Aniagolu, a young Nigerian scholar who served as a professor in Ireland before returning home, lamented at the terrible devaluation of life in her country. Many prefer to seek their own justice because they have lost confidence in the state. Even state officials constantly organize their own private security. Hundreds of lives are lost periodically in inter-ethnic and inter-religious violence while youths made disgruntled in the Niger Delta now see violence as the only way out. Others who are lucky enough to attend university prefer the security offered in cults—cults that also romanticise violence.

Political violence is driven by interest while social violence is driven by need. In social violence people are fighting to exist. Social violence first attacks the soul (or mind) and plants the sense of unsafety. Thereafter, it forces its victim to begin to wonder about the dignity of life; thus leading to dehumanisation of self and others.

In the state of dehumanisation and insecurity, individuals cling to groups with whom they share an identity marker that has gained prominence in the violence. All other forms of identification disappear and the individual only sees him/herself by the marker that is threatened or one that provides some sense of safety whether perceived or real.

Memory, a composite of our individual and collective identity is wounded and at times collapses. In other words, social violence stripes one of his/her humanity and replaces it with inhumanity. And as long as the society loses its sense of humanity, it is bound for the furnace of violence.

The distinction between the two does not suggest that they always exist in separate time and space. In fact they almost always inspire each other. Long political struggle that exploits social difference soon transforms into social violence; while more social violence are often the exploitative and manipulative gimmicks of politicians.

Throughout history, politicians have always exploited social violence or the history of social violence. Nigeria is a typical example. Why wasn’t the Sh’ariah altercation more prominent when Northerners ruled the country for nearly two decades? Since social violence is often exploited to keep politicians in power, they always keep it away from the limelight to avoid international outcry. It still puzzles me why very little effort is made to prosecute those who instigate and perpetrate religious and ethnic violence in Nigeria. Even when over five hundred people are killed, life returns to ‘normal’ once the Federal Army stops the violence. We have not heard of any religious or ethnic leader being prosecuted for social violence nor has there been concerted effort to resolve disputes between groups in the country.

In homes, in the streets, and in people’s relationships and psyches violence is creeping and is firmly establishing itself in Africa’s most populous and West Africa’s strongest state. A more collaborative effort is required to mitigate this terrible scenario and it will take Nigerians who are willing to rise above the tendency to deny, to roll off their sleeves, and get to work!
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