The Hobbesian State Of Nature And The Nigerian Situation: A Comparative Analysis

📄 Project Abstract

Looking at the Nigerian state one would see that it harbours a variety of elements present the Hobbesian state of nature where there is perpetual fear and strife, no laws, no authority, no sense of justice or injustice and no sense of right or wrong. In the Hobbesian state of nature force and fraud flourished with a general disposition to war of every man against every man. In this state of nature self-interest was the rule of action and people held on to whatever they could grab until a stronger man came and snatched it from them. Life here was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Similar to the Hobbesian state of nature, the Nigeria state is one where self interest and the spirit of corruption is the dominant rule - an evident fact in the everyday living of Nigerians among political and public office holders and even the commoner on the street. Lawlessness, fraud, armed robbery, hired assassinations, political, religious and ethnic violence, kidnaps, general insecurity of liv...