THOMAS HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR NIGERIA STATE

Abstract

The question of what constitutes a stable and secure state has occupied political philosophers for centuries. A stable and secure state is defined by security of life and property of its citizens in the absence of which life will be “brutish, short and nasty”. Thomas Hobbes is one of the leading modern political thinkers whose notion of overarching power of the state is encapsulated in his world famous concept of Leviathan. Nigeria state is unfortunately ever under the threats of centrifugal forces of ethnicism, fear of religious and cultural domination, which once precipitate a civil war (1960 – 1970). Nigeria political history is a history of management of these forces of ethnic, religious and cultural domination. This research seeks to employ the positive aspects of Hobbes's Leviathan as a philosophical foundation of a strong Nigeria state. The research argues that a strong state is defined by strong political institutions. The research employed the method of philosophical analysis and finds that terrorism, banditry, separatist agitations, struggle for ethnic, religious and cultural domination among the constituent peoples of Nigeria federation constitute centrifugal forces militating against stable, secure and economically viable state in Nigeria. This research argues that the idea of a strong state advocated in Hobbes's Leviathan is a solution to Nigeria state crisis. The research makes the conclusion that the positive aspects of Hobbes's Leviathan is a veritable tool of state-building and a panacea to centrifugal political forces bedeviling the Nigeria Federation.