This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the martyrdom of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola. She did not volunteer her life to be ended by the assassin’s bullet. Rather they killed her because they believed that she was in their way. What she stood for was antithetical to their belief. She stood for democracy and respect for the voice of the people freely expressed. They stood for dictatorship and the muzzling of the voice of the people with the gun. The only way they knew to deal with that situation of opposing views on the best form of government or approach to governance was by violently silencing her.
Kudirat Abiola was not the first to suffer that fate. In the first and second republics, intolerance of opposing political views and positions claimed the lives of many innocent citizens. And when we include the mother of all political violence-the insane fratricidal war- it is beyond doubt that we are in a special league of irrational politics in which reason plays a subsidiary role to emotion.
Alhaja Abiola has not been the last either. Since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, we have seen an escalation of political assassination across the board of political party platforms. From ANPP Chieftain Marshall Harry to Attorney-General Bola Ige and Engineer Funsho Williams, political assassination has been the norm in the so-called new dispensation.
How do we make sense of this irrationality? Let me admit that it begs the question to suggest that it is irrational to engage in political violence. For we have to first understand what is irrational in the behavior or practice. For those politicians who deem violence the most efficient and effective means to the end they desire, it may be the height of rationality if in fact it is truly efficient and effective. This cannot be determined in the abstract. Therefore, for them, we cannot pronounce the irrationality of political violence a priori.
On the other hand, if you believe, as I do, that certain conducts are irrational no matter the contribution they make to the realization of a desired end, then, you might be persuaded to agree that political violence is irrational. To make sense of this claim, we need only to ask ourselves the question posed by the Golden Rule: how would I like it if I was the recipient? What if it happened to me? And if we are not willing to be the recipient, but we choose to inflict violence on others, to that extent we are irrational because we are not consistent in what we will for others and what we will for self. Inconsistency and irrationality are identical twins.
Political violence is irrational to the extent that none of its perpetrators will it for themselves. So the obvious question is “why inflict it on others?
There are several answers to this question. There are two categories of agents of political violence. First there are state agents, those who wield state power, claim the protection of the state and claim to act in the interest of the state. And while the law or the constitution does not offer them any protection, they claim it anyway, with the connivance of other agents of state, especially the judiciary. In the darks days of military dictatorship, separation of power was a myth as the maximum ruler held sway over all levers of power. Therefore, what the constitution doesn’t permit is doneanyway, or the constitution itself is suspended.
It was, therefore, easy for the dictator and his agents to commit evil against whoever was perceived to stand in their way. They had the raw power and no one can ask questions. It was state terrorism. It was the kind of power that even traditional rulers in our monarchical past did not possess because, at least in Yorubaland, these rulers had to contend with a number of checks and balances.
Beside the state agents, there are those who aspire to become state agents. In a democratic system, the ballot box is the tool for the choice of rulers. This means that prospective rulers have to canvass the support of the electorates. Where freedoms of choice and association are respected values, and the humanity of everyone is recognized, this practice offers itself as the best. But not everyone respects the humanity of others, and certainly there are free citizens who are only too willing to deny the freedom of others. For them, placing their policy platforms before the electorate to compete with those of their opponents is just too much when they can sponsor violent attacks against them and their supporters.
We all probably understand even if we do not endorse the motivations of these two sponsors of political violence—state agents and prospective state agents. There is a third category, namely the human tools and instruments that they use. Abacha didn’t go out himself to fire the shot that took the life of Alhaja Abiola. And those that pumped bullets into the body of Chief Ige and waited to see him breath his last, were different from those who really wanted him dead and sponsored his murder.
These instruments and tools in the hands of the big bosses are the wretched of our earth. They entertain no qualm to kill for money. They make themselves available for the highest bidder. But who gets into this kind of “kill for money” business? The answer is not far-fetched. They are the ones created by the policies and practices of state agents who ride into power with the help of willing tools who inflict violence on the innocent. And as long as these state agents get their way, they will always willingly and deliberately produce willing tools to do their dirty jobs.
Beside the state agents, aspiring state agents and their murderous willing tools, however, there are the enablers who encourage the actors either by their staying silent in the face of evil or by actively rewarding evil with their votes. Enablers are as morally culpable as the perpetrators of violence and together they account for the untimely deaths of thousands of innocent human beings in the last twenty-three years, excluding the first and second republics.
Unfortunately, we cannot wish away political violence as long as the conditions for its existence in our body politics subsist. These include, first, mass unemployment of youths and young adults who willing tools simply because the big men they work for have the means to hire them.
Second is the promising prospect of easy money in national politics. As governors, senators,representatives, and local government chairmen are seen as super-rich and their lifestyle confirms the narrative, many more citizens will be attracted to politics, and to ensure that they have a good shot at positions, they will recruit “boys” to “work” for them.
Third isthe absence of strong institutions to enforce the laws against political violence. Many victims of political violence either suffer in silence or take to self-help because institutions of law enforcement have been deliberately weakened to the point that they are not capable of performing their constitutional duties. The police tragically take side with any government in power against the dictates of fairness. For politicians of an opposition party to rely on police protection from harm is seen by many of them as the height of folly, if not self-abnegation.
Can we reverse our culture of political violence? To the extent that it is not an innate tendency of our humanity,and certainly not of our Africanness, one cannot foreclose its reversal. But there has to be a deliberate and sustained effort to humanize our systems and strengthen our institutions. How is this to be done and who is to take charge?
Politicians have proved ill-equipped because the majority of them benefit from the chaos despite their constitutional obligation. Therefore, morally conscious citizens muststand up and call them out. Alhaja Abiola and other victims of mindless political violence deserve nothing less. For their sake we must address and reverse the culture of political violence. Their martyrdom must not be in vain.
