Ordinarily, it is inexplicable how-why the Buhari government has been reluctant, shy or has found it difficult to categorise or declare as terrorists the marauding bands of utterly despicable roughnecks terrifying the entire northern Nigeria landscape.
The government somehow curiously understands the necessary nexus between the origin, philosophy and operational methods of the state and those of its conflictive rival in the form of the emergent rascally group of roving bandits that have chanced upon Nigeria in the last six or so years. But the bandits have been long coming. The lamentable socio-economic and political condition of Nigeria has ensured their assured emergence and suzerainty.
Like the various warlords of early twentieth-century China, or the ones that have been operating in Afghanistan and Somalia since the beginning of the twenty-first century, these bandits are purely predatory as they seek to extract as many resources from the populace as possible.
At some point, a group of bandits could emerge stronger than all the others and come to dominate the entire society. These violent operators do not call themselves bandits but, on the contrary, give themselves some honorific titles. Their collaborators too find some fanciful appellation for them. Sometimes, they even lay claim to the divine right for their malfeasance. The only discernible difference between the state authority which claim a legitimate title to rule and the bandit’s seemingly conflictive operational methodology is simply that the state is a stationary bandit with a motive not different from that of the roving or non-state actor bandit.
The state, as a stationary bandit, recognises that by providing stability, order and other public desiderata to its society, it can become richer and more assertive to exact higher taxes from its subjects in the long run instead of going for short-term plunder.
From the standpoint of reasoned critique, this represents an advance on the roving bandits. But exactly the same rational self-interest that makes a roving bandit settle down and provide a government for his unwilling subjects also propels the state authority or stationary bandit to extract the maximum possible exaction from its subjects even as it foists some seemingly benevolent administration methods on its geographical space jurisdiction.
To compound Nigeria’s difficulties regarding the mischievous activities of her breed of roving bandits, President Muhammadu Buhari has proved a singularly ineffective helmsman even as he seems to endorse the roving bandits’ claim to self-actualisation or a right to a slice of the national cake. He deferred reorganisation of the security architecture for many critical months; was slow to set up division headquarters on the frontlines, etc. He insisted on carrying on business as usual by refusing to supplant effeminate or insensately corrupt commanders in spite of a raging onslaught by the bandits. No Commander-in-Chief ever had a more flabby or unimpressive contraption for combating a national menace as the scourge of the bandits. The whole nation has been in chaos regarding abductions, kidnappings, ritual murders, massacres, disruptions or sabotage of public utilities, savage attacks, etc even as the nation’s firepower has proved to be largely ineffective for reversing the monstrous trend. Public outcry and denunciation of the activities of the bandits instead of putting the government on track for achieving an amelioration or outright extermination of the menace have paradoxically stiffened official position in the direction of a feared complicity or kid glove-treatment of the bandits. As there has been no comeuppance even for proven acts of brigandage respecting the bandits, the evil machine of kidnapping and abduction, for instance, is daily being oiled by a curiously-sustained advocacy for forgiving “repentant” bandits.
The respective seminal view of Olson and Fukuyama that rulers are essentially bandits who extract as much as they can in taxes unless somehow politically prevented from doing so is a delightfully cynical understanding of the way that government works. The Buhari government is unyieldingly pushing for higher taxes as a corollary of an induced higher price regime even as both government and taxation are generally regarded with suspicion. Lack of administrative capacity and a pervasive regime of official corruption have generally limited tax revenues. Stationary bandits are in many respects like their roving counterparts. In running their estates, they both use their powers to the farthest degree possible. Their despotism runs throughout their reign or tenure. They often exhibit what may be charitably referred to as iron rule particularly in the area of revenue generation or tax assessment even as imposition of high taxes represents a moral failing on the part of the state. The official restraint on excessive or arbitrary exercise of power contained in the rule book or constitution is generally smugly ignored or strictly obeyed in the breach. Even though in many cases, the aide-memoire is fashioned with the political interest or predilection of the ruler in mind, the real constraint on the excessive exercise of the authority of the ruler will appear to be the fear of the enforcement by the people of their latent power to protest and press home their demands.
There is an observable lack of creative capacity to utilise the security services optimally or even to achieve the hegemonic desire of the ruler using the coercive apparatus of state. This is so because in his greed or avarice, a ruler shortchanges the armed forces by undersupplying their logistics requirements or by tampering with their budget relating to procurement and supplies. The state fully exhibits or manifests its banditry status as it rides roughshod on its citizens ignoring their pains and objections. In its most savage form, it unleashes the armed forces to extract from the people what it ought to have provided the armed forces. The police in Nigeria, for example, have had to depend on hapless complainants for the supply of petrol for operational vehicles, the provision of stationeries, the purchase of airtime credit, etc. even as announcements of humongous annual budgets for the police have become a ritual. Many memoranda on this subject matter have drawn little official attention.
Frequent and unceasing public angst including pungent private comments on the huge abuse of civil liberties and of the disdain for human rights of this administration are daily offerings in the media. They have made the degree of the government’s avowed commitment difficult to assess. Buhari’s friends have not tried to remind us that he is on course and utterly contemptuous of rights abuses. They say he is also ready to deal with their violations. His personal carriage or comportment regarding the matter hardly contains any allusions to the upholding of the virtues of human rights protection. Moreover, his published remarks on the abuses of civil liberties and human rights lack the urgency or the apocalyptic quality that are reserved for men of authority in dire situations like this. Most of his reactions are prompted by the prodding of his media handlers to sign public statements and most times they are no more than a laconic sentence or hackneyed phrase.
As President and leader of his party and government, Buhari has been besieged with demands to declare the ravaging bands of misanthropes in northern Nigeria as terrorists. Instead, he found it difficult to contemplate, not to talk of, acting in that direction. Buhari has chosen a sweeping but dangerous and intolerable appellation for them. They are “Bandits” seeking a livelihood; or they are fellow citizens in search of grazing land for their cattle. Or they are misguided proselytes. He has so far worked hard in the hope that all proposals to modify the existing machinery of state would fail or their proponents would be tired or exhausted and he will waffle on at our collective expense.
The import of Buhari’s indocility in government cannot be measured. All that is observable is that shortly after being elected president, his search for the golden fleece ceased. His chase has been un-hurrying, his pace is unperturbed. He has refused to take any steps that in reality would change the substance of a Constitution generally perceived as awkward or perverse as it stands. Buhari has refused to defeat the bandits even as he has found convergence in the historical development of the philosophy, mission and operational methods of the state and of the roving bandits’. The two are fulfilling a historical necessity, Buhari may have mused to himself.
Rotimi-John, a lawyer and public affairs commentator, wrote vide lawgravitas@gmail.com.
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