The road that stretches from General Gas to Akobo in the ancient city of Ibadan measures about 10 miles. It is bumpy and riddled with potholes. If you call it a dirt-road, you won’t be faulted. A few miles further to the Olorunda end of the stretch emplaces a traffic checkpoint. It is a cash-carrying clearing house for the police. Day-in, night-out, military extortion by men with guns and grim guts takes place here. In the last two years, the cops on duty have been the same familiar faces. They’ve never bothered me each time I drive past their bottleneck checkpoint. But they have become a hive and hellhole of hoo-ha for drivers of commercial vehicles and commercial bike riders doing business on that route. Drivers and commuters loathe them. They are called “thieves and corrupt men” as they openly conduct their business of extortion. And they don’t care who is watching. Whether you live in Enugu, Eruwa, or Zaria, there is a police cash-carrying clearing house not too far from you. This is a commonplace in a nation now fighting corruption.
Today, everybody is now “fighting corruption” in Nigeria. The new national effort is only a social sloganeering to some. It does not strike many people as a serious exercise. Many ordinary Nigerians believe fighting corruption has nothing to do with them. The band of checkpoint marauders blatantly extorting the people also think the fight is not about them, so they continue in their old ways. Customs men who daily perpetrate their own brand of extortion at the entry points of the country don’t believe the fight is coming to them, so they keep extorting. The Immigration officers who asked me to “do the weekend for us, Oga”, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, the last night I visited the country, whatever that means, don’t believe the corruption fight has them on the government’s radar.
Is this a fishing expedition designed only against the Dasukis and Metuhs of this world? Yes; some will say. They believe that very soon, the steam will die off in a suicide, and the Nigerian life will return to “normal”. Ask people around you, a lot of people think this new fight is abnormal and unNigerian. It’s a road they have not walked in a long time. Corruption has become a metastasising meme and it gets me asking: Where is our character as a people if some among us think corruption is a normal way of life? Where is our character if some among us think that fighting corruption is a threat to democracy?
Character is a pattern of behavior, thoughts and feelings based on universal principles, moral strength, and integrity. It is also a resolute adherence to living by those principles every day. Character is evidenced by your life’s virtues and it is a caution-whistle that holds you back when crossing a line into the territory of moral wrongs. People believe in you and your words are trusted because you exude good character.
A man earns respect not because of his vast wealth but his character. Character attracts regard, honour, deference and respect. Respect is not shovelled out the way oil blocks and contracts are rolled out to cronies in Nigeria. Respect is not free food in a paper plate or a hand-out received on demand. Respect is not a freebies tossed on your laps because you think you deserve it, and not made available because you demand it. Respect is a jewel and a precious stone. It is more precious than silver and costlier than gold. The values of pearls and diamonds are nonpareil to the value of respect. Big Agbada and flowing Babariga don’t provoke respect. Big talk, haughty swagger, big jeep, big castles, and big oil don’t provoke respect. Persons in authority who think they are having a field’s day robbing and clubbing the treasury deserve no respect. A man who is respected is a man with good character. When a citizenry is far from good character, the nation goes down into the pit of disrepute.
Every nation needs men and women of good character both to lead and to follow. No nation can successfully fight corruption if it does not first fight to build good character in men. A fundamentally warped character in a position of authority does not understand decorum and decency in government. He is boxed up in his mind and in his weird ways; and he believes waywardness in government is the right and best way to travel. If he stole public funds, he believes it is the blessing of the Lord. Investing stolen public money for his personal gains is not a big deal because that’s all his mind harbours. To a man in authority with a charred character, government funds over which he holds control is his private daily allowance. Until there is an aggressive detoxification of his weird thinking, he remains toxic to the group he leads and to the entire system he belongs. We cannot fight corruption with beastly brigands but only with befitting brigades. Fighting corruption with these elements is fighting a lost cause. If we want to be successful, we must design a formula to begin building the character of men and women who will both lead and follow.
The 3,800 miles (6000km) long Great Walls of China were built in the Ming Dynasty 1368-1644. It was to protect the country from its enemies. The Mongols were a tribal group that would regularly conduct raids into China; but ancient China sought to live in peace and they believed no adversary could climb the high walls. Within the first century, enemies they sought to keep away infiltrated the strong walls three times. Invading enemies didn’t have to climb or struggle to penetrate the wall. All they had to do was to entice the wall guards with mammon. They bribed the guards who fell to the baits of money. Men with charred character will always bow down to the god of gold. Ancient Chinese built strong walls; but they didn’t think about building the characters of their men. Good character protects a nation much more than fortified walls. It makes a nation rich and affluent much more than proceeds and profits from crude oil.
A man’s donned suit does not make him suitable for a job. His good character is what qualifies him for an upgrade. A man’s talent and ability may take him to the top of the ladder; but only his character stabilises him atop the same. A country ruled by men with flawed and charred character may boom today but will doom the next. Its existence remains unstable as ever turbulent seas. If men’s characters are not built and rebuilt, the nation will keep going around like yoyo in a whirligig of avoidable decadence.
I hope we are not assuming that if President Muhammadu Buhari’s present crusade sweeps behind bars identified corrupt chiefs, then everything will be alright. I hope we are not banking on a squeaky-clean society when arrested arrowheads of thievery are stripped of their loots. Even if one million corrupt High chiefs are thrown in jail, and there are still many more with questionable characters latching on to power and authority, the rut will rock on. We cannot successfully fight corruption when men are in tango with gaudy tawdriness. And these manner of men are not only in the dying former ruling party; they are in parties that have not even been born. They are all over Nigeria. Until we factor-in building character in men in our policies, may we not end up in an endless sciamachy. How do we build character in men? It’s a thought for next week.
- To be continued
- PUNCH
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