TRADITIONAL VALUES, BELIEFS AND RELIANCE ON INDIGENOUS RESOURCES FOR CRIME CONTROL IN MODERN SOUTHWEST NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of the study

There is no such thing as a society that is fully free of crime and criminality, but the degree of its presence or occurrence differs from culture to culture, and this also depends on the systems put in place to fight the trend and incidence. Every race or identity group on the planet has and now has recognized and collective patterns and strategies of social control and conflict settlement. In contrast, the police are the official mechanism of criminal detection and control in the West. Africans, on the other hand, believe that combating crime and criminals should be based solely on indigenous principles.When we talk about values, we are referring to views about ideal ways of life that are intended to influence behaviors among individuals or communities via socialization. In this perspective, this research is looking at the essential traditional and indigenous resources for crime control in the southwest. Much has been said by the general public in literature, the media, and academia regarding the police's ineffectiveness in dealing with Nigeria's expanding crime problem. Suggestions were offered, and various remedies were presented, but to no avail. Those strategies may be foreign to our culture. The foreign system is employed in today's Nigerian context to handle living patterns that are primarily alien to the system.

This reinforces the remark of (Ukwayi, Joseph & Bernard, J & Pius, Angioha. 2018) that in many parts of the world, Europeans have used criminal justice systems as a critical colonial weapon to undermine and delegitimize indigenous peoples' social structures and political ambitions. It comes as no surprise that the majority of programs aimed at combating crime in Nigeria have failed spectacularly. What politicians fail to see is that the English pattern and system of government, the institution of the courts, and the workings of an adversarial system of justice inherited and practiced represent a large component of English culture.

People from southwest Nigeria, like several other communities in Nigeria, have always believed in and placed a great value on the utilization of local resources for combat. The persistence of confidence in these ideals has been aided by the inadequacies of current enforcement systems and our society's growing crime rate.

Since the lifestyle of Nigerians seems fundamentally different from that of the English or other Europeans, for this reason, the English social control system introduced and practiced in Nigeria is in a way not very suitable to effectively regulate and control social relations. The observation that the English-based law enforcement system may not sufficiently guarantee a stable Nigeria after independence appears to challenge the country‘s ―modern‖ status. The understanding or knowledge of this lifestyle and the history of the Yoruba will be a foundation upon which their indigenous methods of crime control is examined and appreciated(Ojedokun U.A & Aderinto A.A 2015). Therefore it is upon this premise that this study is set to examine traditional values, beliefs and reliance on indigenous resources for crime control in Modern Southwest Nigeria

1.2       Statement of problem

The control of crime in Nigerian society has remained elusive as a result of ineffective security apparatus. Up till now, the English-based official system of justice in Nigeria has been unable to guarantee safety for the lives and property of the common people; in addition, it is rather expensive, time-wasting, and insensitive to the traditional and indigenous values and beliefs of the people. The utility of the traditional and indigenous social control mechanisms, on the other hand, has been remarkable and appear to satisfy Nigerians‘ yen for inexpensive, more rapid and culturally relevant justice and social order. For decades, man has been preoccupied with the arduous task of finding the most effective means of countering the menace of crime and criminals to no avail. Security implies a stable, relatively predictable and peaceful environment in which individuals can pursue legitimate ends without obstruction or harm and without fear of disturbance or injury. Security problems remain one of the universal phenomena and continue to affect a frightening proportion of man's peace and orderly society; its weakness alone could indeed be disastrously provocative. Given that the policing system has been ineffective in combating the insecurities that have eaten their way into the nooks and crannies of rural communities, the researchers seek to discover traditional values, beliefs, and reliance on indigenous resources for crime control in Modern Southwest Nigeria.

1.3       Objective of the study

The main focus of this study is to examine traditional values, beliefs and reliance on indigenous resources for crime control in Modern Southwest Nigeria. Specifically it will examine the weakness of the policing system and the need or recruiting indigenous people into security network so as to control crime within their premises.

1.4 Research Hypothesis

H0: There is no relationship between traditional values, beliefs and reliance on indigenous resources on crime control in Modern Southwest Nigeria.

H1: There is a relationship between traditional values, beliefs and reliance on indigenous resources on crime control in Modern Southwest Nigeria.

1.5      Significance of the study

The study will be significant to policy makers, government and indigenous people. To policy makers, the study will enlighten them on the need to develop policies that can empower local people to be involved in their own security in case of the late arrival of crime scenes, it will enable them provide meaningful information and control mechanism for curbing local insecurities. To government, the study will enlighten them on the need to allow for each state to design t recognize and promote the relevant indigenous systems of security maintenance, crime prevention, and general law enforcement as complementary body to that of the police. Finally, the study will add to the body of literature on this subject; it will serve as a reference material for other researchers and give opportunity for further research in this area.

1.6       Scope of the study

The scope of this study borders on  traditional values, beliefs and reliance on indigenous resources for crime control in Modern Southwest Nigeria. The study is therefore limited Amotekun in Oyo State as a case study.

1.7       Limitation of the study

The study encountered various militating factors which posed as a limitation such as:

Financial constraint– Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
Time constraint– The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1.9       Definition of terms

Traditional Values: Traditional values are beliefs, Ideas that are considered to be of great importance in life for an ethnic group and that are or have been, transmitted from one generation to succeeding generations.”

Indigenous resources: indigenous resource include, physical, monetary and manpower accruing to local people which is based on indigenous norms for establishing and maintaining order in the relationships among resource users, as well as between humans and resources for certain purposes such as that mentioned earlier.

Amotekun: Amotekun, is an indegenous  security outfit based in all the six states of the South Western, Nigeria, responsible for curbing insecurity in the region. Amotekun is a Yoruba word that means "One that looks like a leopard," leopard being translated to "ekun." Because of this, Amotekun properly means cheetah.

Crime control: Crime control refers to methods and models  taken to reduce crime in a society.