LAWLESSNESS; THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA By Leye Jokotoye

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A Yoruba proverb says that ‘Ilu ti ko si ofin ko is ese’. Nigeria is one country in the world were lawlessness is the order of the day. Were laws are bent, broken, disregarded, disobeyed and ignored with flagrant impunity! From top to bottom, leaders to followers, old and young, male and female.

Lawlessness has become our culture, our way of life, our modus operandi! In fact a law abiding person in Nigeria is viewed as a foolish person, an Holier than thou, a looser! Our lawlessness has no limits. It ranges from a danfo driver who decides to stop in the middle of the road to pick passengers, to a passenger who insist a danfo driver must stop for him right at a place of his convenience rather than a bus stop. Our lawlessness includes; political office holders, top civil servants, top police & military officers, who drive against traffic, without any care in the world (after all they are the law). Ministers who organise recruitment exercise for the sake of extorting Nigerian youth, thereafter causing their deaths.

Ministers who buy bulletproof cars that were not appropriated for in the budget. CBN governors that give out public funds to their kins men without following due process. Policemen who demand for bribes in dollars. VIO who stops a brand new car for road worthiness certificate while ignoring smoking trucks & rundown danfo buses. An educated illiterate with a masters degree who does not stop when the traffic light turns red. The mechanics & traders who ply their trades on the pedestrian side walk. The death wish citizens who dash across the expressway right beneath the pedestrian bridge. The telephone network operators who provides substandard service without being sanctioned.

The electricity company that issue bills, remove wires & terrorise consumers without providing a single second of electricity for months! The road maintenance agency that does shoddy repair jobs using political contractors. The member of the house of representative that collects bribe to help cover up fuel subsidy scandals and still remains in the house untouchable! The lecturer that sell handouts to students by fire by force and deliberately fail female students just to have his way with them. The police commissioner who blocks the entrance to a governor’s house. The members of the house of assembly who use the maze freely on one another.

The boat operator that overloads his vessel for profit causing it to capsize & kill innocent people. The JTF officers that collaborate with & provide security for crude oil thieves. The pension director that pockets billions of pensioners’ funds & still roams freely. Hm! This is just to mention a few. This lawlessness, the mother of impunity has eaten so deep into our morality, that we do things without any conscience. We care less whose Ox is gored! Ours is a country where senators marry under aged girls, where militants abduct hundreds of secondary school girls and we are all left helpless!

The irony of all this is that, Nigerians, when abroad obey the laws of those foreign lands to the letter. What then is the problem with us obeying our own laws. My believe is that every Nigerian is suspicious of his neighbor. Since the end of the civil war and the long encroachment of the military in our polity, Nigerians have come to believe that if they obey laws they do so at their own peril, since those at the helms of affairs are the leading law breakers. The Illegal military governments enriched themselves & their cohorts illegally, leaving the honest people in abject poverty. Thus fueling the syndrome of ‘if u can’t beat them, join them’ thereby leading to wide spread corruption, lawlessness & total impunity in every fabric of our national life!!!

Solution now is for us all to retrace our steps and do the right things, by first and foremost rewriting our constitution, organizing a true peoples national conference, where we will delete laws that promote stealing (e.g immunity clause), promulgate life imprisonment for corruption. Decentralize governance, let regions control their resources & taxes and contribute to the center. Rearrange the constitution, honestly & truthfully to serve the interest of the people, and not the interest of the rulers.

 

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