Government, thugs and their portents

One of the insightful takeaways from the #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protests is our involuntary recognition of the baleful utility of thugs or of persons with intimidating appearance or mannerisms in our public affairs. Thugs are described as persons who treat others violently and roughly. They are often for hire. They clinically perform the instruction of their hirer.

Thugs are variously referred to as “punk”, “hoodlum”, or “hooligan.” Historically, this appellation derived from society’s understanding of the anti-social behaviour of a certain band of assassins who were active in northern India where they worshipped Kali, the Hindu goddess and offered their victims to her.

In our clime, thugs have been long coming in their practice and have even impinged on our socio-political consciousness particularly since the return of civilian rule in 1999. Blandishly referred to as “Area Boys” in Lagos, their phenomenon received a serious, inviolable banishment order of the Brig-Gen Buba Marwa administration in Lagos State. But that effort has not found favour with succeeding civilian administrations as the menace of “Area Boys” has been fortuitously revived. Government seem to have turned a blind eye to their escapades. 

Successive governments may have found use for their rascality or rogue predisposition. Area Boyism’s dreadful spread across Nigeria with its federalising predilection has today found accommodation for the epic expression of a role. It is now the enforcement arm for putting down officially-perceived “insurrection” or for threatening fire and brimstone upon all those who may not be amenable to government’s prescription or directive for the maintenance of law and order. 

The important or inescapable motifs for us here are the conjured image and the social or symbolic representations of the unfortunate attenuation of governmental power and authority. So much incalculable damage is being done to the myth of government and the dialectic of governance. The mystique of government is being impaired by a curious collusion of authority and outlawry. The reactionary danger today is visibly too heavy a cross to bear by this fledgling democracy  – this rickshaw contraption. Government has surrendered governance to the service of reactionary terror and violence. 

During the #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protests, persons strangely opposed to the public protestation of a pervasive hunger overhang, untold hyperinflation, an unbearably high cost of basic foodstuffs, the general downturn in the economy due to policy mis-steps, etc were induced into the ranks of the true protesters just to confuse the situation. 

A column of protesters could be heard approbating and reprobating at the same time; shouting exact opposites of the cause for which they ostensibly set out. The protest atmosphere became a melange of conflicting positions; of serious cerebral disputation on one hand, and of unserious frills and thrills, on the other, amidst palpable threats of violence or of bodily harm. The police in some places were the handmaiden of such confusion as security cover was afforded the “fifth columnists” even as their purpose was to combust the atmosphere and thereby earn a bad press for the true protesters. 

For most parts however, the police reportedly conducted themselves admirably as they resisted their proverbial unprovoked temptation to be trigger happy. Government’s predilection for suppressing dissent and restricting freedom of speech is identified as the reason for surreptitiously promoting this unclassical rearguard formation thereby compromising the efficiency or in-built neutrality of the police. 

Drawing from ignoble history, one notes the many legislations that had to pour forth from the United States Congress aimed at neutralising the physical excesses of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan; especially the forcible prevention of voting. Suffrage had been lamely deemed not to include the right to have one’s ballot counted. This contention had to be dismissed through legislation which insisted that a right to vote of necessity entails the right to have the vote recorded.

If the brazen violation of right guaranteed under a Constitution does not injure or oppress unless accompanied by a blow from an Agbero or Area Boy, the protection afforded by the law is illusory. Over time, requests were honoured for strong anti-Ku Klux Klan legislation for striking down segregation in the U.S. As disclosed by its public acts, many were unalterably opposed to the evident purposes of the Ku Klux Klan.
That odious body represented one of the high manifestations of the race problem in America. 

In Nigeria, the Area Boy/ Agbero propensity is an affront to our collective sensibility. It ought to be officially observed as such and shot down. The portents are frightening for Nigeria as we allow Agberos, Area Boys, and thugs, by whatever name called, to set the pace for our joy and grief, ecstasy and horror, and for our mirth and malevolence; or, more paradoxically, to lead the offensive regarding our quest for a sane, stable and orderly society. Published literature is even rumoured to pour forth soon from their stable for teaching us the essence or purpose of life; and of the value of service to humanity. We have all been enjoined to read the books to improve our stock of knowledge and to fire our collective imagination. 

In it all, the valorisation of self and of the supportive government that has allowed inanity and strong arm tactics to flourish even in a pervasive situation of want, lack and deprivation is expected when the “published works” are launched in the usual atmosphere of primitive ostentation. 

Incredibly inept holders of public office have upturned the art and practice of governance into an enterprise of a few vain, vicious, mean-spirited moguls even as the vessel of State is put in real danger and everything looks like a complete shipwreck. 

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) perturbed by what he considered the overbearing nature of Disraeli in the British Parliament asked impatiently: “How long will John Bull allow this absurd monkey to  dance on his chest?”
Rotimi-John, a Lawyer and Commentator on Public Affairs, is the Deputy Secretary-General of Afenifere. He can be reached via: [email protected]