Complex causality

In the city of Kinshasa, there is a notorious prison called the Makala Prison. Built by Belgian colonisers in 1957, inherited by the Congolese who, not unlike many Africans, have refused to reform their prison system. Makala has been used by successive governments, especially that of the infamous but stupendously rich Field Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Zabanga, as a modern-day Point of No Return.

Boloko ya Makala, as it is called in Lingala, has a capacity for 1, 500 prisoners. But it is estimated by human rights activists as currently holding 15, 000 inmates, that is, ten times its official capacity, with more than 90 per cent awaiting trial, and only six per cent serving a jail-term. And while the Congolese elite feed well in their palatial mansions, inmates of Makala are starving to death. That is why, except for a few who are lucky, Makala is a veritable point of no return.

In the midst of starvation, meagre rations of under-nourishing food are occasionally brought to the prisoners of Makala, and mere sight of the rations leads to a stampede. Each starving prisoner struggles to get his or her own share. And the stampede often leads to deaths.

In September 2024, just three months before the stampedes in Nigeria, there was a desperate jail-break at Makala leading to more than 100 deaths. Escaping prisoners were shot at by the police.

But let us come back home, to our beloved Nigeria. Could Makala be a parable about Nigeria?

A few days to Christmas, Nigeria witnessed a harvest of stampedes in which lives were lost.

According to figures in the media, 35 lives were lost in Ibadan, 10 in Abuja, and another 25 in Okija. Like prisoners of Makala, huge crowds of Nigerians were desperately looking for food provided by well-intentioned donors now vilified by some government officials.

In the wake of these tragic occurrences, a debate ensued between those who would blame government and those who would blame benefactors who organised the events. Those who place the blame at the doorsteps of government opine that economic policies of government in Abuja led to the stampedes.

Hunger, especially when it is severe, undeniably induces desperation. There is a connection between economic policies and widespread desperation for basic necessities of life, of food in particular, in contemporary Nigeria. Severely undermined by current policies has been the capacity of the average Nigerian to provide for himself. Many have been turned into beggars living on palliatives like terminally-ill patients. Nigeria is a country where a few dine at table while the multitude are under the dining table, waiting for crumbs to fall. And, when crumbs fall, they rush and crush to have a share of tiny fragments of crumbs. That was what happened in Ibadan, Abuja and Okija.

The police, an agency of government, for its part, desperate to demonstrate its relevance, arrested some organisers, accusing them of negligence in matters of crowd control, and, using its characteristically threatening tone, warned would-be benefactors to obtain necessary permission before organising similar events.

The insolently threatening language of Nigeria’s security agencies is a matter for another discussion. Suffice it to say, however, that Nigerian security agencies seem to suffer from a colonial hangover. Their hierarchy, spokespersons and operatives seem to be oblivious of the fact that to police is to be polite. Even if the police must be firm, the police must be friendly to the citizen. But the police and the military in Nigeria, as is the case in practically all the colonial constructs called African countries, were established by colonialists, not to protect but to intimidate and brutalise the population.

Nigerian security agencies speak and act like armies of occupation. Thus, rather than enforce the law, they threaten that citizens will be “summarily dealt with”, or “will face the wrath of the law”, when in fact, what is meant is the wrath of the police. In a dangerous and monstrous misconception of the purpose of law, government and its security agencies presume and promote the presumption that law is made for wrath. That might be the case in a feudalist society. But if, as we claim, ours is a democratic polity, there must be the understanding that the purpose of law is not to visit wrath on free citizens but to regulate human conduct for the sake of the common good.

Colonial powers who gave us the police and the military do not use theirs to oppress. We, on our part, inherited unfriendly and intimidating military and paramilitary institutions. And we continue that legacy of intimidation and brutality even in the 65th year of our self-rule.

But let us return to the matter arising: What caused the stampede? Here we are faced with a case of complex causality. In other words, while it is necessary to admit that there is a link between economic policies of Abuja and resulting hunger and desperation that led to the stampedes, economic policies alone do not suffice to explain the cause. In that regard, government alone is not at fault. In a similar line of argument, purported negligence of organisers of palliative distribution could be adduced as a cause. But that alone would be insufficient explanation. That is why we must see this as a case of complex causality in which there are, apart from economic policies and negligence, other causes that we must use the opportunity of this tragedy to identify.

Of these other causes, we must not fail to recognise the characteristically reckless impatience of many Nigerians. We see Nigerians rush to board the plane at airports, rush to disembark while the plane is taxing, rush to pass through immigration, drive recklessly on our highways, overtaking where no driver who deploys his rational faculties while driving would overtake. And this list is not exhaustive but illustrative.

In November 2012, Pope Benedict XVI created new Cardinals. One of them was our own John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Emeritus Catholic Archbishop of Abuja. Anyone familiar with crowd control at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome would know that entry is by tickets that are coloured and numbered, and the colour of and number of your ticket indicate where you are to sit. In other words, if you have a ticket, your entry into the Basilica is ordinarily assured.

On the day of Consistory creating Cardinal Onaiyekan, I was scandalised to see how some Nigerians were rushing to enter the Basilica, creating a bottleneck at the entrance. Not only was there the Nigerian rush, the Nigerian government delegation was embarrassingly noisy right inside the Basilica, a house of worship. But with the scandal also came some comic relief because, as Nigerians were rushing to enter the Basilica, some Colombians and Indians came and pushed the rushing Nigerians away, confirming the saying in our pidgin English: “Man pass man.”

No doubt, there is hunger in the land. Government asks us to be patient and wait for happy outcomes of its present economic policies. But officials of the same government, as we have been witnessing during these period of religious festivities, have been travelling in long convoys at a time the cost of fuel is increasingly distant from the reach of the average Nigerian. Who is paying for fueling those vehicles?

Sight of these long convoys of cars that intimidate cars reminds one of lyrics of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s Authority Stealing: “Few people dem fat with big money and de rest dem hungry.” That was sung in 1980.

Father Akinwale is of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Augustine University, Ilara-Epe, Lagos State.