If 10 years after dozens of corpses were discovered floating on Ezu River we are yet to put a closure on that strange incident by getting to the root of the matter and sanctioning possible culprits, then our salvation as a people is well far. In our traditional society, which ironically we now describe as primitive, no such incident involving loss of human lives could be left to pass without giving it some closure by way of probing the cause (including typically through divination), imposing sanctions where possible and necessary, as well as cleansing the land. We saw what looked like that soon after the Ezu corpses were discovered when the Amansea people performed what they described as a cleansing ritual in the river. It does not matter whether one believes in the appropriateness or efficacy of such practices; what matters is its symbolic implication – that a traditional society is showing far greater awareness of the value of human life and the ontological and moral consequences of losing it than a supposedly modern society with its claim to refined ideals. This further makes the point that ours is a society where nobody answers to anything and anything goes.
In July 2005, a naval officer, Lieutenant Felix Odunlami, shot and killed a young man, Peter Eze, who mistakenly hit his car from behind with a motorbike. Reacting to the murder, a civil society organisation released a statement titled “I can kill you and nothing will happen.” Interestingly, the NGO copied these words from the murder suspect himself; he was said to have stormed out of his car once the accident occurred, and while Peter was on his knees begging for forgiveness, he retorted “Do you know I can kill you and nothing will happen?” Next was his pulling of the trigger of his pistol to kill the young man. Only a timely intervention of some policemen saved Lt. Odunlami from being set ablaze by an angry mob that descended on him.
But then this soldier did not invent these words. He must have heard them uttered many times by others with no consequences following. Evidently, “I can kill you and nothing will happen” is a familiar phrase dotting the entire sphere of our impunity-permeated law enforcement space. Many citizens have reported being told this by gun-wielding security agents. A secondary schoolmate of mine who was once a suffering guest in the dungeon of Awkuzu SARS reported hearing these words as they repeatedly flowed from the mouth of the much dreaded CSP James Nwafor.
“I can kill you and nothing will happen” – this eight-worded sentence encapsulates the spirit of our anti-accountability culture, the soul of our ways of impunity. This expression, in its various manifestations, emerges as the spirit that gives life to impunity, not just in the government realm, but down the line to the least sphere of responsibility in the public service domain.
Hence workers (both junior and senior) in public offices can insist on extracting money from you before performing their routine duty of rendering services to you – I can extort you and nothing will happen. Superiors can threaten subordinates with stalling their promotion or giving them an unfavourable posting just because of a disagreement that’s completely personal – I can stall your promotion and nothing will happen. I have seen this arrogance of power displayed even among academics whose supposed distinction of learning definitely demands much greater personal modesty and professional elegance. They subtly or overtly rub it in the faces of subordinates that they’re the ones to determine their fate as far as career advancement is concerned – I can deal with you during your appraisal and nothing will happen. Needless to say, in a saner clime, such utterance, whether expressly or impliedly made, will be treated as an abominable professional indiscretion which polluting effect on the system can only be remedied by prompt resignation of the culprit. But here we lack accountability – I can do whatever I like and nothing will happen.
Lecturers routinely lord it over students. Not once have we witnessed a lecturer promising a student failure no matter how they write in an examination – I can fail you and nothing will happen. During my undergraduate years, a lecturer, in a hurry to go home, ended our exams more than 30 minutes before time. Our lamentations and pleas did not move her, all her concern was that she was late in going home and had been at school since morning. It was not our fault that the exam started much later than scheduled – I can stop your exams and toy with your future and nothing will happen.
You submit a letter at a public office and return weeks after for a feedback only to be told unapologetically that your letter cannot be found. Those who frequently transact business with public offices (ministries, agencies, tertiary schools etc) must be witness to the constant arrogance of refusal to take responsibility by these officials who lazily approach service delivery to the public – “Oga I can’t find your letter, submit another one and come back in two weeks’ time.” What a daring display of impunity – I can mishandle your mail without an apology and nothing will happen.
A former student of mine once told me how she, upon completion of her graduation clearance, submitted a copy of her form to the Students’ Affairs Department for processing of her mobilisation for the NYSC. However, when months after she couldn’t see her name among those mobilised for service, she went back to the students’ affairs office only to be told that her form could no longer be found. She was alarmed at the sheer levity with which her matter was treated by the woman in charge. “Submit another copy. We couldn’t find the one you submitted, it happens (that way)” were the words of the woman, according to her. In climes where things work well, a public servant paid with taxpayers’ money will not, in just two words – “it happens” – dismiss an administrative mortal sin for which she could lose her job and the university possibly paying heavy damages for imposing a six months delay on its graduate due for the next stage of her life’s journey.
There’s no gainsaying the fact that public service anywhere is organised around a strict bureaucratic order. Bureaucracy according to sociologist Max Weber is a system of organising tasks which is characterised not only by rational division of labour, but also by an overarching norm of strict objectivity where personal interests, sentiments and values of individuals employed in the bureaucracy are completely subjected to institutional values and goals. Thus, if you are part of a bureaucracy that will assess my credentials for employment, you’re obligated to suppress whatever filial sentiments you may have towards me as your relative, friend or lover and perform you duty strictly in line with the institutional norms, values and goals. Also, when you’re part of the bureaucracy to evaluate my credentials for promotion, you’re equally obligated to be objective notwithstanding that I may have snatched your lover from you just the day before.
I once read about a football referee who was scheduled to officiate a final of a tournament in one of the European leagues decades ago, and just a day to the match, he wrote the football authorities to excuse himself from refereeing the match being that his only son whom he loves so much was supporting one of the clubs. According to him, this was the best decision in order to “protect the integrity of the competition.” That’s professionalism in its glittering best. On the contrary, here in Nigeria, people with an axe to grind intently seek out such positions of power just to take revenge on their enemy.
In fact our social space has become one big arena of impunity where lawlessness is in free display. What should be a scandalous spectacle has, through years of condonement, become a normal sight; an acceptable way of life transmitted from generation to generation. A civil servant who, from his first day at work, started seeing his superiors abuse their office would not have too much hesitation toeing the same path when he becomes a director. A young man who grew seeing policemen openly extort money from motorists isn’t likely to see anything too abominable in doing same if he joins the police later in life. Similarly, a student who passed through school seeing his teachers and lecturers impose textbooks on their students may not consider it too abnormal a thing to imitate when they same shoes in future. It is a natural process whereby one’s environment shapes one’s mindset.
Thus, impunity endlessly reinvents itself. In every layer of our society, from the presidency to the least civil servant, you find individuals being above the law, you see dictators, oppressors and tin gods who are emboldened by the reality that they can flout rules and nothing will happen. Their victims include those in the lower layer of society; but then these victims, within that lower layer where they exercise some influence, also themselves become oppressors. The chain continues downward, meaning that impunity has become so institutionalised that no one anymore trusts the system to do justice.
Therefore, people do not feel confident reporting misconduct and injustice because of the distrust for the system. For instance, I was discussing with a group of journalists regarding laudable mechanisms being instituted by universities in the country to combat sexual harassment. Instructively, they were not impressed mainly based on their thinking that the system for reporting harassment will be rendered redundant as students would hardly trust it.
Recent events in the university system appear to be proving them right; students seem to hardly report sexual harassments via official channels; they appear more comfortable resorting to anonymous social media naming-and-shaming, albeit only after long years of silent endurance by victims. The recent fate of Prof. Cyril Ndifon of University of Calabar is in the same league; a collective public protest that bypassed the official reporting channel through which individual victims would have officially lodged complaints. A friend of mine recently told me that his conversations with present and former students who became victims of this ill completely confirmed the assertion that the victims are often reluctant to step out for fear of the unknown. And my exchange with my former student whose form got missing at an office of the university further confirmed it. “I have given them another copy of the form, let them carry their trouble and go,” she retorted when I suggested to her that she should have reported to a higher authority – she simply did not trust the outcome of such reporting, nay she appeared afraid of it.
Unfortunately, not even the judiciary, which should be our last resort in the face of impunity is itself spared by that epidemic of impunity. That hallowed institution, which is the ultimate enforcer of our common norms and equality and before whom all of us should tremble irrespective of status, has become so much weakened, turned into an object of ridicule, and with the phrase “go to court” recently becoming a popular way of expressing this ridicule.
But then it’s important to observe that the sense in which the ridiculing phrase “go to court” is now being invoked tends to trivialise our judicial quagmire by making it appear as though what we have on our hands is an isolated case of a band of APC politicians (now led by Tinubu) seizing power and emasculating the judiciary in order to have it dance to its tunes. No, the apparent redundancy of the courts (which we are now joking about) rather represents something bigger, more fundamental and historical; it’s a reflection (this time at the highest societal level) of our perennial culture of impunity; a thoroughly pervading culture which is both the cause and the product of the sad situation where the institutions that should censure misconducts have remained ridiculously impotent.
The judiciary is not alone in this as the decay affects everywhere and everyone’ from the government to the civil service, from the universities to the security agencies – all mechanisms for censuring misconduct have become next to redundant. Impunity now reigns. I have seen a police officer in Lagos tell a motorist who wouldn’t succumb to extortion to “go and tell the CP (commissioner of police) that I’m holding your vehicle.” I have seen a lecturer who vowed never to teach a particular class that allegedly disrespected him (he was certainly taking the law into his hand) tell his would-be victims, the students, to “go and tell the VC”. It’s not unlikely that “go and tell the director”, “go and report to the perm sec,” “go and tell the commissioner” and similar impunity-laden phrases would be common invocations in the civil service circles. My purpose for elaborating all this is to illuminate the full societal depth of the institutional and moral decay from which the now popular catchphrase “go to court” drew its life.
In other words, “go to court” is another way of saying “I will do this or that and nothing will happen.” It is another manner of telling a motorist not willing to part with his 100 naira note “I will detain your vehicle, go and report to the commissioner of police.” And it is another way of telling a student “I will no longer teach you because you disrespected me, go and report to the Vice Chancellor.” Thus “go to court” emerges as an omnibus idea embodying the various shades and moments of our endless acts of lawlessness. It expresses that one big mess of impunity wherein we all – from the man in Aso Rock to the least personnel in the public service – are both victims and culprits.
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK
Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.
