Opinions have been sharply divided as some explained that the looters acted rightly by “possessing their possessions” while others argued that the looters committed crime for illegally breaking into warehouses.
There are arguments that the looting was necessitated by the hoarding of COVID-19 palliatives since May/April in the midst of hunger. Actually some of the food items in certain warehouses were already going bad and was quite shocking to see the volume of food items in several warehouses across the country. Although explanations were given by the governors of a planned distribution of the food items before they were looted.
The character of the looting at some point revealed sheer criminality like the attempt to swoop on the customs armoury, looting of tractors, destroying school buses and computers and looting of mattresses in some NYSC Camps while some pulled out major town-signposts and even raided warehouses containing chemically treated seedlings meant to be distributed for the next planting season. At a point, looting and raiding actually dovetailed into robbery.
Policy makers and leaders must have an understanding of the psychodynamics of this looting behaviour such that it can be prevented and better managed.
EMILE DURKHEIM and the classical THEORY OF ANOMIE
Anomie is a classic concept of Sociology by Émile Durkheim that gives some insight into how society behaves. Anomy may mean “a lack of integration or mutual adjustment of the functions stemming from social crises, from conflicts and social deregulation.
Durkheim maintains that the cohesive nature of man derives from his being in solidarity with a group that establishes connections between other individuals within the society. The mechanical variant of this solidarity builds on the principle of similarity that unites individuals and fosters internal cohesion while the Organic variant solidarity is predicated on division of labour through the interdependence of social functions which could weaken cohesiveness but restored when the law of restitution prevails as morality regulates social life through the mobilisation of cultural elements.
THREATENED COHESIVENESS
When the cohesiveness of the units within a society is threatened through cumulative leadership failure, social conflicts emerge and groups aggregate to react in the environment of lawlessness. When there is no longer grounds for perceived solidarity in how the commonwealth is administered, the cohesiveness is threatened in the face of extreme deprivation and anger as other forms of reactions get built up against the system. Certain groups aggregate to threaten the chords that bind her to the larger group through protests by defying laws of cohesiveness. The ENDSARS are a group of individuals in this country that feel cheated. Only a few of them were on the streets while majority carried on their protests in their psyches. Looting at such times is of elective character as they often walk together in small groups possibly with similar structural problems which could be financial or social. This principle applies to other restive group movements.
BUREAUCRACTIC LOOTING
While there is a very strong condemnation of looting by the ENDSARS protests, the cumulative precipitant of their looting behaviour could be traced to bureaucratic looting by the political elites lacking strong and viable base of production but using the state as its primary instrument of primitive accumulation that renders the state impotent and produce unemployment, overcrowding, hunger and homelessness which naturally increases the population of miscreants and hoodlums. The spiral effect of this looting provides the breeding ground in the society.
LOOTING BEHAVIOUR
According to Maslow, folks loot whether as hoodlums or political elites when they are fixated on the survival needs and cannot find psychological mechanisms to transcend their inherent sense of lack.
For the hoodlums, looting is unconsciously motivated by what they perceive as “redefinition of property rights”. If property is thought as the shared understanding of who can do what with the valued resources within a society; that understanding breaks down during civil disturbances and this is very instructive. The rational often destructive reaction from the side-lined majority is forceful takeover of property rights of others who are perceived as enjoying affluent lifestyles at their expense.
On the other hand, the political looters are governed by a morbid need for survival and an unfettered access to societal resources occasioned by loopholes in the governing instruments of the society.
In conclusion, the leadership needs some drastic and deliberate restitution from successive bureaucratic looting that has created the breeding ground for this mindless looting behaviour in the polity. The leadership must also ensure that the elitist looting is curbed and the traditional institutions of the society should not reward looters. Aggressive social welfare and social rehabilitation program must be instituted as a good number of the miscreants actually parade damaged psychology emanating from lineage of deprivation that open them to criminal tendencies.
Dr Adeoye Oyewole
adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com
+2348034905808(Whatsapp only)
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