Security analyst and author of ‘Terrorists or Criminal Gangs: New Lords of Nigeria’s North West’, Tosin Osasona, believes justice is a contextual and local concept: ‘The primary misconception about justice in Nigeria is that justice can only be done in, and by “formal” institutions or agencies inherited from the colonial era.’
First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing.
Our questions are italicized.
What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
I grew up in a university community, where everyone seemed to be reading or pretending to read something. I was force-fed a diet of newspapers (The Guardian, Daily Times and The Tribune), the African Writers Series—Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Cyprian Ekwensi’s Burning Grass, Flora Nwapa’s Efuru, Mongo Beti’s Remember Ruben, and also some bits of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens when anyone wanted you to be miserable.
What did you find miserable about Shakespeare’s plays and Charles Dickens’ books?
Knotty language and unrelatable allusions made Shakespeare’s plays serious misery. For Dickens, it was the volume of those novels.
You work in public policy. What book from your childhood would you give to a policymaker? Which policymaker would this be and why?
Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God would be a good read for President Buhari and governors across Nigeria who are excessively fixated on portraying a stern ‘I am in charge and know what is good for you’ outlook. How do you as the chief executive keep a balance between your self-defined sense of duty (problem definition) as typified by Winterbottom and Ezeulu and the overall good of the society (policy outcomes)? Balance, flexibility, and emotional intelligence are essential democratic values.
I grew up in a university community, where everyone seemed to be reading or pretending to read something.
If you could rewrite a classic book/text, which would it be and why?
It would be Things Fall Apart. Rather than the protagonist—Okonkwo—committing suicide, I would love to see him actually stand trial in the Colonial Court. I kind of want to see what his thoughts would be in defence or justification of his actions, and the reactions of the colonial court. There’s a seeming clash of cultural ideologies and expectations as to what essentially is justice, fairness, and sense of responsibility and I’d want to see how these contradictions define the criminal justice system in Nigeria.
What’s one way the pandemic has changed your reading tastes/habits?
I have less public policy- and research-related work to do, so I am back at reading fiction (some of the old African Writers Series novels that I grew up reading—Ousmane Sembène’s God’s Bits of Woods and Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North for example.) rather than political-economy texts, history texts, and biographies.
What’s a recent book/text you disagreed with, and why?
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. The main thesis of the book is that the differences between societies and societal development arise primarily from geographical causes. I disagree because I don’t think geographical causes sufficiently explain, for instance, why the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) or its latest spawns can’t just provide power or why learning to dodge potholes and pits on the highway is one of Nigeria’s most desirable driving skills.
I would love to rewrite Things Fall Apart and see Okonkwo actually stand trial in the Colonial Court. I kind of want to see what his thoughts would be in defence of/justification for his actions, and the reactions of the colonial court.
What’s the last book you read that changed your mind about something?
The Bible, lol. I learned that I can actually make do with less sins.
What’s a common misconception about justice in Nigeria?
The primary misconception about justice in Nigeria is that justice can only be done in, and by ‘formal’ institutions or agencies inherited from the colonial era. We equally assume that the many indigenous systems of conflict resolution and justice present across Nigeria are primitive and crude. Most people forget that the concept of justice is contextual and local.
Can you give some examples of these indigenous systems of conflict resolution and how they have worked?
One contemporary example is how conflicts are resolved in informal markets, particularly wet markets across Nigeria. How various local craft and trade guilds resolve issues of access to market, leadership contests and credit issues among themselves without recourse to the formal court system. For example, Babalojas and Iyalojas are traditional heads of markets, particularly wet markets across Yoruba towns in southwestern Nigeria. As traditional chiefs, these market heads resolve conflicts between market women and men on stall allocation, access to markets and issues of credit, and also set market rules that are binding on users. Adjudication and conflict resolution by these market heads is expeditious, contextual and overall, prioritizes harmony. This conflict resolution system is one of the reasons why some of these wet markets have very low incidences of violent conflicts.
The primary misconception about justice in Nigeria is that justice can only be done in, and by ‘formal’ institutions or agencies inherited from the colonial era.
What’s your writing process: edit as you write or draft first, then edit?
Most of my writings are public policy based, so my writing process follows a praxis-premise-evidence-conclusion pattern. Most times, I edit as I write.
What was your process for writing ‘Terrorists or Criminal Gangs: New Lords of Nigeria’s North West’?
The piece was informed by the inconsistencies I see in reports of criminal activities in the North West. Sometimes, such activities are reported as terrorism and other times banditry. So, I asked, what really is going on: ideology-driven violence (which terrorism is), or gang violence (which banditry is)? I first had to gather media reports of some of the most notorious incidences of attacks, aggregate them and after that, X-ray the facts through a framework of analysis of what acts of violence might qualify as terrorism and banditry.
Most of my writings are public policy based, so my writing proces follows a praxis-premise-evidence-conclusion pattern.
What’s the most meaningful piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
That my conclusions must always reflect the weight of evidence that I am presented with.
What is more important to you: the story or how it is written?
The story is far more important than how it is presented or the medium of presentation.
So what makes a good story?
What makes a good story is its ability to evoke emotions in the reader and the relatability of the experiences the story portrays.
What makes a good story is its ability to evoke emotions in the reader and the relatability of the experiences the story portrays.
Who is an author you wish you had discovered earlier?
Rather than a specific author, I would say I wish I had discovered the works of Nigeria’s first-generation historians—Muhammadu Junaidu, Akiga Sai, Kenneth Dike, J. F. Ade Ajayi and other members of the Ibadan school of history—earlier.
What is your favourite topic to write or read about these days?
I am interested in any piece that answers the question—why do things just not work or just do not want to work in Africa, especially in Nigeria?
What can we expect you to write about next?
In the short term, I’ll be working on projects that focus on the intersections between banditry and other transnational crimes in Nigeria, and the failures of Nigerian governance institutions.
What excites or concerns you the most about governance or criminal justice in Nigeria?
What concerns me the most is the glaring inability or refusal of governments at both national and subnational levels (looking at their policy decisions) to connect worsening crime rates with poor socio-economic outcomes. That they, instead, tend to always resort to violence as the main response to all crises gravely concerns me.
Question from Emmanuel Akinwotu: What’s been the novel or text that you’ve read which has given you the most joy?
Mariama Bâ’s So Long a Letter and Chimamanda Adichie’s The Danger of a Single Story.
Bonus: Please suggest a question for a future author’s First Draft.
Do you finalize your research into a theme before you start writing or do you do your research progressively as you write?⎈
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