Democracy and Political Thuggery
The word "hoodlum" here is simply described as "thuggery". Thuggery can be an act of violence or behaviour by ruffians hired or instigated by politicians to intimidate their opponents. Politicians and hoodlums are associated with the issue of political thuggery in Nigeria.
This has made many people to believe that the problems of poverty, unemployment among the youths, financial attractiveness of elective positions, wealth accumulation, the phenomenon of godfatherism, lack of political ideology and principles, absence of internal party democracy in contemporary political parties and its attendant effects as well as ineffective security agency, account for the incidence of political thuggery in Nigeria. Poverty makes many willing tool for thuggery in the hands of desperate politicians.
Sadly, we failed to understand that political thuggery is a serious threat to democratic consolidation in Nigeria because it scares credible candidates from going into politics. It is very common to see some politicians giving youths arms, ammunition and other dangerous weapons in order to fight their way to power.
Unknowingly, political thuggery hinders public accountability of elective officers, thus it is a bane to good governance in Nigeria. It also increases the crime rate and a threat to democratic dividends and exercise of citizenship rights.
To say the least, politicians at the federal, state and local government levels are the highest paid public office holders. Consequently, politics in Nigeria has become prebendalistic and wrongly perceived as a lucrative venture where millions of naira are invested in the electoral process and billions of naira reaped as personal profiting interests.
The funniest thing about the politicians is that they don't engage their children, relatives or loved ones to participate in the process of political thuggery or any sort of criminal activities but they influence the poor children through the use of money and drugs.
In the Northeast, particularly Yobe and Borno States the rate of political thuggery has reduced as a result of Boko Haram Insurgency. According to a research carried out by a lecturer in the Department of Public Administration, University of Maiduguri, Paul Y. Mbaya, "The Implications of Political Thuggery on Socio- Economic and Political Development of Maiduguri, Borno State" he found that "Over the years, the activities of thugs have been legitimatized and powerfully backed by the political class and unfortunately in Maiduguri most of these thugs have metamorphosed to Boko Haram. The findings reveal that poverty, high rate of unemployment, high rate of illiteracy among the youths and families having more children that cannot be catered for by their income are responsible for the increasing number of thugs in the state. As a result, these children have no good education, no proper home training, and no food to eat and even shelter. These conditions they found themselves make them more vulnerable to be hired as thugs to rig elections, to kill and to engage in other social vices in the society.
Similarly, thuggery in Maiduguri has caused mass exodus of people out of Maiduguri city to look for safer places because of the fear of death.
Therefore, both the politicians and the thugs should understand that political thuggery is unfair to democracy.