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Nigeria’s Decaying Process By Okachikwu Dibia
Before 1985, I used to
strongly argue that Nigeria was “working” properly. But in the last 23
years, Nigerians appear to have accepted that money is all we need to get
Nigeria properly working. That is the danger: government must bring money
to fix our roads, schools, electricity, ports, airports, railways,
pipe-born water, sanitation and sewage, hospitals, housing and indeed
everything. The money being talked about here is not in millions, but in
billions and nowadays, in trillions of Naira. Ask the Minister of State
for Energy (Power) what is needed to provide steady and affordable
electricity to Nigerians, her answer will be: the ministry needs
Far before now, most part of Nigeria was governed by local political, social and religious institutions, beliefs and practices. The leaders and the led were afraid of the gods or deities to the extent that in some villages, you can afford to pack tubers of yam or cassava by the road side, cover them with green leaves and they will remain there for days without being stolen. I observed this when I was young in Rumuakunde-Emohua, my native home in Rivers State. Many knew it was wrong to steal. Morality ruled, there was less vice; less dishonesty, less insecurity, less greed and less immorality among the people. The greedy, dishonest ones were not in majority. They could easily be detected and punished. Of course, I suppose such gangsters or ill-behaved persons would have become soldiers or sold into slavery. As time went on, the gangsters began to protect themselves from being caught and punished. They searched for stronger deities, charms and when it became clear that the home gods could not harm them, they became warriors, overlords and this attracted the interest of the local leadership. Some leaders were converted; thus marked the beginning of the conversion of palaces into havens for gangsterism and ill-behaviors. This was subtle enough not to be easily detected by the led. At this time, the entire security system was to protect the chiefs and the warriors. This infiltration was unfortunate.
Even with the advent of European rule, foreign religion and education, these sets of people and their children became more powerful, worked for the whites (who guaranteed further protection and privileges) and became what today is known as the Nigerian elite class. Not satisfied with these levels of security, these elites formed protection secret clubs, societies or groups to further enhance their security and that of their children. This is why in Nigeria, the key concern of the elite is security. Excellent security guaranteed, they became white in the day but black in the night: deceitful.
By 1970, they have become unproductive and excessively greedy, engaged in consistent massive consumption of the resources of the society through processes that can best be described as corrupt. In their unquenchable greed, they decreed that their children must be untouched; hence they banned corporal punishment in secondary schools (they beat up and disgrace any teacher that dares touch their children), introduced children’s rights and started to sing human rights as if human rights never existed in Africa. If corporal punishment was an overdose, did Nigeria discuss it such that it could be moderated instead of throwing it away outrightly? Before we knew it, the human rights movement has become a bandwagon in Nigeria and weakened the moral fibre we needed to strengthen our leadership character. The military was duly part of this mess; otherwise, it couldn’t have produced shameless officers who easily looted the national treasury and argued that they never did. The military merely restricted human rights to “chop” unto itself and the elites, hence, the civil rights activists argued for the opening up of the “chop-chop” space.
So, from 1990, the children of chiefs and the elites (civilians and military) have begun to form secret groups and organizations to ensure they got whatever they like anywhere anyhow just like their fathers. They stole their parent’s guns and money, formed cults (which they copied from their parents who do night soul travels, buy guns and service them etc) that guaranteed members pass in every examination without reading, access to any girl they wanted, kill anybody considered a difficulty in their way, have free homo and porno sex, free facilities, free admissions, free (indecent) dressing, free and loud music anywhere, free everything. This led to the actual abuse of the social strata of Nigeria.
On campus, students from not-well-to-do homes were lured into cultism to have and enjoy these free things also. After all “na who dem put sugar for im mouth wey no go lick am”. This was the reason for the very quick spread of cultism from the university to the secondary and primary schools in less than 20 years. If not checked, it will surely get to the nursery schools and daycares.
Today it has infiltrated community, national politics and economy. It has penetrated businesses like kidnapping, oil bunkering; national services like the civil service, national assembly, Nigerian security etc. The most risky aspect of this infiltration of Nigeria’s decaying process is that cults have hijacked popular ideas like democracy, nationalism, resource control, infrastructure ( they are the contractors who never execute any contract but are fully paid), banking, consulting, NGO and human right activism, international trade, information technology, national awards, the churches, local and state government administrations, etc. Are they not ministers and attorneys of the law? Is there any aspect of Nigeria that cultists are not in control? The ill-behaved is in majority today in Nigeria, hence it remains a flawed argument to insist that our institutions must function well first and as soon as this is done, all will be well.
Please permit me to ask further questions. Who can save Nigeria in the face of this consuming decay? Can a saviour come from those people who have decayed Nigeria and are still ruling? Could Reuben Abati and Edwin Madunagu tell us how and why God and morality will have no roles to play for the sanitization of Nigeria? Why do they think that this consuming state of immorality does not deserve the attention of our legislature? Which of the problems of national interest and weight that does not have link with character failure? Can we effectively exclude and ignore ethics, morality and God and achieve a just society?
Morality is the basis of law and society. Without it, society perishes. For there to be any meaningful and fundamental solution to Nigeria’s problems, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua must of urgent necessity make up his mind to arrest this super hydra-headed decay that is fast destroying the social, political and economic meanings of Nigeria. Nigeria needs a mind-character-attitude revolution immediately. |