In 2011, Nigeria was
ranked number fourteen in the Failed States Index, just below other “havens of
stability”-Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq! State failure has many definitions,
so I will bother the reader with only two short descriptions relevant to the
Nigerian situation:
[A failed state] is
one that is unable to perform its duties on several levels when violence
cascades into an all-out internal war, when standards of living massively
deteriorate, when the infrastructure of ordinary life decays, and when the
greed of ruler overwhelms their responsibilities to better their people and
their surroundings.
[Failed State are seen
in] instances in which central state authority collapses for several years.
Economic deprivation
and corruption produce and exacerbate financial and social inequities in a
population, which in turn fuel political instability. Within this environment,
extremists of all kinds particularly religious zealots and others political
mischief makers find a foothold to recruit supporters and sympathizers to help
them launch terrorist attacks and wreak havoc in the lives of ordinary
citizens.
Over eight hundred
deaths, mainly in Northern Nigeria, have been attributed to the militant
Islamist sect Boko Haram since its formation in 2002. The group’s ultimate
goal, we are told, is to “overthrow the Nigerian government and create an
Islamic state.” In many respects, Nigeria’s federal government has always
tolerated terrorism. For over half a century the federal government has turned
a blind eye to waves of ferocious and savage massacre of its citizens mainly
Christian Southerners; mostly Igbos or indigenes of the Middle Belt; and others
with impunity.
Even in cases where
their hands were found dripping in blood, the perpetrators have many a time
evaded capture and punishment. Nigeria has been doomed to witness endless
cycles of inter-religious violence because the Nigerian government has failed
woefully to enforce laws protecting its citizens from wanton violence,
particularly attacks against non-indigenes living in disparate parts of the country. The
notoriously (some say conveniently so) incompetent Nigerian federal government,
and some religious and political leaders, have been at least enablers of these
evil acts. I have stated elsewhere that this mindless carnage will end only
with the dismantling of the present corrupt political system and banishment of
the cult of mediocrity that runs it, hopefully through a peaceful, democratic
process.
CHINUA ACHEBE, 2012….There
was a country (A Personal Story Of Biafra)...Pg 250
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