A major challenge facing this nation today is that people who are trying to fix Nigeria don’t seem to understand the problem of Nigeria.
What they are focusing as the problems are not the real problems but the offsprings which the problem brought.
I have heard repeatedly trumpeted by many including scholars that corruption is our major problem.
Well, It is not.
It is merely the effect or symptom of the problem.
Problem of Nigeria: Absence of a culture of honour
The problem of Nigeria is neither stealing nor corruption.
It is the absence of a culture of honour among leadership, elites and the commonality.
The REAL trouble with this dying nation, dying on its legs under a succession of corrupt, self-centered, and incompetent rulers deficient of honour, morality and credibility is the absence of what some sociologists call “culture of honour.”
You see it everyday and everywhere.
In the churches, mosques, universities, government, boardrooms, palaces, streets etc.
The trouble with Nigerians is that we lack honour.
We don’t even know what honour is.
And as is the people, so is the leadership.
This is the cancer that has eaten this nation to carcass and corruption is merely the effect, the symptom.
It amazes me that even Nigerian scholars have never seen this and have stumbled on it.
It is a mystery to me.
Today you can do anything in Nigeria and get away with anything.
Yes, virtually anything, once you have money and the right links and connections.
Nigerians: Anything for money
The only crime is to be poor and powerless.
Because Nigerians can do anything for money – anything.
With money anything -and everything- is possible in Nigeria.
You can turn a prison room to a 5- star hotel, you can turn policemen to your errand boys or girls, you can rig elections and overthrow popular will, you can kill a story and plant another in newspapers, you can alter grades of your ward in universities, exchange scores, change postings, acquire any title, influence judgement of the courts, torpedo results….
Tell me what is not possible in a land without Honour & shame.
A politician was freed by all the courts in Nigeria for corruption only for the same politician to plead guilty in Britain for the same offense that he was freed by Nigerian courts.
What is the difference?
One land knows something about culture of honour and it has not completely died among them while another land inspite of her loud religiosity has none.
That is not the tragedy in itself.
The real tragedy: welcoming rogues with roaring praises
The real tragedy?
When that politician finally came home after serving his jail term he was received with such a rousing and roaring welcome by his people that even the world wondered what kind of people are Nigerians; what specie or breed of humanity are these people called Nigerians?
The Wadume whose kidnapping led to the loss of policemen on duty was only given 7 years in jail – a slap on the wrist.
Because Nigeria runs a two – tier system one for the poor and for the rich.
And this system is most visible in its justice system.
When that fellow returned home he was received with joy by his people the same way a hero is received after returning from a dangerous expedition.
That is the land called Nigeria.
The trouble with Nigeria is not the Constitution, Igbo Triumphalism, Yoruba Traditionalism or Fulani Hegemony or Islamic Fatalism or even effete Christianity or bribery and corruption.
It is that we are not a people of Honour.
We lack honour.
We can do anything for material gain.
I want this essay to be brief so I will only cite one example that you can also independently verify.
Karl Marx: Moral quality of elites shapes society
Karl Marx rightly believes that attitudes, opinion and moral quality of the elites of any given society shapes the generality of that society.
Assuming that is so, let us look at our elites today to establish the thesis that I put forward here.
It is easy to prove that our political elites lack honour.
They demonstrate it daily by their ways, their actions and their modus operandi.
A common practice now among our political elites is to rush to court to stop the process whenever their tenure is about to be investigated.
You were in power for 4 or 8 years spending public money and now a legally approved body wants to make an inquest to establish how you serve the people and what you did with your oaths of office and how you dispense public funds yet you are angry.
Isn’t that strange?
A man of honour should be happy that a real opportunity has landed for him to clear his name and establish his honesty.
A true scholar will be happy when other scholars want to assess his works and interrogate his ideas and submissions for proper scrutiny.
Here is an opportunity to test his theories and the authenticity of his ideas before an enlightened audience.
Politicians and a culture bereft of honour
Not so for our politicians because they lack that culture we are talking about.
Akinwumi Ambode was a governor in Lagos for only 4 years.
But after his tenure the State House of Assembly decided to investigate some of the transactions he made as governor.
I thought someone with a culture of honour should be happy that finally the opportunity has come to establish his honesty.
Not so.
He went to court to stop what an assembly was empowered under the Constitution to do.
That is the way of the Nigerian elite.
Another former governor in Rivers State went to court to procure “a perpetual injunction” restraining anyone from investigating, inquiring, examining – and what have you? – into his tenure.
What Nigerian courts cannot do, only God knows.
I used to think very highly of Mallam Nasir El- Rufai just as I used to do of another Fulani, that non starter from Daura.
Abraham Lincoln has warned that you don’t know a man until you have tested him with power.
He was right.
The Kaduna State House of Assembly is investigating his 8- year murderous and disastrous leadership when Kaduna became a killing field for insurgents.
Pronto, he quickly rushed to court to stop a body of legislators from doing what is their Constitutional right to do.
You can see that the elites are the problem of Nigeria.
It is not just that they are ignorant, sometimes they could be downright mischievous and nationally subversive.
They lack culture of honour.
Why put obstructions on the path of examining your tenure if you have done well?
Nigeria uses the court to obstruct democratic organs
Why use the court to obstruct the normal functioning of democratic organs?
Because there is an absence of culture of honour.
Our elites would do anything if they know they will get away with it.
Have you noticed another trend in Nigeria?
Whenever any of these people is brought to trial he feigns sickness and pain and even collapses before live camera.
Suddenly, they lack strength, stamina, health to withstand trial.
After trying to use the court to stop their trial without success they move to the next stage: drama.
Pretending to be sick and in pain so as to escape trial.
How many will I cite?
They are always sick when it is time to try them.
A former power minister is the new sensation
He is been tried for misappropriation of N30b and suddenly he is in pain and can’t continue with trial.
Next he wants to travel for overseas medical check-up to delay the trial…
That is our elites and that is their way.
Gaming the system
Deficient of honour and truth, bereft of credibility and even honesty they are leading the way to beat the system and game the system.
What nation rises to the top with an elite such as this?
That is the trouble with Nigeria.
One thing is certain: the politicians of the Fourth Republic are not as manly and honourable as their predecessors in the Second Republic.
Those ones, some of them had honour and they were real men not cowards.
At least they faced military tribunals as men and without buckling or betraying emotions and without pretense.
Some of them gave fire to the military by firing back at them like Abubakar Rimi, Jim Nwobodo and even Bola Ige.
These were real men who were not afraid of even soldiers and spoke boldly at their own trials.
These were men with strong backbones not like those of today who are feigning sickness and pain because they have backbone of jellyfish.
Even an old man like Pa Adekunle Ajasin went through the ordeal of trial and detention without weakening or fatigue.
These were real men of honour, men who fought colonialism who could not be intimidated by the small boys in khaki.
I can’t remember a single politician of the Second Republic who feigned sickness during trial or collapsed even when the judgment was given as harsh as it was then.
These were real politicians, strong men, not boys in adult frame or women in men’s attire.
We do not have such men again in leadership.
High-profile crooks leading an unfortunate nation
In their place we now have cowards, high-profile crooks, looters, thieves, scallywags, morally – deficient and intellectually- denuded company leading an unfortunate nation on the path of perdition.
They are always looking for means to circumvent the system and game the system.
This is where the problem is.
I don’t know where an elite such as we now have will lead a nation to except to perdition.
There is plenty truth though uncomfortable in what investigative journalist, David Hundeyin said about Nigerian elites that in their mental capacity (and depravity too) and orientation and even worldview and moral quality they are not better than okada riders.
A WikiLeaks has one of Nigerian First Ladies named in illegal oil bunkering.
Another First Lady is documented for money laundering.
Another recent one is involved in kickbacks from helicopter sales for Army.
Even when they ate free food, travel at government expenses and receive all the perks they still must loot.
No honour in the blood
It is in the blood.
Because there is no honour.
I can take every segment of Nigerian Society – clergy, media, police, Army, private sector, scholars etc for the Honour Test and they will all fail.
And fail woefully too.
The Watergate scandal is the proof that when a culture of honour exists in a nation even a President can do nothing but bow out in shame.
If Nigerians decide to act with honour and imbibe the culture of honour it will be difficult for a wicked ruler to arise and to have his way.
It is not easy to steal public money.
It is not easy to take money from government ministries.
But when there is no honour and all the board members and governing council members and MDAs are manned by thieves then it becomes easy.
That is what we are facing.
That is the real trouble.
Fix honour first; all good things follow
Fix honour first.
Teach the children to act with honour.
Let all the universities begin to teach Civics to all students about Culture of Honour.
* Fear God
* Pursue Right relationship with your fellow man.
* Dont take what does not belong to you.
* Don’t pay more than a fair price for any item.
* Don’t pay anyone for doing what the government already pays him.
* Don’t receive the pay you didn’t earn.
* Submission to rule of law
* Don’t pervert or subvert legitimate authority…
This is where we missed it.
This is what we lost and why we are lost.
And this is the way to return and retrace the steps.
Without honour, Constitutions means nothing
Without honour, Constitutions won’t help us; Parliamentary or Presidential system will be a waste of time.
Nigeria is like a car stuck in the mud: the answer is not more fuel but traction.
Nigeria does not need more money, more fuel, it needs traction, it needs to get out of the mud.
And that traction that will remove its tyres from the mud is called Culture of Honour.
Study history.
Every true revolution begins here.
No nation has witnessed a revolution without a segment or sections of that nation first discovering this Culture and imbibing it.
The English revolution had the Puritans, the French Revolution had the Jacobins; the Russian Revolution had the Bolsheviks, the American Revolution had the Sons of Liberty…
Okay, tell me who will spearhead the Nigerian Revolution?
Which segment of Nigerian nation today do you have any group with a culture of honour who has not been compromised?
That is where the trouble lies.
That is where we missed the road and lost our bearings.
The last time I heard there is Yahoo Boys Mother’s Association.
Soon there will be Armed Robbers’ Wives Association and Successful Looters Association.
Once honour is lost in a society everything begins to fall apart.
Everything is possible because there is no more shame.
It is like that.
Let us return to this Culture of HONOUR, old and young, rich and poor.
And we will be blessed.
*Moses Oludele Idowu is President of People of Honour Initiative, an NGO dedicated to inculcating the Culture of Honour among Nigerians.
Credit: Moses Oludele Idowu