Ethnic Profiling and Violence in Nigeria -By Samuel Olomu

Nigerians seem to enjoy profiling and pouring invectives on one another especially whenever they congregate in their in-groups to discuss the Nigerian condition. In fact the comments section in many online articles on controversial issues about Nigeria often appears to be open arenas for inter-ethnic, inter-regional or inter-religious rivalry, in the course of the foregoing hate speeches are readily deployed and unavoidable to castigate the others while defending the in-group. If God is to be questioned I would have asked him these two burning questions: why did God not create everyone in Nigeria to only one ethnic group? Why are we all not of the same religion?These two questions are the cause of the current happenings across the country today, and particularly the raging ethnic disharmony currently going on in the Southern states. Profiling an ethnic group in Nigeria as evil or the perpetrator of social violence is therefore predominant. The ease with which Nigerians indulge in venomous hate-filled ethnic, religious and regional profiling on a whim raises a fundamental question of how to control the menace without undermining the free speech principle that is a key building block of democracy.

In a country like Nigeria, terrorism which in fact is the rare part of social violence is a growth industry. Only few contemporary lives remain untouched by its diffused effects. National elections have been influenced by terrorism and other social violence, most notabe in Nigeria and some other African states, even the world powerful nations like USA, Spain and Australia are not left out. Most elections violence in Nigeria are caused by myraid of reasons but ethnicity takes a larger part of it. For instance, people will always support a political candidate from their own ethnic group. They are not concerned of whether the candidate will be accountable or not all they want is “their persons in power” and they can do anything to drive home their wishes and as a result anything that happens in the electioneering process either good or bad will be addressed to the entire ethnic group.

IPOB

Though ethnic profiling is evil but it cannot be avoided. It may lead to civil and social dissonance an history of which could be traced back to the colonial period. The colonialists while pretending to carry out a mission of uniting the warring ethnic groups in Nigeria, wilfully and systematically separated the various Nigerian people thereby creating a leveled playing ground for conflict, terrorism and other social vices. Instead of fighting for national consciousness, the tendency of the various nationals is toward parochial, ethnocentrical and regional consciousness. The viability of ethnic profiling has been contributing to the worsening orgy of violence and terrorism in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s problems are rooted in “ethnic competitions and violence”. In the medieval there are a lot of inter-intra ethnic rivalries: Ife/Modakeke, Ogoni and Andonis, Sagamu, Kano, Junkuns/Tivs, etc, which is also prevalent in today’s Nigeria. The Northern Nigerians are known and profiled as extremists, jihadists, terrorists and the most violent people while the Southerners are profiled as internet scammers, drug dealers and ritualists. If you are a northerner you will like to blame kidnapping, violence and rape on “criminals” rather than the “Fulani herders”. And if you are a Southerner, you will want “scamming” , “drug dealings” and “rituals” be attributed to “criminals” and not Southerners but perhaps will blame all incidence of “kidnapping” and “rape” on northerners and vice versa. What is our imbroglio?

A Fulani Herdsman

The Nigerian security fabric is undoubtedly corrupt, inept and unsuited to cope with the present day crimes. The perennial inefficiency caused by poor security architecture is one of the standing cause of ethnic identities of criminals.

Evidently, Nigeria has been battling with forms of insecurity and violence for decades. In 1960s, Nigerians faces the issue of political violence which is caused by politicians trying to establish a hold on their domains in the post-colonial state. Armed robbery became our greatest problem after the civil war in the 70s. In the 1980s and 1990s, ethnic and religious conflict proved the biggest challenges to the state and which in fact is the cause of all societal ills up till now. The 2000s and 2010s witnessed the birth of insurgency and extremism especially in Northern Nigeria. It was within this year’s that the devastating Boko Haram insurgency was birthed.

The growing cases of kidnapping, banditry insurgency and terrorism has came to expose demimonde of the security fabric. Nigeria, with the increasing cases of insecurity has been defined as the homestead of insecurity. Nigeria was ranked as the third in the Global Terrorism Index in 2020

Yoruba people of Nigeria 

which is caused by the brewing socio-political crisis as manifested today. Reports of killings has been the matter of contention which is becoming a daily affair in Nigeria. No part of the country is immune of this violence, although a section of the country may have relatively higher incidences than the other.

It is the utmost duty of the federal government to abash the evil of ethnic profiling and be committed to the nations worsening insecurity. Until this issues are addressed by the law enforcement and other security agencies, the ethnic and religious profiling could distract us from our responsibilities in curbing this menace.

The point is ethnocentrical prejudice should be separated from crimes. Until this is achieved, our fights against insurgency will end up unfinished.

The judicial sector of the country must be accountable and impartial in trying cases of crimes irrespective of the status, position, tribe or financial buoyancy of the criminals or their sponsors. They should be alert to their responsibilities diligently and swiftly. Today alot of cases involving heinous crimes of rape, murder, kidnapping and other social vices has been discharged by the court of law for want of evidence or sometimes annulled due to one reason or the other which is totally injust. Crimes now take a normal definition in our individual’s dictionary. Some will say it is “not murder”, “not rape”, “not kidnapping” but a “mere rape”, “mere murder” and “mere kidnapping”. The judiciary should take a firm stand to always discharge their onerous responsibilities with no fear or favour as this will prove a great vaccination to this menace.

Conferences, rallies and workshops should be staged by the government to educate the masses on the differences between ethnicity and violence. Insecurity is by no doubt upsurge in the country now and this should accentuate the Buhari’s administration to think and rethink its internal security strategies.

We all as citizens and genuine lovers of peace should speak up to defend the common good of us all. We should detest from ethnic profiling , crimes and evil and should play our own parts to save the country from the verge of anarchy.