In Nigeria, our leaders have penchant for travesty. They do what should not be done, and leave to be done what should be done. One of this is the agenda of the SECURITY VOTE! Security Vote refers to the appropriation made for security. I do not presume that there should be no reason for security vote. What I aspire is the solution for the cause of insecurity, which is POVERTY, so that the problem of insecurity will be permanently solved.
On monthly basis, the Federal Government of Nigeria and other federating components; the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja vote out large chunk of money for security. At times for the State Governors that may know what transparent leadership is about, would buy few security and surveillance apparatuses for the security structure, such as operational vehicles, information tech toys which are only brandished without any functional value. For other Governors who show their backs to accountability, such security votes are expropriated to fund personal and immediate domestic security by acquiring hybrid exotic and high-end bullet proof cars to ensure that they are safer than the citizens whom they swore to secure their lives and property, and keep back the remainder as slush fund, and war chest for the next round of general elections with which to acquire our votes illegally (Read Section 14 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria where we find that security of lives and property is the primary responsibility of the government). We have had a lot voted to security, yet our lives are hacked down and our property destroyed on daily basis by merchants and entrepreneurs of violence. More AK 47s threaten us more than anything.
But why do we fight insecurity fruitlessly while we fail to fight poverty which is at the root of the security debacle? That is clearly wrong prioritization! Common sense tells us that we don’t place the cart before the horse. Let me refer us to a kindred thought on the same issue, which I adopt as representing my inclination:
Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode. When a society – whether local, national or global – is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socio-economic system is unjust at its roots – Evangelii Gaudium, no 59 of Pope Francis.
Politics of exclusion is at the root of the insecurity problems we have. Today, our politics has skewed democracy to favour a tiny elite group, instead of allowing democracy to be for the people. Our neoliberal economic system that thrives on the logic of market fundamentalism does not allow the many who are poor to participate in the market forum. The structural adjustments that are fanned into economic policies only adjust the market fundamentals to make the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer. In all the policies of deregulation and privatization, only the rich are favoured, while the poor are schemed out. The triumphalism of the neoliberal economic system could be found in the statement accredited to Warren Buffet when he boasted: “There has been a class warfare going on for the last 20 years and my class (that is the rich people) has won”. Yes, they have won the wealth, but they have not won the peace. Pope Paul IV in his “Message for the celebration of the Day of Peace, 1 January, 1972” told the whole world: “If you want peace; work for justice.”
In Nigeria, we are interested in wheeling more wealth to the political elite, leaving the poor people worse off. In the pyramid of social structure in Nigeria, we have a tiny percentile of the rich at the zenith tip of the pyramid, while we have a mammoth crowd of multi-dimensionally poor people that sprawl the very base of the pyramid. When the rich get more security vote, they cordon themselves off from the horde of the poor people within the safe chambers of their bullet-proof cars, while the very poor stay far off within the calamitous insecure zone cheering them with somnolent praise songs. In the words of Fela Kuti, the poor have permanent engagement with “suffering and smiling” while the elite politicians arm us to kill one another in order to keep them safe. That is the travesty. But this cannot continue for too long. One day, they will also be roasted in the fire of insecurity they stoke, for without POVERTY VOTE, security vote is wasteful.
Ray Olusesan Aina’s “Christian Response to Insecurity and Intractable Conflicts in Nigeria: A Challenge to the Youth” in Nigerian Journal of Religion and Society, 3 (June, 2013): 34-32, at 39 sums what we should do in raising POVERTY VOTE instead of security vote: “There is a casual link between uneven distribution of national resources and increasing wave of violence. Hence, this is the rationale for ideological, pathological violence and even criminal violence”. When we end poverty, we also end insecurity.
My advice for the Nigerian politicians is for them to think beyond the economics of GDP and think in the same line with Christian Felber in his people-oriented economics of ECG, that is, The Economy for the Common Good, in which all policies of the government at the monetary and fiscal levels must opt for the poor, in order to also save the rich. To achieve this, we must STOP SECURITY VOTE and START POVERTY VOTE for sustainable development in Nigeria, and of course the whole world.
Written by Herbert Chimezie Nnadi (IgedenwaAfrika)
Lecturer at Imo State Polytechnic and Social/Political Affairs Analyst