-
The Quest For Political Power Through Violence
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 6]
Page 3 of 6
-
-
-
Taken cognizance of Nigeria situation with facts
born out of experience and genuinely vindicated by history that the
quest for political power through violence is very much prevalent in
Nigeria. Violence has persistently being attuned into the Nigeria system
of politics in the garb of thuggery, riots, ethnic crisis,
assassination, kidnapping, defranchizing people their electioneering
rights which will eventually leads to untimely death of innocent people.
It is our view that when political violence is used in conditions in
which no other form of protest is permissible, and then it would wrong
be to call it terrorism. Miller argues that violence may be permissible
in dictatorships and other repressive regimes when it used to defend
human rights, provoke liberal reforms, and achieve other desirable
objective[11].A journey down to Nigeria’s political activities indicates
that politics which is supposed the natural activities of man taking
cognizance of Aristotelian definition as a political animal. Nigeria
idea of politics is a game of do or die affair and what can be known as
survival of the fittest. I should think that the aim of political power
in every government as Arendt asserts is to enable men to live together,
to promote happiness or to realize a classless society[12]. This
meaning is no longer obtainable nowadays instead people have understood
political power as the best avenue to make money hence resorting to all
forms of violence in order to acquire it.
In this write-up, I am
going to philosophically expose this quest for political power through
violence especially in our country Nigeria toeing the foot step of
Hannah Arendt to prove that power and violence are incompatible and that
violence can destroy power but not create it[13]. Most Nigerian
politicians see violence both as an offensive weapon and as a component
of personal security as a necessary part of political campaign; they
believed that they must maintain some capacity to unleash violence as a
measure of self-defense.
1.4 PURPOSE OF STUDY
Nigeria is a
country where no particular system of politics can be said to be
consistently practiced. It is a country where they might sets the pace
for politicking[14] .As hitherto mentioned above; man is by nature a
political animal. Hence politics is not restricted to special type of
people neither is it a dirty game. Instead, it is those who indulge in
it that are could be seen as dirty. Politics in Nigeria is what the
leaders call it. Nigeria can therefore, not be said to have a system of
politics other than inconsistence which culminates into a pyramid of
corruption.[15] What we have in Nigeria as politics is a facilitation of
imbroglios and camps of civilian armies; we have politicians a panoply
of hotchpotch of individuals with contradicting interest ready to
satisfy their individual characters through destructive
manners[16].Therefore, the purpose of studying this topic titled the
quest for political power through violence is to redress the above
mentioned status quo in which politics is seen as a game of do or die.
To achieve this, the youths who are veritable tools of violence have to
be re-orientated for they are gradually imbibing this method as the best
option for survival.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 6]
Page 3 of 6
-
