In the absence of deterrence

(Link on Daily Trust)

Despite the public outrage provoked by the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a little girl in Kano recently, other would-be child kidnappers are certainly lurking out there determined to follow through on their plots in the absence of appropriate deterrence.

Meanwhile, correctional facilities across the country are literally overflowed with duly condemned murderers benefitting from the governors' inexcusable reluctance to sign their execution warrants. There are equally many easily convictable murderers benefitting from bureaucratic, legal and judicial foot-dragging that has stalled proceedings on their cases. Besides, as usual, many of them would end up somehow released on “technical”, “humanitarian” or other purported grounds. Some are even recognized as “repentant” to end up being effectively rewarded under various costly but hardly productive rehabilitation initiatives.

Yet, even though the link between the absence of appropriate deterrence and the growing prevalence of capital crimes against individuals and communities, is unmistakable, it remains largely ignored. 

Kidnapping and murder incidents have become so prevalent that only incidents with particularly outrageous circumstances or those involving advantaged persons attract public outrage, which, in turn, prompts a semblance of momentary concern on the part of those in power who express “shock” and “commitment” to preventing a recurrence. 

People live, or rather languish, in perpetual fear; and have resigned themselves to fate praying silently that a would-be kidnapper lurking out there doesn’t develop an interest in them or their relatives. In most cases, relatives of kidnapped persons pay the ransom quietly to get their kidnapped loved ones back, for they rightly lack confidence in the supposed commitment and capacity of the authorities to rescue them. After all, the instances where the authorities successfully rescued kidnapped persons without paying ransom are, if any, extremely few.   

On their part, the ransomed are left with permanent trauma from their ordeals most of which are too traumatic and indeed too humiliating to be shared with anybody. Many, for instance, were serially and constantly raped by their kidnappers. Most of the few who share their ordeals publicly are either too naïve to realise its associated social implications or are simply too devastated to bother. A foreign-based Nigerian woman (probably US-based) who was kidnapped along with members of her family while on a visit to Nigeria, was too devastated to keep her ordeal to herself and her close relatives. After going back to her base following their release after paying the ransom, she went on a viral video in an agonizing tone to share her rape ordeal at the hands of their kidnappers in Nigeria.

Children are particularly vulnerable to kidnapping and all sorts of abuse at the hands of non-strangers due to child neglect particularly prevalent in the Hausa-Fulani communities, which explains the relative ease with which their children are abused, exploited and kidnapped for ransom or rituals. 

The sight of unaccompanied, unattended, malnourished, barely clothed, and unkempt kids some as young as four and even younger roaming the streets and alleyways in a typical Hausa-Fulani community, is particularly distressing. Even many supposedly caring parents inadvertently expose their underage kids to avoidable harm by sending them to school or on an errand unaccompanied. 

Also, the culture of blindly trusting kids with anybody simply because he is a relative, neighbour or acquaintance explain the high rate of sexual molestation and other forms of child abuse against kids in those communities. Reported and unreported cases of child abuse involving cousins, uncles, domestic workers, neighbourhood shop owners, and other supposedly trusted acquaintances are quite prevalent in those communities. The real picture may not be easily clear as most cases end up suppressed by the very guardians or relatives of the victims on the pretext of protecting the victims from the social implications, especially stigma.

Though tackling crimes, especially capital crimes, necessarily entails a compressive approach that addresses all relevant things accordingly, appropriate deterrence remains the most effective mechanism to deter would-be criminals. 

Appropriate deterrence against capital crimes is dispensed only when capital punishment is executed against convicted and condemned criminals. To achieve that maximally, wherever capital punishment is applied, it’s either carried out publicly or covered widely in the media. In some countries, when a capital crime provokes widespread public outrage like the recent one in Kano, the trial would be given priority in terms of scheduling of proceedings to conclude it as soon as possible. Also, the execution wouldn’t take long. And to maximise the deterrence effect, some other condemned criminals waiting for their execution would be executed along with the criminal involved in the outrageous crime.

It’s an unexplainable irony that capital punishment is effectively suspended in a country like Nigeria despite being one of the worst crime-ridden countries in the world. This irony per se is enough to explain why the country is not taken seriously on the global stage.  

Politics of nuclear pursuit

(Link on Daily Trust)

The protracted nuclear negotiations in Austria’s capital Vienna to revive the controversial 2015 nuclear deal between Iran, on the one hand, and the US, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and Germany, on the other, continue amid mixed sentiments of hope and frustration. 

The tacitly Iran-friendly former US President Barack Obama was the influence behind the largely secretive deal, which analysts believe would effectively only delay Iran’s nuclear arms acquisition by only a decade after which it would be free to acquire it. However, Obama’s successor, Donald Trump kicked against it and withdrew the US from it, thereby rendering it effectively dysfunctional. 

Since he came into power, the current US President Joe Biden has been committed to reviving the deal in which he had personally played a major role as the then vice-president. All along he has been so eager to revive it that he appointed some of its key architects to various sensitive positions relevant to the US foreign policy and the deal. He, for instance, appointed Wendy Ruth Sherman and Jake Sullivan, key negotiators for the deal, as the US Deputy Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser respectively. Also, Susan Rice, the US National Security Adviser under the Obama administration, and Antony Blinken, the then Deputy Secretary of State were equally appointed the Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and the US Secretary of State respectively.

Now, notwithstanding the outcome of the Vienna negotiations, the emergence of a nuclear-possessing Iran is just a matter of time. I for one, in fact, believe that Iran has already acquired a nuclear weapon. After all, nuclear technology is no longer rocket science. Iran is only engaged in the negotiations to eventually get the world powers to come to terms with it as a nuclear-weapon state and interact with her accordingly to escape the sanctions and other restrictions associated with posseting it defiantly. 

The world powers equally realised that. The supposed opposition of the United States and its western allies against Iran’s nuclear pursuit is for mere internal, geopolitical and international political considerations. Contrary to their official stance, the West and Israel never consider a nuclear-possessing Iran a threat to them after all, for they deep down know the exact extent and nature of the ambition it seeks to serve with the acquisition of nuclear arms. 

A typical casual observer may find it hard to comprehend the fact that apart from Iran itself, Israeli and the US politicians are the biggest beneficiaries of the purported Iran-Israel enmity and, by implication, the issue of Iran’s nuclear pursuit. 

Since its transformation into a Shiite theocracy following the 1979 revolution, Iran has ridden on the wave of the popular anti-Israeli sentiment across the Muslim world in pursuit of geopolitical influence in the Middle East and across the Muslim world. It has always touted its purported commitment to liberating Al-Quds and the Palestinians from the Israeli occupation and indeed wiping Israel off the world, which informed the popular wish and eagerness among the gullible to see her possess nuclear weapons.

Whereas, Iran only realises the underlying political value of nuclear arms in international politics. It realises the fact that, regardless of the prevailing rhetoric that glorifies modern civilization, a country’s ability to assert its geopolitical or global influence is still largely determined by its real or perceived amount and destructive capacity of its nuclear arsenal. Because in addition to its deterrent effect against any threat or aggression with a similar weapon, a nuclear weapon equally prevents blackmail by an aggressor or extortion by a supposed ally. 

Interestingly, the situation between North Korea and the US regional allies e.g. Japan and South Korea is a case study par excellence in this regard. Though the latter are super-rich developed countries, they have been under persistent threat from the economically struggling but nuclear-possessing North Korea, on the one hand, and the extortion of the United States, on the pretext of protecting them, on the other.

There are currently nine nuclear-weapon states in the world i.e. the United States, Russia, France, China, United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. However, while there are probably other countries with nuclear weapons, which wouldn’t want to be identified for various tactical reasons, there are certainly many others that possess the technology yet haven’t manufactured one e.g. Japan and Germany.  

Anyway, Iran’s nuclear pursuit is only in furtherance of its geopolitical ambition at the expense of its Arab neighbours. Also, though Israeli politicians realise that their Iranian counterparts are only manipulating popular sentiments and emotions for political goals, yet they (Israeli politicians) constantly and exaggeratingly cite Iran’s constant “threat” against Israel to subsequently reassure the frightened Israeli electorate that they are equal to the task of protecting Israel and tackling Iran. That way they also attract more and more international sympathy, solidarity and diplomatic support for Israel on the global stage.

Likewise, in the United States where pro-Israeli sentiment is particularly deep-rooted, no politician can afford to show indifference let alone support Iran’s nuclear pursuit, for it would simply mean the end of his political ambition. This is even though no one out there actually believes that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel.