For any country that aspires to scale national and international heights, subscribing to a set of values is an invaluable measure.
All over the world, values like honesty, transparency, hard work, and patriotism, among others, define countries. Many of the countries that have achieved a pride of place in the comity of countries have done so by subscribing religiously to their national values.
Section 23 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides that Nigeria’s national ethics shall be discipline, integrity, dignity of labor, social justice, religious tolerance, self-reliance, and patriotism.
How much of the national ethicists Nigerians are is very much up for debate amidst the debilitating challenges bedeviling the country.
In a country pummeled by corruption and other crippling national challenges on all sides, it is not far-fetched to say that Nigerians do not remember their national ethics most of the time.
For the Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, people of questionable character should no longer find any modicum of honor anywhere in Nigeria. This invaluable advice coming from one of Nigeria’s best-performing governors, very close to general elections, could not have been more timely because for years Nigeria has made a hideous habit of reserving honor for thieves and other people of questionable character.
This practice did not start today and has largely contributed to the disintegration of Nigeria’s value system.
With elections around the corner, pecuniary considerations will see space made out for people of questionable character in religious gatherings and other public for a to air their lies.
Across Nigeria’s traditional institutions, there will also be a sudden and frenzied uptick of traditional titles and other honors bestowed on the highest bidders who are deft enough to use the sacred and often hallowed pedestal of traditional institutions to peddle their political aspirations.
But Nigerians must tread carefully. Specifically, those who serve as sentinels to the wells of honor in Nigeria must increase the jealousy with which they guard these wells. To allow people of questionable character to drink from such wells will desecrate those wells and make them unfit for unborn generations.
It Is true that the value system in Nigeria has been largely eroded. In a country where the national psyche has been repeatedly pulverized by poverty and penury, only a few question the provenance of wealth these days. In fact, in many instances, it has become a classic case of the dirtier the better.
Thus, across Nigeria, drug dealers, kidnappers, and people who have stolen public funds are accorded the honor that should be reserved for those who have lived well and set examples for children and young people.
In these days of heightened national discourse, thieves will line up in churches, mosques, palaces, and everywhere influence seeps from to vie for accolades they do not deserve. Nigerians must watch out for them.
No country can achieve genuine growth and development when their register of nobles is filled with people of questionable character who believe that the means duly justifies the end.
If Nigeria must regain its face and glow, it must scrub itself clean of the acne that such questionable characters are.
Kene Obiezu is a lawyer and writer.
