By Cudjoe Kpor
Every enlightened individual has his standards. By implication, there are things nobody would ever catch him dead stooping into the gutters to do: His values define the standards which apply to events he attends, places he frequents and people he fraternises with in his recreational hours.
Even unenlightened individuals also have their values and standards. The snag is, their mediocrity shows glaringly when their standards are measured on the same scale as the enlightened.
Like individuals, groups, associations, societies and nations, no matter how loosely defined, have standards. Above all, as the world draws closer into one global village, global standards are emerging. Standards, as in professional associations, prescribe the minimum acceptable behaviour of members. Otherwise, every member’s ethical standard defines for himself, at which level he operates and faces the consequences of his action or inaction, good or bad.
Thus, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, enjoined the 3,600 new wigs called to the Nigerian Bar recently to stand on the side of justice by always telling the truth.
Justice Mohammed said: “The (legal) profession is known for its sanctity, integrity, honesty, objectivity and respect for the rule of Law. I therefore implore you as learned friends, to exhibit the highest level of professional ethics and decorum wherever you find yourself and tenaciously guard the ethical values of the profession.
“Always remember that every discipline, profession, job, and calling has a cutting edge, which separates the figurative wheat from chaff. Lawyers and Judges, as co-ministers in the temple of justice, are society’s ultimate moral barometer. You must therefore learn to discern between good and evil, and to stand on the side of justice by always speaking the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
So, what happens if a well-informed Nigerian lambasts some of the country’s political leaders for not having either standards, ethics or values? In other words, do they pander to all whimsical winds – especially if stealing from the public till comes handy?
Mrs. Sarah Jibril, former presidential candidate, took a close look at the phony characters ex-president Goodluck Jonathan surrounded himself with in the Presidential Villa while he was in power. In her opinion, the leaders had no ethical scruples whatsoever which made the country look the same too. Once they could dip their hands into the public till, no ethical, moral, even professional inhibitions apply any brakes. Stealing assumes the biblical moral freedom. Hence the pervasive corruption in the country during the Jonathan regime.
Bluntly, she said at a point, the treasury looters in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were so desperate at their avocation that she began to worry about the survival of the President to leave Aso Rock Villa in one piece:
“It was unfortunate and I felt so sorry for Mr. President. Believe me, all I was praying for was, ‘Lord, help this man to finish and walk out of the Villa with his two legs, alive,’” she said in a national weekly interview.
The tragedy of it all was, Jibril said, if you think the Presidency would control or intimidate the treasury looters and common thieves in the party leadership to desist, forget it! On the contrary, rather, the corrupt characters deeply ensconced in the seat of political power rather maligned, intimidated and ordered those who were incorruptible to shut up – obviously to preserve the good public image of the bad government.
Obviously, it is more disgraceful than shocking. If Nigerian leaders in a ruling party have no ethical standards, no values, it follows consequently that mediocrity fills every available vacuum. Somebody must establish the minimum bar level for the entire society, which must be the President and his co-travellers.
It is unclear what percentage of the country’s 170 million population know that standards exist on paper which set the ethics bar. As Jibril put it, “In the 1999 Constitution, the national ethics shall be discipline, integrity of labour, social justice, religious tolerance, self-reliance and patriotism.”
As a global management consultancy defined it, ethics is the intent to observe not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law; in other words, it is the expressed intent to do what is right. The aftermath of unethical behaviour can be devastating for any company. The Institute of Global Ethics (IGE) is emphatic that ethics is a process, not an end. Once learned, it can be applied to whatever ethical questions arise any time in the future. IGE explained: Call it character, integrity, virtue, morality, or ethics — whatever term you use, it comes down to living a values-based life. When a group, association, society is full of people making better decisions, it creates what it calls a “culture of integrity”: a supportive, positive atmosphere that builds morale, fosters internal and external loyalty and improves reputation.
In their absence, chaos rules: Everyone for himself and the devil takes the hindmost. Nobody has time for the biblical injunction for all to be their brother’s keepers. The result is the lawlessness, permissiveness, deviance and societal decadence which the country is currently passing through. How many Nigerians know these ethical standards exist but choose to ignore them because it is convenient or too costly to comply with any of them in a society which tacitly endorses moral decadence, lawlessness and often blatant indignity?
Meanwhile, all leaders extol the virtues of democracy; one wonders whether some of these convenient democrats know what respect for the rights of others means in reciprocity.
Former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (rtd.), recently called on leaders, parents and guardians to rise up against the increasing moral decadence in the country. Gowon foresees danger ahead if Nigerian youths are not guided onto the path of rectitude.
Speaking at Scripture Union (Nigeria) festivity in Abuja, he raised the alert: “This occasion must compel us to reflect deeply on the state of the nation, particularly the issues relating to moral decadence, sexual perversion, restiveness, precarious security challenges and corruption. If we do not arise to bring our youths to the path of rectitude, then their future will appear gloomy and, therefore, we cannot build a virile nation of trust, integrity and good governance.”
In Lagos, for example, by age nine, young girls who should be in school begin carrying handbags for the street walks their big sisters practise for easy money with easy virtue. Of course if not with active parental encouragement, certainly with tacit endorsement. So do the shameless and most likely brainless pederasts busily make hobos of the small boys too.
The fact is the family milieu is the first bulwark against the young ones’ decadence. Beyond the family setting, be it nuclear or extended, the schools and the churches are the milieu for learning and teaching the young ones the lifelong values, morals and ethical standards of society. But both pillars have either bent under the impact of societal decadence or are shamefully broken into pieces: Never mind that the young ones only covet their church leaders wealth, memorised biblical verses and chapters which they parrot with ecclesiastical fervour for televangelist showmanship but are not necessarily immune to the societal promiscuity.
It is unclear when Nigerian values, ethics and standards disappeared. But having them enshrined in the Constitution over the years meant the founding fathers knew their importance in nation-building. In their absence, moral decadence and societal chaos predominate. Consequently, Sarah Jibril, the immediate-past special adviser to Jonathan on Ethics and Values, chose to elevate the societal discourse from the mundane and the humdrum to the high intellect level.
No more bread-and-butter survival issues; but more refined, higher intellect issues within the political arena. The depth of reflection transcends “amala” gutter politics of violence and underhand dealings with voters. The discourse must be upgraded to logical and sound argumentation which propels a nation’s advancement from primitive obscurity to satisfaction of modern consumer needs and wants.
In her interview penultimate week, Jibril blew the whistle on the societal deficiencies. These are life-long values imbibed and cherished for life. They are inculcated throughout the educational ladder from nursery school to university. The destruction of the educational system, therefore, primarily undermined and yielded the tragic repercussion of total collapse of ethical values. Consequently, failure to impart, imbibe and uphold these standards is the pervasive mediocrity, manifest in the malignant cancer of corruption, deceit, distrust, betrayal and other anti-societal values ravaging the country.
In the absence of standards, beggarliness, slavishness, obsequious prostration for the rich of all coloration and of course – betrayal at first opportunity ascends to the top of the heap. When nobody trusts anybody, mutual suspicion becomes the name of the game and national cohesion and identity are not worth the paper they are written on.
Since one of the three goals of the current regime is anti-corruption combat, the re-inculcation of national ethics, standards and values ought to be the urgent priority of the government.
I would rather Jibril concludes in her own words: If there were so much stealing, inappropriate behaviour and not practicalising what the PDP manifesto said, then it means people deviated from what they took oath to do, what they were supposed to be doing as a party, as if a demonic plague ensured that they will not understand what they were supposed to be doing. There was no strength of character to correct anything, to put back on track what was going wrong. And those who want to do the right thing and get things back on track were blackmailed, maligned and were shut up from the Presidency which is supposed to steer the country in the right direction”.
She said: “I am saying this now because government officials should not be the chief polluters. Something has gone wrong with Nigeria. When I am talking of philosophical ignorance, power arrogance, poor definition of politics and democracy, misinterpretation of leadership roles, misinterpretation of the transformation agenda in which Mr. President was talking about the innate change, philosophical change of Nigerians, I am doing that so we could move on as a leading country in Africa.
“By the arrogance of power in PDP, when we were saying that we would rule Nigeria for 60 years, did we know what it meant? It meant we would have lifted up the standards, not deceiving Nigerians into poverty without apologies. It meant we were supposed to lift up high standards of integrity, accountability, high standards of ethics and goodwill. These were lacking and anybody who tried to restore them in PDP was maligned”.
As she summarised it: “And it should demonstrate to you that when people remove the application of their good minds, the application of their conscience, you may see the physical beauty, but you will see chaos in people’s behaviour. It was because of this that when we started fighting insecurity, there was lack of trust, there was corruption, there was stealing and all sorts of mismanagement and those of us who dared to arrest some of these perpetuators of corruption were maligned.”
Former, Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mrs. Farida Waziri corroborates the maligning of anti-corruption fighters by the society’s crooked political leaders in a speech at Benue State University’s Centre for Food Technology and Research, Makurdi, one of the 10 World Bank’s Africa Centre of Excellence projects.
Farida said: “As an anti-corruption czar, I have seen how some of those the nation entrusted with its oil resources in the past helped themselves more than the country.
“With our focus on agriculture, the struggle by political office holders to steal oil fund would diminish. It is time to end oil-money-induced corruption in our land by buying into President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision and take ownership.
“I have made my contributions in the fight to discourage that and even recovered some of the looted funds in billions of dollars. For daring to do that, I came under fierce attacks, slander, blackmail and threats. But by God’s grace and long years of experience, I survived all. I am glad today that indeed, there is a new sheriff in town.”
