THERE have been too many pre-election killings in the country lately, but the matter took a rather close and personal turn when six men, wielding menacing rifles, reportedly looking mean, stormed the Abuja home of my friend Akin Osuntokun, who is director of publicity for the Obasanjo/Atiku 2003 Campaign. The gunmen met Akin's wife and children at home. He was away. They ransacked all the rooms and threatened the family with their guns. They kept shouting: "We are assassins. Where is he? Where is he?" I had stayed in that same house as Akin's guest only about two weeks earlier. But providence was at work. The Almighty took control of the fingers of the madmen. They did not pull the trigger. They left behind a traumatised mother and her children, who were forced to experience in their own living room, what they had always probably considered the stuff of movies, a tale told by others.

Akin and his family have since fled from that house. For as long as this nightmare lasts, they would have to keep thinking of the assassin with a gun, and the unknown enemy. In a more direct construction, Akin and his family have literally gone underground. What if they had met Akin at home? So could this have been an obituary comment; a post-humous tribute? Tragedy is better appreciated when it travels too dangerously close. As soon as I got Akin on the phone, I was near hysterical: "Why don't you leave this their useless job? What is it? You are not the one running for President or Vice-President. You can always find something else to do instead of getting caught up in the killing fields of Nigerian politics." The man from Oke-mesi only laughed. I was concerned for him. He was now the one calming me down.

Akin's experience indicates in graphic terms, the mystery of the assassination phenomenon. Why would anyone want to kill Akin? Many others in the last few weeks have not been so lucky. Every day, the newspapers now report as a matter of routine: cases of actual assassinations or near-misses. This flow of blood is not limited to any particular part of the country. It has become a national nightmare. It is difficult, indeed impossible to read the assassin's mind because it is a surrealistic jungle of disconnected motives, totally unreasonable to the outsider. When assassins took the life of Chief Bola Ige, then Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, we had all asked: why? Why would anyone kill a 71-year old grandfather? Friends of Marshall Harry, the ANPP chieftain who was recently murdered in his room in Abuja have also asked the same question. The big why is a generic question: why would anyone kill another human being? Why would an electoral process that is conducted peacefully in other countries become in Nigeria, an occasion for an endless bloodbath? As it is, if the elections hold and we manage to get to May 29, 2003, the elected representatives would be stepping, metaphorically, on a carpet of blood.

The assassination phenomenon says everything that needs to be said about the failures of the Nigerian state. It is to be realised that we are in the wake of the 21st century in the age of the Anti-Christ. Be it on the streets of Baghdad or New York, the Devil and its agents are on the prowl testing the faith of the children of God. The greatest indication of this hellish renaissance is the global loss of faith in the sanctity of the human life. But when other societies face this existential challenge, they seek to safeguard the humanity of the environment by erecting sanctions and institutions through which those who kill and destroy others for sport are kept in check. The existence of a strong deterrence system, established by Divine law in the original cases of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, is what protects the sanity of society.

The Nigerian society is gradually going to the dogs because we have lost this sense of balance. Our institutions have failed us. With their failure evil-minded persons are encouraged to take the laws into their own hands. Even in ordinary circumstances, persons stare at you, and threaten to commit evil, and they boast: "I'll deal with you. And nothing will happen." A society where people threaten to commit crime, and actually do so, with the conviction that "nothing will happen" is a sick society. Our society is sick because it is in the hands of criminals. It is only in a sick society that a Bola Ige will be killed, and nothing will happen. Or Dele Giwa, Dele Arojo, Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola, Toyin Onagoruwa, Omotehinwa, Uche Ogbonnaya, Theodore Agwatu... Because nothing happened in previous cases of assassinations, the continued reign of the assassin as well as other criminals is assured. As we have seen, every murder that goes unresolved, is a dress rehearsal for the next one. With every person that is killed, society's potential is reduced. The distance between the state and the individual is further widened.

The bigger danger is the absent-mindedness of the persons in leadership positions. The spate of political assassinations, now threatening the political process was foreseeable. With the killing of Chief Bola Ige, the public had reasoned that if the Attorney-General of the Federation could be killed so cheaply, then nobody in this society is safe. The fact of our collective vulnerability is what has been signposted by recent killings. Two state Governors: Egwu of Ebonyi and Nnamani of Enugu with all the maximum security around them, have been targeted. One of them has had to relocate his family abroad, until after the elections. What is now happening is that even the state and its officials are afraid of the criminals in our midst. The security and intelligence agencies have been boasting that they are re-tooling for the democratic dispensation. This is a lie. The other month in Warri, when Ijaw and Urhobo youths clashed over a problem of ward delienation during the party primaries, the Amphibious Brigade of the Nigerian Army was drafted to quell the riots. The youths overpowered the soldiers: the amphibious brigade fled from the land into water! In Sagamu, a few days ago, policemen were asked to put down a rebellion by the community's youths who had been torching and vandalising properties belonging to the traditional ruler of Remoland. The police could not stand up to the rioters: they abandoned their vehicles and fled into the bush!

Faced with this kind creeping anarchy, a serious-minded government would have designed long before now, a national security framework. Such a framework is necessary not just for the purpose of elections, but for all times. It was only a few weeks ago that the Federal Government began to talk of a meeting of all the security chiefs to design strategies for ensuring peace during the coming elections. This is disgraceful. What strategy? After how many killings? The Inspector-General of Police is on record as having boasted that his men are up to the task of ensuring national security during the elections. The fellow should remove his uniform and resign his commission. The assassins have managed to tell everyone that he is a liar. And this is clear for all to see. Where government fails to provide a functional security framework, the rule of law is left at the mercy of market forces. This has been our unfortunate experience.

The biggest problem is that of enlightenment. I have heard the view expressed that poverty is at the root of all the killings that we are witnessing. Poverty cannot be an excuse for cannibalism. There are poor people in other parts of the world - in Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso etc - why are they not killing one another for sport? We require in this environment, a vigorous political and civic education campaign on a sustainable basis - to bring the people and government to a higher level of awareness - and to bridge the distance between the state and the individual. There is so much ignorance in our land about the meaning and purpose of democratic rule. What has happened is that many of our compatriots assume that democracy means the freedom to do anything at all. Assassins are not spirits; they are human beings. They kill because they think it is a legitimate way to earn a living. Like undertakers, I believe they also pray to the Almighty to ask for business success. The fine points we make about the sanctity of human life, and the potential of the individual in society do not impress the assassin because he thinks he has a right to kill. He and his sponsors have constituted themselves into an unholy trinity: judge, jury and executioner. The ordinary Nigerian votes on election day not because he understands what democracy is all about but because it is a ritual that he must perform. He does not think that those in government are responsible to him except as a source of occasional income. The elected representative is interested in government only because that is still the easiest way to become an important person in this society. Thus, there is democracy in Nigeria, but the spirit of it is lacking. Persons hire assassins because they do not appreciate the rights of others to exist or make alternative choices. Persons kill because they have lost faith in the Nigerian state and system. Power is misunderstood; it is abused, persons would do anything for its sake alone.

The rot is continuing, the effect reaches far into the future. When we lament over every killing, what we focus upon is the death of the target. Often, we ignore the collateral victims: the family of the deceased, or the quarry that escaped. The issue is that these living victims are traumatised, they bear the pain of the loss that has been suffered, and in their condition, they are compelled to raise questions about their own citizenship. Elsewhere, there are trauma care centres, where social workers assist such persons to re-adjust to society. Here, beyond the sympathy that we express, the living victim is left to his or her pain. The cost of this neglect is that the population of disgruntled persons in society continues to increase.

Where children are involved, the future is affected; the cost is higher. When next I see Akin Osuntokun's children for example, they are likely to report the incident, not fully grasping the meaning, but old enough to understand that it was an unusual and unpleasant situation: "Uncle, some people came to our house." I could be told. "They were carrying guns. You know like Blade in that film. They were asking for my Daddy. They asked us to lie down. Did my Daddy tell you?..." Yes, their Daddy told me. But what would I tell them in response? How, tell me, do we explain to our children, the mess we have made of our lives and their own lives as well?