With the astronomical rise in the reported cases of kidnapping and banditry in Nigeria, the whole country now lives in palpable fear oblivious of who will be the next victim of these societal anomalies. Ofonime Emmanuel Bassey, a Peace Leadership Expert, on this exclusive interview with EFOSA TAIWO explains why the country is and might keep on experiencing banditry and kidnapping on end. He is the President, Institute of Peace Leadership/NISSI Foundation, Lagos.
Excerpt:
Leadership is being said to be the problem of Nigeria. Do you think Peace Leadership, being a crucial branch of leadership, is also a part of this problem?
I agree with the fact that leadership is the problem of Nigeria, not only agreeing with that, I agree with the fact that Peace leadership is also part of the problem we are having as a nation. However, you will agree with me that in a multi-ethnic society like Nigeria, we need a suitable form of governance. Responsible leaders know this. Incidentally, leaders in Nigeria are not visionary enough to understand what is going on and what needs to be done. They lack understanding of the right form of governance for a multi-ethic nation like Nigeria. In every society, polices and regulations cannot be the same. A multi-ethnic society calls for suitable policies and regulations due to the fact that there are more than one ethnic group characterizing it and Nigeria, as a country, has more than 200 ethnic groups and that poses a major problem for governance. Now, how does this affect leadership? You will agree with me that there will be lots of feelings of neglect among the minorities – a feeling of disrespect. We’d have so much aggression and misgivings becoming the order of the day if the right policies are not implemented. So what you see is a very insecure nation full of fear, disrespect, annihilation, physical discomfort, even psychological trauma, disappointment and rejection. These are what Nigeria is currently facing. That is why we are having so much conflicts at hand, and peace leadership is key to moving forward.
Looking at the various security issues bedeviling the country from banditry to abduction of school children, to kidnapping, what roles do you think Peace Leadership can play in putting an end to all these?
Peace leaders are thinkers! Peace leaders are sensitive people – very sensitive to peace and security. They do forecast. They analyze especially with respect to their area of responsibility. Both peace and security are means to the other ends and means themselves. And I can say that they are essential factors of human life. Yeah! They affect all aspects of economy and social development of a nation. A peaceful atmosphere breathes in security. The presence of insecurity brings crisis. So, you will agree with me that a peaceful and secure Nigeria can be intentionally and systematically achieved through right policy making and implementation. And so, a true peace leader who is sensitive, who is analytical gets to understand the right policies to bring on board aimed at prevention management and resolution of conflicts which, of course, will eventually stop the insecurity issues we are experiencing such as banditry and kidnapping of school children.
Security is collective.
It is a thing we must collectively achieve. And of course, some of these insecurity issues do have early signals coming with them, but in most cases, we had either ignored them or wrongly approached them. So with the right policies, with the right interventions, having the ability to take note of early warning signals in arrangement intended to facilitate timely and efficient responses to these issues; all these must be put in place for security to be achieved. So it is not even late as we have seen in Nigeria. There are still policies to be made intentionally that will discourage the issue of banditry and abduction of school children, and as it is often said: security is not a business that should be left only to the men and women in uniform, it is every man’s business. And the truth is this: we have seen a lot of policies go bad. Unfortunately, that may not have been the intention of the policy makers. The policies are promoting insecurities nevertheless. The body language of the leaders and all that are promoting insecurities. So, in the context of Nigeria, the peace leaders should lead in determining the existence of a threat to peace or an act that contracts anti-peace elements. Such a leader should always call upon parties to settle disputes via peaceful means and recommend methods of adjustment or terms of settlement where necessary.
The truth is that, most security challenges we have today in Nigeria are provoked or promoted by aggression. Yes! Of course, when such preliminary efforts fail, then the application of enforcement or enforcement measures come in to restore peace and security. So there is a lot that can be done through or a lot a peace leader can do in this respect. Like I said earlier on some policies promoting insecurities, conflicts, aggression, it starts from there. And I want to let you understand that even within the security system, the security industry, the security agencies, there are lots of conflicts, there are lots of insecurities within these groups of our people, but by the nature of their assignment, they may not be able to do things in a certain way as we speak. But it is actually affecting their morale and affecting their performance. So, the right policies are very key, implementation is very paramount, same with the body language of the leaders to actually reflect what they say and what the policies of the government are. So it starts from the top.
A lot is being said about how the Federal Government pays ransom in exchange for its citizens in the hands of abductors. A lot of Nigerians have kicked against it, using the American standard of not negotiating with terrorists as a reference. As a Peace Leadership expert, is negotiating with bandits and terrorists the most effective strategy to be deployed in birthing peace in those contexts?
The issue of payment of ransom in exchange for citizens in the hands of abductors we call kidnappers, terrorists or whatever it is, is worrisome. As a peace leader, peace leadership recognizes the fact that negotiation is a good thing to go on in order to have peace. Negotiation must be with the idea of a mutual beneficial decision, a mutual beneficial ending. In other words, a win-win approach should be the focus, and the aspect of exchanging citizens with payment of ransom is never and can never be seen as a win-win approach. So, the time has come! The time is here for us as a nation to criminalize payment of ransom for the return of people or goods just like it is obtainable in countries like America, United Kingdom and others. Why? Because payment of ransom actually fuels terrorism and encourages them to do more and more. So we need to look into the areas of receiving, possessing or dispossessing of money as ransom for kidnapping or terrorist activities. This should be actually outlawed. It should be criminalized. So, negotiating with bandits and terrorists is one of the most effective ways of raising funds for banditry or terrorism worldwide. So, this should be discouraged and should be criminalized even here in Nigeria whether it is at the government level, group level or the individual level. It is just a direct way of encouraging and promoting act of terrorism. Thank you.
Let’s narrow down a bit, looking at the various strata of leadership we have in the society, how functional can you say peace leadership has been in those areas?
When we look at the various strata of leadership in our society, we discover that peace leadership is very minimal; it is not functioning. People are not considering issues of conflicts, people are not considering the feelings of people. Of course, that is actually what is manifesting. You will see a situation where the winners take all for political leaders. You will see a situation where leaders are easily giving appointment to people from their religion or from their tribe, with 90% – 95% of appointment tilted to one religion or one ethnic group or one region based on who is leading at that level of government or the other. So, you discover that through these or some of these obvious experiences, obvious happenings, we discover that our leaders are not being sensitive, peace policies are not promoted. One of the things that baffles me and gives me more concern about our nation as a peace leader is when I hear leaders make statements such as: “The unity of our nation is non-negotiable.” It is very anti-peace. That statement, leaders have repeated it year after year, season after season over the last three, four, five decades but let me just narrow it to the last two, three decades. Over the last two, three decades, you will hear leaders make statement like that repeatedly when there are issues. Such can’t come out from peace-conscious leaders. Peace-conscious leaders won’t say something is not negotiable. It, therefore, means you have an agenda, a negative one for that matter. And peace is never by force and can never be by force! Unity can never be by force! It is not achieved by force. Unity and peace is something that is achieved through negotiation, through dialogue. So saying that, for example, the unity of this nation is not negotiable, is an indication that people somewhere intentionally came out with something that they know would not work and they are ready to push it or force it down the throat of others. They are not mindful of a win-win situation. They are just mindful of a win-for-them situation. And so, as a peace leader, I have not seen a functional Peace Leadership going on in our nation. Our leaders are not sensitive to peace. They are not sensitive to the agitations of the people, to what others feel. They are just concerned about what they want to do and their greedy desires.
What are those areas the government needs to look into to birth peace in the land?
There are so many areas our government needs to look into to birth peace in our land. I advocate that: the government should consider especially the political parties. The government of the day from the ward level to the local government to the state and then to the federal, they should consider appointment of conflict sensitivity experts. Yes! They should have them as consultants or as employees of government or advisers. And I tell you, they will be there to always follow through by analyzing policies and analyzing situations. I tell people several times that “a peace and conflict sensitivity expert” or “a peace and conflict resolution expert” is not necessarily a security expert. Or let me put it this way: security experts are not necessarily peace-conscious. They are not necessarily peace-sensitive experts. Yes! In that, a lot of people in performing their professional security jobs are all about physical prevention, physical management of security, prevention of insecurity, crime and all of that. But for a peace and resolution expert, we take care of insecurity from the policies that are made, from the point of policy making, from the point of decision-making. One decision of today is capable of destroying a very formidable achievement of a thousand years. Yeah! So one careless decision of government, one careless decision of a man can destroy an achievement of a thousand years. So for a peace and conflict expert, at the point of making decision, at a point of making policies, we look at these policies in the eyes of what conflicts they could brew and we come in right there to address situations before they actually happen.
When they say Peace Leadership, many tend to believe it is the sole responsibility of the government to do that, is this so?
I have said time and time again that peace leadership is not all about the government. Peace Leadership is every man’s business. Everyone has a part to play in peace leadership. Even it may surprise you to know that peace leadership starts with oneself because you need to be at peace with yourself to be able to progress, to be able to have advancement, to be able to develop responsibly. So Peace leadership starts from yourself, your person and so it is everyone’s business. So everyone must learn to wage peace at every given point in time and this we can do through the way we lead, the way we learn and the way we teach. It is something everyone must engage. War is not an option at this time: It is no longer fashionable but waging of peace is what everyone should hold on to. Be a soldier of peace and fly the banner of peace, and peace like I would always say is not on its own. It does not just happen on its own. Peace has to do with love, justice, tolerance and all of that. Peace, justice, tolerance are all embodiments. They are all what together promote a peaceful atmosphere. So there must be love, justice, there must be tolerance and those are some aspects of life that are key. Where there is injustice, there is bound to be aggression, there is bound to be conflicts. Where there is lack of love, there is bound to be conflict and aggression. So peace is not the business of the government alone. Although, government has much to do in terms of regulation of policies, but individuals also have so much to do to promote peace.
How connected is Peace Leadership to Security? And if you were to adjudge our security agencies, do you think they have done fairly in Peace Leadership?
Peace leadership is so much connected to security. The two are inseparable. They are two inseparable twins. They are essential factors of human lives. They are keys to development – social and economic in any society. Having said that, I want to appreciate our security agencies for the efforts they have put in over time, the efforts they have put to our nation especially at this tough time; some of them have paid their supreme sacrifices, families have lost their loved ones and all of that. In all of this, I would say there are rooms for improvement as it has to do with Peace Leadership. Yeah, I agree some of them might not have imbibed the principles of Peace Leadership. Some of them might not even know what Peace Leadership is about as we speak, but it is possible; it is do-able to make them know and imbibe it.
Let’s move away from Nigeria, let’s talk about Africa, the question is: why is Africa still a continent struggling to wage peace among its inhabitants?
In the case of Africa, we are having conflicts here and there. And with Nigeria being the largest nation in Africa, what happens in Nigeria is largely what you are going to see in other parts of Africa. And in the case of Africa, one major issue we are having is the issue of multi-ethnicity. And as we stand, Africa has not come to realize the challenges of multi-ethnicity. Rather we hear statement like the “unity of this nation is non-negotiable.” Countries outside Africa, you will see their constitutions; they make policies that give people the freedom to opt out of the system when the system is no longer comfortable to them, and when it is no longer addressing their expectations and needs. But in Africa, you see a lot of forced marriages, forced relationships, there is just so much belief in primitive ways of doing things using whims and caprices. They have not come to the realization of the 21st century way of governance, 21st century way of management of people and resources. So they don’t understand so much about the issue of Peace and Conflicts Prevention Management and Resolution. It is yet is to be part and parcel of our daily lifestyle as African people talk less of the government. So, as a multi-ethnical society, the issue of conflict, you can’t escape it. It is not something that you can wish away. It would just have to be intentionally addressed via putting up the right modalities, the right policies, the right programmes, the right avenues for people to vent their aggressions and get matters resolved. So we are talking about preventive measures to be put in place especially in our constitution in the different nations on the Africa continent. Preventive strategies should be put in place, management strategies of conflicts, and of course, resolutions when they have gone beyond prevention and Africa should, at this time, come together more than ever before to form a formidable force to address the peculiar challenges of Africa. Also, one challenge that arise from ethnicity is the issue of religion. Religion is still an issue that is a source of conflict in Africa and we just have to do all that we can do to promote religious tolerance and love and of course, justice. I have come to realize and I believe that where there is no love, true justice, conflict is inevitable, hence peace is a mirage. And the continent of Africa must intentionally move on to making policies that promote love, justice for us to be seen to be waging peace for real.
We must be intentional. For example: I understand one of the African nations: Rwanda, knowing fully well what ethnicity has done to it over time: the generations that were wasted and what not. Going by this, the present generation has come to the realization of what caused it. And I understand that today there is nothing like ethnicity in Rwanda. Of course, some or most other parts of Africa like Nigeria are still grappling with the issue of ethnicity but ethnicity in Rwanda has been outlawed. It is an offense over there to claim you belong to an ethnic group. Policies that are ethnic-bias are not there anymore. So these are some of the things we have to look at. We have to address our differences and be seen to be tactically waging peace as against sitting idly and allowing ourselves to be consumed by war as a result of intolerance, injustice and lack of love for ourselves. And this lack of love, I must say, is the engine room of corruption which is also one of the problems facing Africa. So, I want to appeal to Africans that we can be leaders and not be corrupt. We can be leaders and not violate human rights. We can be responsible leaders and be conscious of the welfare of our citizens. We can be responsible leaders by addressing ethnic marginalization. Let there be policies in place that address issues and discourage issues of aggression in our continent whereby we stop these killings and violence against one another, thereby making Africa a peaceful continent where development and progress can take place, making our world a safer world.
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