“WEEVIL DOES NOT KNOW FAMINE IS BAD”: NIGERIA’S SECURITY AGENCIES AND TREACHEROUS ACT OF BACKHANDER
“WEEVIL DOES NOT KNOW FAMINE IS BAD”: NIGERIA’S SECURITY AGENCIES AND TREACHEROUS ACT OF BACKHANDER

Summary/Abstract: Backhander, a seldom happening within the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), in the late 1970s and the early part of the 1980s, has, lately, been amplified to an unimaginable level, amid the various military and paramilitary outfits in the country. It has evolved into an inseparable, trademark act registered as a mental representation of all security outfits, that at the mention of any security agency in the country, every lip leaps for ‘backhander’. This paper cross-examines the treacherous practice of backhander among security outfits in the country, using Cohen and Felson’s Routine Activity Theory (RAT) as the substratum of rationalisation. Findings reveal that backhander in the security sector has been in existence for more than four decades, thereby forming a lasting tradition so difficult to deface. Meanwhile, the paper offers recommendations on defacing the practice among various security agencies. The paper concludes that backhander has virtually defeated the primary essence of security as major security agencies’ tail wags the dog and not the other way round any longer.

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