By Valentine Amanze
The basic responsibility of any government is to provide adequate security to its citizens both at home and elsewhere, yet hundreds of Nigerians are killed daily by the Boko Haram Islamists, herdsmen and other criminals.
For the past three and a half years, Nigerians have been living in the Thomas Hobbes’ world, where life is solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.
Though insecurity predates his administration, President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015 on the promise of finding lasting solution to the problem.
But today the situation is worse than he met it.
The invading Fulani herdsmen are getting bolder by the day killing, maiming and destroying farms because of the inaction of the president, his service chiefs and other officials.
Outside the country, Nigerians are being killed and roasted daily in South Africa in the name of Xenophobia.
In Libya, Nigerians who went for greener pastures suddenly become Guinea pigs; yet we have a government that rubbishes its citizens at any opportunity abroad.
Truth be told, Buhari alone cannot be everywhere at the same time solving problems; his aides have failed him and the country by shielding him from his primary responsibility of providing security and job for his subjects.
If the president is fully aware of the plght of his subjects he would not have labeled Nigerian youths as lazy people, when some of his ministers rocked the opportunity to assist them during a recent business summit in U.S, which they abandoned for a shopping spree.
In fact, it is curious that the president has failed to create and provide jobs, which he promised during his election campaign.
The real sector, which would have been an alternative in job creation, has collapsed, rendering many jobless, while forcing others into crime.
The continues killings in Benue and Nasarawa states by the herdsmen and the government’s attitude to it is suspicious and reminds one of the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is best known for his political thought, and deservedly so. His vision of the world is strikingly original and still relevant to contemporary politics. His main concern is the problem of social and political order: how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict.
He posed stark alternatives: we should give our obedience to an unaccountable sovereign (a person or group empowered to decide every social and political issue). Otherwise what awaits us is a “state of nature” that closely resembles civil war – a situation of universal insecurity, where all have reason to fear violent death and where rewarding human cooperation is all but impossible.
For the fact that the Nigerian government is playing politics with everything and has no clear policy on security and youth development, crime wave will continue to rise.