THE ARM OF JUSTICE: THE BEARER OF PEACE AND UNITY
By Sylvester Edoh
Injustice has never served the cause of peaceful coexistence or unity in any human civilization. Most, if not every human conflict throughout history has been caused by perceived injustice or threat of injustice. Thus, injustice and peace are mutually exclusive. Unity becomes a far cry in an atmosphere that is bereft of peace. Therefore, injustice is a trigger of disunity in any given society.
Injustice finds expression through oppression, discrimination, marginalization, deprivation, suppression, etc. on the basis of racial, religious, tribal, political and social background. No society has ever attained true cohesion or unity in an atmosphere that is redolent with injustice.
People everywhere in the world at one point or the other are faced with the threat of injustice. This perceived threat of injustice by dominant groups has helped to shape and reshape empires, destroy existing ones and bring about new ones. Human beings have always aspired to build a free, just and egalitarian society free of injustice and oppression. Humanity, over the course of history, has experimented with many factors as guarantors of peace and unity – race, religion, ethnicity, etc.
They had thought that racial uniformity could enhance a just, peaceful and united society, yet one of the most devastating wars in the history of mankind was sparked off by people of the same race, the Europeans. Europe was the epicentre of World War Two. Every other part of the world was affected largely because of the extension of their empires to other parts of the world. They had also thought that religion could engender justice and peace, but even people of the same religion have engaged in bitter conflicts. The predominantly Muslim Middle East has been the epicentre of violence and terrorism over the years, not necessarily against another religion, but among people of the same religion. They had thought that ethnicity could be the basis of peace and unity, but we have seen people of the same ethnic or tribal background go to war with each other. They had also thought that class structure could provide the basis of unity but we have seen the rich fight the rich, the poor against the poor, etc.
Humans have always wanted to be in their own groups, among their own tribes, their own brothers, united together against external enemies – people of other tribes, races or religions but even in the most homogeneous societies, conflicts still abound. In the final analysis, what we see as overt struggle by groups for collective emancipation or liberation is nothing but covert personal struggle for survival and preservation using groups as shields. It is group alliance for the defence of personal interests.
In Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, the cry of injustice or marginalization is tearing at the soul of nationhood. Real and perceived injustice has blighted the prospects of our nation for peace, unity and development. It has engendered the quest for secession, widespread violence, economic disasters and political instability. It has left everyone feeling that the only way out or forward is for people to be allowed to live together as separate nations on the basis of ethnicity or religion.
Nothing is farther from the truth. What is missing in the whole cannot be found in the parts. What is lacking in the whole cannot be available in the parts. The plight of our nation is not rooted in our diversity but in our inability to treat each other equally regardless of tribal or religious background. We understand that people from other tribes or religions are also humans like us but we are not sensitive to the rhythm of their aspiration, their interest, their right to live, to succeed and be happy like us.
We have used the instruments of religion and ethnicity to divide rather than unite our nation. Meanwhile, those who divide us are doing so for their own selfish interests. When they lose face in Abuja, they go back to their constituencies to foment trouble using ethnicity and religion to instigate their people.
Our political leadership, especially at the national level, over the years has done great disservice to the unity of our nation. This atmosphere of perceived and real injustice was created by successive leadership, both military and civilian. It is antithetical to national unity and harmony for a national leadership to carry out selective appointments to key and sensitive national offices in favour of one section of the country or one religion at the expense of others. It is preposterous for one to tell which part of the country the president is from by virtue of the names of popular or major national political and non-political office holders. It is inimical to the spirit of nationalism for a national leadership to act in ways that smack of favouritism towards a section and prejudice towards others.
Thus, the leadership that is supposed to unite us has become the most singular agent of disunity in our country. The leadership that is supposed to engender justice has become the most ruthless perpetrator of injustice in this country. The leadership that is supposed to build confidence in the political system has become the destroyer of people’s confidence politically. The leadership that is supposed to foster ethnic and religious harmony has become instrumental to religious and ethnic tensions, intolerance and violence.
The tendency for politics and national leadership to be all about the quest for the assertion of ethnic and religious superiority rather than a platform to foster unity and development of the nation is a very worrisome tendency in our journey of nationhood. With this tendency in place, a president from the North will only favour the North and northerners with juicy appointments, leaving the rest of the country feeling abandoned, marginalized and totally disillusioned about the future of our country. Similarly, a president from the South will favour the South and the southerners, leaving the northerners complaining of marginalization.
However, even at that, it cannot be categorically said that the most developed parts of the country are those that produced the highest number of national leaders since independence, far from it. If the struggle for ethnic or sectional dominance is about the interest of people in the respective geopolitical zones, then the zone that produced the highest number of presidents or heads of state would have been the most developed zone, but that is not the case. This struggle is not about the interest of northerners or southerners but about the preservation of the political relevance and economic interest of a group of avaricious political charlatans who have no business with public leadership or people’s interest. Those who are easily roused or instigated to chant ethnic war song should think twice about the motive of those instigating them.
This is not the way to go. This vicious cycle of rotational oppression and marginalization instead of rotational leadership must stop for us to move forward as a nation. It has had us running around in circles for decades. It has made corruption to thrive, diverting the attention of the populace from calling to order or holding accountable those who are looting the national treasury. It has diverted attention from the important issue of building an entire nation to liberating a section or sections of it. It has encouraged mediocrity instead of meritocracy. It has reduced, if not totally destroyed patriotic spirit and fostered ethnic, regional and religious sentiments. It has arrested our scientific and technological development and blighted our prospects for economic and political stability. It has made us to lose our sense of objectivity even as to what constitutes good governance. Even in the face of abysmal failure and unprecedented economic hardship, it is common for people in the part of the country where an incumbent national leader hails from to be singing his praise while they are groping in darkness and sleeping on empty stomachs, simply because their son is in power. It does not matter whether the country moves forward or backward, all that matters to them is their son is sitting on the throne. They prefer to be killed by their brother’s ineptitude than to be saved by their “enemy’s” expertise. This is not peculiar to any region in particular but common to people across geopolitical divide, north and south alike.
We are all stuck in here without a sense of justice. There is no peace in injustice; injustice gives rest to no one, neither to the just nor to the unjust. There is no balance in injustice, no tranquillity in oppression, and no real progress in an atmosphere of discrimination. Both the oppressed and the oppressor are not at ease. There is no equilibrium, only a toppled balance that has both sides swinging from side to side in discomfort, distrust fear and apprehension.
You cannot stop oppression by oppressing those who once oppressed you. You cannot stop injustice by being unjust to those who treated you with prejudice in the past. You cannot stop marginalization by marginalizing those who once marginalized you. True peace and unity will only prevail when those who were victims of injustice yesterday refuse to be unjust towards those who once treated them unfairly even when they have the opportunity to do so. True peace and unity will only prevail when the oppressed refuse to oppress their former oppressors after their emancipation. We can only experience social and political balance and equity when those who cried of marginalization yesterday refuse to marginalize others today when they have the opportunity to do so. You have no moral right to complain of injustice if you have the tendency to be unjust towards others. Our quest for justice should first begin with the examination of our conscience.
A wise and well-meaning national leader is supposed to serve the interest of the nation as a whole and her people without sectional, ethnic or religious prejudice. A true Nigerian leader should be mindful of the sensitive nature of our diverse ethnic and religious composition and work assiduously to build confidence in the people and unite them all together. He is the president of the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and a worthy representative and defender of her people and their interests, be it political, religious, economic or social. He should not be perceived as or allow himself to be perceived as solely representing any particular ethnic or religious group. He remains the worst failure if after winning an election he allows the nation to fail under his watch. His is a political misadventure or a failed political experimentation should he allow the chord of our unity to be broken and people made to run in different directions in search of safety. We need a president who can give all citizens regardless of tribe or religion a sense of belonging. Sadly enough, even the one who claimed to belong to everybody and to nobody in particular did not waste time to show Nigerians where and to whom he really belongs.
Nigeria must move forward, and for that to happen, a just and equal treatment of all her citizens by her leaders regardless of ethnic and religious background is an indispensable requirement. The greatest restructuring we need is that which can blur the lines of our differences rather than sharpen them. We need a restructuring that will engender true justice, freedom and equal opportunities for all. We need a restructuring that will promote peace and unity. We need a restructuring that can build us a nation rather than a country. We need a restructuring that will give us a true Nigerian president, not a southern or northern president. We need a restructuring that will see to the rise of a new, just, free, united, democratic, politically stable and economically prosperous Nigeria.
I call on all lovers of justice, democracy and freedom across political, ethnic and religious divides to come together for the emergence of the Nigeria of our dream.