It was Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher, who
in his seminal work Leviathan put a magnifying lens on “the natural
condition of mankind.” All humans are by nature equal in faculties of body
and mind, he argued, and therefore, “During the time men live without a common
power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called warre … of every man against every
man,” a natural condition he elucidated with the Latin phrase bellum omnium contra omnes (war of
all against all).
“The life of man” in the state of nature, Hobbes famously wrote,
is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
In the state of nature,
security was impossible for anyone, and the fear of death dominated every
aspect of life. Being rational, man sought to reverse this nihilistic status
quo. Therefore, since in the
state of nature “all men have a natural right to all things,” to assure peace,
men must give up their right to some things, and Hobbes asserted that an
individual’s transfer of some of his rights to another is offset by certain
gains for himself. At the societal level,
the mutual transfer of individual rights to a body called government becomes a
social contract and Hobbes argued this contract is the basis for all collective
moral order. Yet, it does not detract
from the natural right to self-preservation, which, in any case, is the basis
for any contract. When a government, by omission or commission, defaults in
safeguarding lives, man’s survival instinct manifests. Hobbes, who lived between
1588 and 1679, made these observations eons ago when there was no country
called Nigeria. However, the 21st century
Nigeria
epitomises Hobbes’ state of nature because of the government’s miserable
failure to live up to its contractual obligation of ensuring the safety of
lives and property of the people. Apologists of the
administration of President Muhammadu Buhari will, typically, dismiss this
position at best as hyperbolic, an exaggeration; or worse, the ranting of the
nay-Sayers. But those holding the wrong end of government’s abdication stick
know what it means to live in a state of nature. The unlucky ones are
buried in mass graves, mere numbers without identity. Many of those who count
themselves lucky simply because they are still alive are in internally
displaced people’s (IDP) camps in their own country. They can neither go back
to their homes nor access their farmlands. They live in perpetual fear. The Benue
villages attacked on New Year’s day remain inaccessible to both the police and
the residents who fled. For those who live in the
frontlines of this asymmetric war waged by Fulani herdsmen, life in Nigeria
is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” As Nigerians, we must be
worried, more so when the government’s false narrative is added as an extra
ingredient in the already deadly brew. It is frightening that
the government is not only doing nothing to stop the bloodbath but also
deliberately pushing out a narrative that is patently false with the sole
purpose of wheedling the unwary. The brazen attempt by
government officials to make villains out of victims while beatifying
scoundrels who have made life hellish for fellow citizens is beyond
comprehension. For instance, why would
Buhari admonish Benue
leaders in the wake of the bloodbath in the state orchestrated by Fulani
herdsmen to restrain their people (the victims) by accommodating fellow
countrymen (the villains) “in the name of God?” The implication is that
he believes the herdsmen are the victims in this atrocious war.
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