From banditry on the highways, in villages and forests to an epidemic of ritual killings among the younger ‘get-rich-quick-or-die-trying’ generation, unbridled quest for material wealth by its people is driving Nigeria down the road to moral apocalypse. Many are wont to blame the explosion in violent crimes and extreme bestiality on the complete breakdown of the family system, which in the past not only groomed children into adults with the right values of integrity, honesty and hard work but also served as an early check on any unscrupulous tendencies. Gone are the days when parents and relatives questioned the source of income of their children and, if found to be involved in any undesirable acts, the family would be the first to expose them to the relevant authorities.
In fact, some parents today are not only aware of the dubious character of their children but actually provide cover and spiritual support for their criminal exploits, as long as the proceeds of crime keep coming into the household. These days, whether its proceeds of prostitution, drugs, advance fee fraud, wire scam, armed robbery and banditry, parents, families and communities in Nigeria tend to celebrate just about anybody with money, even when such people don’t have any legitimate sources of income. But this is just one side of the unfolding tragicomedy that has become Nigeria.
Long before bandits seized control of Nigeria’s highways, villages and forests, Nigeria’s political class had deployed electoral banditry to steal the people’s mandate and get themselves into power, to the praise and admiration of their parents, families and communities. And because electoral banditry inevitably results in administrative banditry, administrative bandits in the judiciary, legislature and executive arms of government had long seized control of Nigeria’s public treasury and converted it to their personal automated teller machine (ATM).
For a long time, those who got into government and became wealthy overnight through proceeds of corruption and looting of public funds were celebrated as ‘big men,’ with communities conferring chieftaincy titles on them. Often described as statesmen, these big men are respected and revered in Nigerian society, which regards them as role models for the younger ones, despite their perpetration of administrative banditry to the detriment of the welfare and security of the common people.
Unfortunately, it was the failure of leadership of Nigeria’s clique of administrative bandits at all levels and arms of government that gave rise to the bandits in the highways, villages and forests that are killing, maiming and plundering the lives and properties of the Nigerian people. Similarly, it was the failure of Nigeria’s political leadership to provide welfare and security for the common people of Nigeria that has mounted severe pressure of unmet needs and wants that has strained, stressed and stretched the family system to a breaking point. When parents are disempowered to the extent that they cannot adequately feed, clothe and shelter their children because a few big men in power have appropriated their commonwealth for the benefit of themselves, their family and friends alone, any means of survival becomes justified by the end.
The latest revelation of the criminal exploits of one Nigeria’s most decorated and highly acclaimed police officers, Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari, by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), brings to the fore the internalization of crime in government. Kyari, whom the media dubbed a “super cop,” whose self-publicised crime-bursting feats have been unravelled to be dubious, was accused by the NDLEA of drug trafficking after he was exposed in a sting operation. Kyari was earlier suspended by the Nigeria Police Force over an indictment by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation over his unholy involvement with the fraudster Ramon Abass, who went by the name Hushpuppi. But he was, apparently, still working within police circles to perpetrate his criminal activities.
Information made available to the public clearly showed Kyari to be a drug dealer with a good knowledge of the trade.
That the police authorities were notified a few weeks ago about the involvement of one of their officers in drug trafficking by a sister agency and nothing was done until the NDLEA went public before the Inspector-General of Police was embarrassed into ordering the arrest of Kyari and his accomplices clearly indicates that Nigeria indeed has become a huge crime scene. But Abba Kyari is not alone in the scene.
The story of Kyari is just one among many others in the Nigeria Police Force, sister security agencies and the Nigerian government in general. The active connivance of law enforcement agents with criminals is one of the main reasons violent crimes and insecurity are increasingly becoming intractable in Nigeria.
How many more Abba Kyaris are out there aiding bandits, smugglers, ritual killers, advance fee fraudsters, terrorists and all other forms of criminality?
However, to deal with this issue, it is important to look far beyond Kyari, the symptom, to see into the causative pathogen of the rot that has become the Nigerian state.
The Nigerian state is like a buffet where everybody comes to fetch meals and nobody brings food to replenish the stock. Kyari and others like him are only following the bad examples of Nigeria’s political leaders on how to criminally convert their privileged position for personal profit, to the detriment of the welfare and security of the Nigerian people.