6 min read
In our context in which the state has essentially abdicated its responsibilities, community members need to start acting together to save themselves. The first step is to start reconstituting the capacity and authority of traditional rulers… It is only when communities start discovering and discussing their problems that they can start working out how to solve them.
Nigeria is experiencing the most serious security challenge in its history. It is facing an even bigger challenge of social disintegration and anomie, signalling the disintegration of community. At its root is the breakdown of religious authority and hierarchies, as children seek different religious affiliations from their parents. At the same time, there is a decomposition of socialisation and moral education within the family. This is accompanied by galloping urbanisation, in which poverty and ghettoes are providing an atmosphere in which the disconnected individuals wallowing in misery can see the engagement in mass atrocities as acceptable and indeed desirable behaviour. The precariat has emerged as the most important actor to emerge from the process and he has nothing to gain from good behaviour and everything to gain by disruptive action. Meanwhile, the ruling classes are so absorbed by their looting of the national wealth that they are not even aware they are sitting on a time bomb.