By Emmanuel Ojeifo
In his 1983 monograph titled, The Trouble with Nigeria, Professor Chinua Achebe drew attention to the entrenched malaise of indiscipline in our society. In his words, “Indiscipline pervades our life so completely today that one may be justified in calling it the condition par excellence of contemporary Nigerian society.
We see and hear and read about indiscipline in the home, in the school, in the public service, in the private sector, in government and in legislative assemblies, on the roads, in the air.” Achebe went further to argue that there is indeed no better place to observe the thrusting climate of indiscipline in Nigerian behaviour than on the roads where frenetic energy, rudeness and noisiness all conspire to paint a notoriously bizarre image of a country where lawlessness and impunity are celebrated.
I have myself observed, time without number, how obeying road traffic regulation in Nigeria appears to be an unrewarding venture. The law-abiding motorist is made to look like a fool in a country where reckless driving and utter disregard for traffic rules smacks of smartness. In this same country, law enforcement exists largely on pieces of paper, and many of the serial lawbreakers are both the lawmakers and the law enforcers. No wonder ordinary citizens have mustered the chutzpah to join the league of lawbreakers, knowing that they will confidently work their way out of it if ever they are caught. I imagine how many hundreds of human lives will be spared on our highways if only motorists and other road users simply obey traffic regulations.
The most unacceptable aspect of this situation is when the architects of this lawless behaviour on our roads are senior public officials who should know better. Sadly, when this happens, the impression is given to the rest of the society that senior public officeholders are above the law and that public office is a license to impunity. Now that we are afloat on a great sea of change, I believe that the new government, led by Muhammadu Buhari, should make obedience to the rule of law in all aspects of our national life the fundamental directive principle of state policy so as to restore order and sanity to the public space.
Three issues that I think that quality attention needs to be devoted to in the attempt to make the rule of law a top policy priority for the new government are the abuse of sirens, the use of convoys and the intimidation of ordinary citizens by security officers attached to political officeholders. These three issues are all connected to the abuse of power, and as social psychologists have long taught the association of the apparatuses of governance with raw power have a strange potential to fascinate the powerless. Politicians understand this phenomenon and that is why those of them with strong appetite for power go out of their way to cultivate this mystique of power so as to be treated as demigods by their subjects.
On the issue of the use of sirens, the former Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, as at September 2012 issued a directive to the Commissioners of Police in the 36 States of the Federation and the FCT to commence the arrest of persons caught using sirens illegally. In that directive, he outlined the category of public officers that are allowed to use sirens: President, Vice President, State Governors and Deputy Governors, Senate President and Deputy Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Deputy Speaker, Service Chiefs, Inspector-General of Police, Deputy Inspectors-General of Police, Assistant Inspectors-General of Police, Commissioners of Police, General Officers Commanding of the Army, and First Class traditional rulers. Regrettably, it appeared that the directive fell on deaf ears. In a country where the very security operatives who should enforce the law are “rented” out to all manner of highly placed individuals and wealthy citizens for pecuniary patronage, it is not difficult to understand why the directive failed.
In advanced countries, sirens are used only on emergency service vehicles such as ambulances, police cars and fire trucks. They are basically used to draw attention or to give warning alert of impending danger. In Nigeria it is an entirely different case. The use of sirens in emergency situation has been dwarfed by other indiscriminate uses as all manner of politicians, traditional rulers, religious leaders, business moguls and private citizens have made the use of sirens a status symbol, thus turning our highways into dangerous and lawless theatres as well as harassing and endangering the lives and property of other road users through their reckless behaviour.
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Sirens disturb public peace. Even for those with a lawful mandate to use them, unrestricted blaring of sirens constitute major noise pollution that leads to disorderliness and confusion on our highways. The relevant authorities, particularly the police, must enforce strict adherence to the law in this regard. Public officials and private citizens who are not on the list of those permitted to use sirens should be disciplined. A practice that encourages some highly placed persons to disobey traffic regulations will not help the quest for respect for law and order in the society. The new Inspector-General of Police, Mr Solomon Arase, has restated his commitment to ensure strict adherence to the use of sirens. I hope he makes his word a bond.
Closely connected with the illegal and indiscriminate use of sirens is the abuse of public office by public officeholders who spend public resources amassing fleet of luxury bulletproof SUVs for their mobility, comfort and safety. It is not uncommon on a daily basis to see senior public officials going around with a motorcade that stretches for up to a kilometre, senselessly burning fuel, blocking public roads and obstructing the legitimate businesses of the citizens. This abuse of office takes a heavy toll on public resources as public servants and security operatives who should be gainfully employed in other critical areas of our national life are assigned to provide security protection to public officials. Today, due to the incessant cases of road accidents involving convoys of politicians, it has become fashionable to find exotic ambulances attached to convoys with full-time medical personnel and state-of-the-art medical equipment, in a country where many of our hospitals have been reduced to mere consulting clinics.
The cocktail of sirens and convoys takes on imperial demagoguery with the sight of motorcades mounted by gun-wielding soldiers and horsewhip-brandishing policemen, intimidating and terrorising road users with deafening sirens and chasing them away from the highways. Often, this is done with a recklessness that puts other road users at grave risk, including the security operatives themselves. A political officeholder who has regard for the people who brought him to power and who desires to serve and not to rule knows that the abuse of power associated with these paraphernalia of statecraft does not endear the people to him but alienates them. In the words of Father George Ehusani, a leading Nigerian public intellectual and social critic, “this is not the best expression of democracy or leadership as service. These are vestiges of primitive feudalism, and today they amount to a violation of citizens’ rights on many fronts, apart from being a monumental waste of resources.”
With a new government coming on the saddle, effort must be made by the relevant authorities to abolish these needless accoutrements of power and trappings of executive recklessness that have become the poster-signs of a dysfunctional society. I believe that one of the best ways to curb this menace is for the government to make the country secure so that the citizens can then hold public officials accountable. Public officials must show good example by obeying traffic regulations on our highways. According to Professor Chinua Achebe, “Leaders are, in the language of psychologists, role models. People look up to them and copy their actions, behaviours and even mannerisms. Therefore if a leader lacks discipline the effect is apt to spread automatically down to his followers. The less discerning among these (i.e. the vast majority) will accept his action quite simply as ‘the done thing’ while the more critical may worry about for a while and then settle the matter by telling themselves that the normal rules of social behaviour need not apply to those in power.”
One of the most enduring legacies of the Buhari government of 1983-85 has been the War Against Indiscipline (WAI). Launched on March 20, 1984, the policy tried to address the perceived lack of public morality and civic responsibility in the Nigerian society. Unruly Nigerians were ordered to form neat queues at bus stops, under the watchful eyes of whip-wielding soldiers. Civil servants who failed to show up on time at work were humiliated and forced to do “frog jumps”. Minor offences carried long sentences. Exam malpractice in schools was severely punished. Counterfeiting, arson and drug peddling could lead to the death penalty. I am not advocating that these measures should be imposed in the new democratic dispensation. However, the spirit behind the War Against Indiscipline needs to be invoked over the charred remains of this lawless country. I believe Muhammadu Buhari can do it.
* Ojeifo is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Abuja ([email protected]).
