In every society, there are deviants and these deviants are as a result of what leadership has done overtime. Nobody is born of God or a criminal. My belief is that God created man, and man created the kind of society he has and society created its deviants.

Historically, the ordinary people of this country are good people. They are law abiding and are willing to follow good leadership. But overtime, that patriotism had been destroyed perpetually by their leaders. If you come closer to the transition that moved us to where we are today, you will find out that since 1999, the problem has not been the people of Nigeria. It is always easy for people who lead bad governance and their entourage to begin to blame the people for their ineptitude.

It is the absence of good leadership that has kept us where we are. I have, as a leader of HRHL organisation, led the monitoring of elections, since 1999, in the Niger Delta. What we noticed, in practical terms, is that the people of the Niger Delta for instance and you can replicate this across the country are aware of what it means to vote. They are aware of what it means to obey the rules and on how to conduct themselves.

For instance in 1999, people came out to exercise their franchise, but the leaders and those who represented them at the polling units messed up the exercise. The people want to go positive, the leaders and their group want to go negative. And in such an environment, it is either you are forced and you agree to the force or you leave. And at the end of the day, they will say ignorant of the people.

Democracy did not begin in Europe. If you look at our local governance or communal institutions overtime even to the present day, you will see elements of democratic principles. People in my community do not reach decisions without hearing from both sides. The whole idea of due process, fair hearing is there. But today, what we get is a situation where young people now dictate how things should be. The reason for this is because of institutions and the character of the regime that we have at the moment.

So, the people are not to be blamed. What Nigeria needs is good leadership, it is what has been lacking; the absence of effective leadership is what has kept us where we are. When we get the right leadership, people will naturally follow. Educated people within my age bracket in Nigeria do not take the leadership seriously. Rather, they as much as possible do things that will not get them into trouble.

In every society, there are deviants and these deviants are as a result of what leadership has done overtime. Nobody is born of God or a criminal. My belief is that God created man, and man created the kind of society he has and society created its deviants. There are people in criminal activities today not because they want to be criminals. This is not a justification for them, but because we have not had the right leadership. Such bad leadership, would want to have a reservoir of individuals that they will use for evil purposes.

The deviants will help you to rig election and kill people during election and then they are abandoned to eat their own dividend. What are they expected to do? You have taught them criminality. They will continue to criminalise society. In essence, majority of Nigerians are not criminals while the few that are criminals can be managed if we have the right leadership. So when you don’t have the right leadership, the court system will not work, the police formation can’t work and the same is the social services.

So we need the right electoral environment and the right leadership as well as the funding of institutions to make things work. Institutions like electoral system is not something you do from year to year.

You invest and build the capacity of that institution so that it becomes self sustainable over time. And any individual that gets into that place will see what is on ground and apply him or herself in that direction. As President Goodluck Jonathan has appointed an INEC chairman, Nigerians will look at that person and if he has a track record and they think he can deliver, he might not be perfect human being, but they see that that person can deliver through his track record you will see how things will change.

In comparative terms, the people of this country are very good people. Look at Latin America, Asia, even Europe in history, no country is as tolerant as Nigeria. Some of the that have happened, if it were in Latin America, the country would have been burnt down. But people are very resilient in Nigeria.

Terrible things are happening in Nigeria yet the people are smiling and the leaders are taking advantage of that to exploit the people. Nigerians are well aware of their rights and their responsibility. They want an opportunity to serve their country in whatever capacity. Nigerians are hard working, see what they do in a very heinous situation to survive.

The leadership should put in place effective electoral laws, the Uwais committee has given us that, if it is turned into law, Nigeria will be a different place in 2011 because then, there will be rules for the game and you don’t circumvent a good law by putting wrong implementers of the law.

Before the next elections, there is need to get rid of all the JTF personnel in the Niger Delta region because they have instrument of violence not law enforcement. Across the Niger Delta region, the police has become so militaristic, and it will be in our best interest to say any police personnel that has served in the Niger Delta for about three years should be re-deployed out of the Niger Delta. This is because some of them were engaged in doing evil.

We need fresh hands that will relate with ordinary people and study communities. The ones here now want to remain and continue their loot. They only way to increase their loot is by violating the rights of ordinary persons, trump up charges against innocent ones to make their people pay through their nose. Some police here are so close to criminals so that they obey criminals more than their superior officers.

Anyakwee Nsirimovu is the Executive Director of Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (HRHL).

Anyakwee Nsirimovu