Friday Musings with Ayo Olukotun
“Let me again note with concern the need to uplift the values of loyalty, honesty, trust and integrity in our public service”
—President Muhammadu Buhari, while presenting the ICPC Integrity Awards to Josephine Ugwu and Bashir Abubakar, on Tuesday
It is easy to descend into despair when contemplating or discussing Nigeria. Elections, which in other climes pass noiselessly by, become occasions for bloodletting, arson, and violent affrays. Neither the Kogi nor Bayelsa election was keenly contested, judging by their outcomes, yet 66,241 police officers were deployed, in turn overpowered by, what the Inspector General of Police, Mohammadu Adamu, described as “fake police”. Between the real police and the phantom police, voters got a raw deal, with lives snuffed out during, and after the elections. The torrent of bad news notwithstanding Nigerians trudge on courageously, standing up to daunting challenges, weathering the howling storms, with some becoming exemplars of honesty, and nobility in a social frying pan where it is difficult to hold one’s head straight. It is in the context of this latter narrative that one applauds the honour bestowed by President Muhammadu Buhari on Mrs Josephine Ugwu, a former cleaner at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, and Bashiru Abubakar, an Assistant Comptroller General. Both of them were decorated with the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission and other Related Offences Integrity Award by Buhari, earlier this week; Ugwu, for returning a huge sum of money which she stumbled upon in the course of her cleaning assignment, and Abubakar, for rejecting a N150m bribe offered to allow traffickers to import 40 containers of tramadol.
An update of that report has it that a team of civil society activists arranged for Ugwu to have a new house awarded to her, as a morale boosting initiative. One of the reasons for focusing on this edifying development is that, in those two honest Nigerians, we see beckoning to us, the Utopia we lost when a criminalised state inhabited a delinquent society, one feeding upon the other. This is to say that a better Nigeria cannot be built on a morally torpedoed state, and society in which there is little or no space for reform to take root. Matters were never so desolate or degenerate. There was a nation founded upon relatively sound ethics, integrity, and the values espoused by Buhari, quoted in the opening paragraph. Slowly, at first, the rain began to beat us, and with increasing velocity, as the subsisting umbrellas of morality, and edification began to shrivel. Part of the blame must go to the state arena, and to successive bands of politicians, who governed with impunity and reckless amorality.
To be sure, politics, and political competition are not Sunday School lessons, but neither can they exist wisely as a descent into a dystopia of normlessness. There is much that a reformed state, and polity, can do to bring about a new universe of opportunities for change, even in a rotten society. If we conceive of the political arena as a bully pulpit from where encouraging lessons can flow, then it must be said that our politicians have often shirked their responsibilities. Furthermore, since actions instruct better than precepts, the brigandage, desperation, anything-goes-behaviour of the political class, especially at election periods, were bound to rub off on the rest of society. Mark you, it is a part of this strange realm that some people argue that they have no business paying taxes, considering that they get little or nothing for all the taxes that they have paid in a lifetime.
What is griping about the sacrificial outlook of the two Nigerian citizens, recently honoured, is that they did not act true to type, as many would have done, citing the ravaging inflation and their wretched plight. Rather, they brought upon their duties, moral heroism which contains, as mentioned previously, the seeds of a greater Nigeria. Academics have long debated the underlying causes and triggers of political change, in the contest of which is more important, individual leaders or structural factors. Whatever answers they come up with, the power of personal agency cannot be gainsaid. Think of the following individuals at home and abroad: Barack Obama, Paul Kegame, Ishaq Oloyede, Sikiru Adetona, Afe Babalola and Ibukun Awosika, and you will tend to conclude that the political and social changes they brought about owe a great deal to their personalities, moral stamina, and personal honesty. That is why the ICPC and the presidency should be commended for setting their sight in the right place, and for publicly drawing the nation’s attention to outstanding feats of valour that contain the potential to turn a nation adrift around to vistas of greatness.
It was once thought that religion, considering its prevalence in Nigeria, would provide the moral spark that will light the fuse of rejuvenation. This is however, yet to happen; rather, conversely, the nation is swimming in a multiplication of religious houses and observances, sadly without the critical component of piety that would have invested it with the necessary moral energy. So, unlike in some other climes, where religious revivals are associated with a lowering of the crime rate, there seems to be in Nigeria a positive correlation between religious expansion and explosion in vices. Hence, the expression ‘Nigerian religion’ has come to denote a type of religion that is not redemptive, and is incorporated, to a large extent, to the prevailing decay. Consequently, religion in our setting is as much in need of reform as a deformed state and society. Perhaps, it is time we abandoned, temporarily, the idea of mega change and began to embrace the concept of small windows, little opportunities for change. Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, once wrote despairingly of the travails of ‘Reforming the Unreformable’, referring to the Nigerian state. Her pessimism may have come from focusing on the difficulties of instituting change from the top or from the big political arena.
What the moral courage of Ugwu and Abubakar instructs is a bottom up approach to change, in which every individual occupying responsible space will count. In this conception, a lecturer who refuses to exchange sex for marks, a policeman who stands firm against collecting bribes, a politician who privileges human life above electoral victory, and an unknown citizen who, instead of making away with stolen money, returns it to its rightful owner are all in the race for true change. If we see it this way, everyone will take responsibility for their own turf, instead of passing the buck of the Nigerian predicament to others. That apart, it is important for government and its institutions to continue to bring to the limelight, and to honour Nigerians, who, against the odds, contribute to changing the current morass. In fact, as this columnist once argued, the national honour system should be rejigged, to allow honour to be bestowed on such individuals as Ugwu and Abubakar. Beyond that, we must drum home the lesson that integrity is not something that complacent fools embrace, rather; it is a virtue that pays.
Finally, we must put a full stop to the glorification and adulation of crooks who get to the top through slippery bends.
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