Authority stealing
I am currently on field work, and at this point sitting in a small restaurant waiting for a contact so we can go administer our survey. Thus it was that I was listening to some young men a few feet away from me, discussing last weekend’s LGA elections in Enugu. Surprising, considering that first, LGA elections are not taken seriously in this country, and even more to the point, we are in a part of the country where elections as a whole are not taken seriously. Looks like I’ve found some outliers, but rather than join their discussion, I opted to listen. The discussion, naturally, is about the uselessness of Nigeria, and how voting is a waste of time.
Could they be right? In many ways, they are. We have seen so many people line up to vote, and in the end, get sorely disappointed. So many people place their hopes in our current messiah, and he let them down, bigly. These little things such as consistent under-performance, undermine the state, and it is important to keep that in view. I am trying to tie this to stuff I have seen in other parts of the country in my many trips, and, again, I’m left with not many conclusions but that the Nigerian state has already disintegrated.
It is important, at this point, to differentiate the Nigerian state as opposed to Nigeria. This is necessary, as there are so many out there who make a living out of twisting people’s words.
Why, do I say that the Nigerian state has disintegrated? The Nigerian state has disintegrated because it has lost its authority. Within its borders, the Nigerian state does not control too much. Outside of Abuja and Lagos, in most parts of Nigeria, your existence is between you and God. The instruments of the Nigerian state have for the most part gone rogue, and do things on their own clock. The policemen who extorted me the other day in Ihiala, and then in Orlu, are living proof. They did what they did, despite a subsisting order by the IGP, to dismantle all checkpoints. Living proof that the man is not in control of his own men…
I daresay we got here because we were given a state. And something given, has no value. For us to value our state, we will have to fight for it. We will have to claim the authority back. But how do we do that?
First, a story from something I saw a few months back during a similar survey in one of the South-South states…
A woman had a dispute with her neighbour, and the neighbour took her to court. Except that the court here was not the state high court or a federal high court, it was an arbitration system run by militants. She refused to go, so the militants came to her house, and hauled her off to court. She was lucky. After both sides presented their cases, the militants ruled in her favour.
Sounds like a happy ending no?
I assure you, it is not. What this incident, and similar dispute resolution events I have seen in various geopolitical zones, shows a loss of authority. The most uncomfortable question that comes from this is — how do these people, after they have given judgement, enforce the judgement?
The answer to that, shows a decline in the state. The Nigerian state is now detached from its people, and its people no longer even attempt to exercise force on it. Which brings us back to the rising apathy to political process…
The rising apathy towards the political process, delegitimises the state. That is why in Kenya, Odinga was very quick to ask people to boycott the elections. It is why Uwazuruike and Kanu have tried to attack the voting process. But there is a flip side to it. The less you vote, the more you give up your authority over the state. When you vote, you are exercising political authority. This means that you are using force. Force is violence. Violence, is the supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived. This is why it is important that those who can exercise this authority, understand what it means.
Tying it back to the rise in ‘alternative’ forms of dispute resolution, the Nigerian state is losing, or has lost the monopoly of violence within its borders. This means that there are, an increasing number of, actors, some in the uniform of the state, who are the legitimate source of authority within their fiefdoms.