Indiscipline Breeds Indiscipline
by Elizabeth Ohene
Unless one is intending to transform a country of over 80 million people into either one big prison or school or army barracks, the chances of imposing 'discipline' as understood by soldiers, are very remote indeed.Nigeria's military leaders seem to think that they have happened upon a cure for what they have diagnosed to be the problem with their country.
But first, the result of their diagnosis: Indiscipline. They seem to be agreed that what ails Nigeria is indiscipline and quite predictably, they have come up with a very military solution to the problem. They have declared what they call a 'War Against Indiscipline, which has become better known as WAI.
Seeing that these are soldiers, it is not surprising that they have chosen to speak in terms of a 'war' against the "enemy' of indiscipline.
There is a fundamental problem inherent in trying to impose 'discipline' on a nation. Discipline being normally and better dealt with among school children, soldiers or prisoners, in other words, groups of people who can only operate successfully when there is uniformity.
Everybody must go to bed at a certain hour and rise up when the bell goes, wear only prescribed clothing and have haircuts of a certain shape and length.
Most important of all, discipline in institutions rests on the fundamental premise that the word of the teacher/ officer/warder or superior is always right and unchallengeable, and obedience is demanded and given without question.
Obviously it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to run an army or a prison or any such institution, for that matter, without the stringent application of the rule of uniformity.
The real world, however, is a far cry from the running of such institutions, people tend to go to bed at different times, some people make do with four hours sleep, and others must have nine hours of sleep or else they are of no use the next day.
Outside institutions, different people tend to put their priorities on different things and what is even more discon- certing, human beings have a tendency to disagree with and to question the wisdom of their superiors.
Thus unless one is intending to transform a country of over 80 million people into either one big prison, or school or army barracks, the chances of imposing 'discipline' as understood by soldiers, are very remote indeed.
If the only way of getting Nigeria to work is by the imposition of military discipline, then it is a sure sign of an abdication of leadership on the part of the rulers, for, if the only way to ensure that people behave in a particular way is to hold the threat of horse whips, military drills or solitary confinement, then there is the very real danger of turning the whole country into a police state.
It is possible, of course, to site enough policemen or military police on the expressways to arrest everybody who crosses the roads at points other than the designated pedestrian crossings. It is possible of course to station policemen at every factory and office gate to ensure that everybody who arrives a minute after 7.30 a.m. is put through two hours of military drill to show that lateness to work is a mark of indiscipline. It is possible that enough policemen could be found to ensure that everybody who is out of step is brought back into the uniform world.
There is no one that will not wish most passionately that all the various crimes enumerated should disappear from Nigerian society, but when cheating at examinations is being put in the same bracket as tampering with oil pipelines, then people begin to get the feeling that there is an excess of rules...If this mode of governance of a people were ideal, the business of government would have been the easiest undertaking but history has shown that outside institutions, uniformity and the threat of reprisals for the breaking of rules has proved to be the most unproductive method of ruling a nation for every two productive people you would need four policemen and two jails for each factory. Without getting into the vexed question of the merits and demerits of the deterrent nature of the death penalty for the commission of crimes, it can at least be said that the fear of punishment has not proved enough to ensure an ordered life.
Last week, the Supreme Military Council demonstrated the uselessness of such rules when it passed the latest in the series of decrees that introduced the death penalty for a wide range of offences.
The Special Tribunal (Miscellaneous offences) Decree, otherwise known as Decree No. 20 creates a number of offences and sets up a tribunal for the trial of such offences. The offences include arson of public buildings, damage to public property, tampering with oil pipelines, telephone wires and postal matters and unlawful exportation of minerals as well as destruction of highways, forging and altering neg- otiable instruments, unlawful exportation of foodstuffs, selling prohibited goods, dealing in cocaine, cheating at examinations and unlawful dealing in petroleum products.
You name it, and the SMC has got a remedy for it - death by firing squad or 21 years in jail.
There is no one that will not wish most passionately that all the various crimes enumerated in these new decrees and others should disappear from Nigerian society, but when cheating at examinations is being put in the same bracket as tampering with oil pipelines, then people begin to get the feeling that there is an excess of rules and even more excess of the prescribed punishments.
If cheating at examinations has indeed reached such epidemic proportions in Nigeria that there was a need for a decree which would send any offender above the age of 17 to 21 years imprisonment, then it ought to strike somebody that the cure for the problem does not lie in the severity of the sentence that the crime will carry.
In much the same way, if the selling of apples (prohibited goods since it is not officially imported into Nigeria and is almost all smuggled in from the Benin ports) is deemed as reprehensible as dealing in cocaine, then it is obvious that people are beginning to lose their perspective or are in a panic.
The seriousness of the crimes are thus bound to be lost in the general confusion and the feeling that one is in danger of attracting a death sentence or 21 years in jail if one sneezed at the wrong place or time
For, it should not be forgotten that military discipline includes such rules as a stipulation that if a soldier should faint while on parade he runs the risk of 14 days close arrest or a court martial.
If the only antidote that can be found to the problems that plague Nigerian society is the creation of offences and the imposition of the death penalty and/or long prison sentences, the ruling military government will soon discover that it will have to spend all its time drawing up decrees, and building new prisons.
There must be something apart from the fear of death by firing squad or a 21 year jail sentence to stop a citizen from setting fire to the central bank building or an undergraduate from cheating during his examinations and it is the duty of leaders of a country to bring out the humanity in their people rather than to try to impose draconian laws.
But even more important in this war for discipline is the impression being given by the rulers that the crime of 'indiscipline' is one that is committed only by the people and not by their rulers.
Discipline involves not taking the easiest option and a disciplined government will necessarily have to be one that is bound by pre-ordained rules i.e. a constitution.
On seizing power on 31 December 1983, the first thing done by the military authorities, like all other military regimes elsewhere was to throw the country's constitution overboard and institute government by decree.
In other words, the Federal Military Government itself discarded right from the onset the need for discipline - the constitution is there to ensure that government is disciplined, that the rulers do not behave according to their whims and caprices.
For, the constitution lays out for the guidance of the governed and the rulers alike, a clear outline of what can be done and what cannot be done. There are therefore no surprises and the citizen always knows where his duties and rights are. When the soldiers throw out the constitution, they institutionalize indiscipline, issuing decrees as and when they think the need suddenly arises.
Even the making of laws under a constitution is a well-defined process and the various stages are subject to debate and scrutiny.
Government expenditure, in much the same way, is subject to properly laid-down rules and regulations, quite unlike the situation under military rule when a budget or decree or regulation is simply announced and nobody has the right to question any aspect and nobody knows how the decisions were arrived at.
If government has the right to issue decrees with retroactive effect to support actions taken already and denies citizens the right to question such decrees, the concept of discipline is deemed not applicable to government but only to the governed.
Military regimes are by their very nature indisciplined and can hardly attempt to preach discipline to those they seek to rule, the wearing of badges proclaiming a war against indiscipline notwithstanding.
