Politics and Morality

POLITICS AND MORALITY

Nigeria is a country blessed with abundant human and material resources, which has given it a competitive advantage over other African countries.  Despite its fortune, Nigerians have never enjoyed the wealth of its land because of the continuous circle of unrefined leaders that has held its economy in hostage for many years now. There is a missing link in Nigerian politics and governance which our leaders are taken for granted and until it is acknowledged and practiced in Nigerian politics, Nigeria will remain underdeveloped.

The statement “There is no morality in politics or governance” has become the philosophy guiding the Nigerian politicians. The above statement was made by the former governor of Rivers State; Rotimi Amaechi and was reported by Daily Post on November 4, 2014. Former Governor of Niger State; Muazu Babangida Aliyu made the same statement and it was reported by Naira Land on January 7, 2015. As if that was not enough, Malam Garba Shehu in a recent interview with channels T.V. on August 15, 2017 said again that there is no morality in politics. This singular statement has described the political atmosphere in Nigeria. No wonder people always say that politics is a dirty game. The zoo is let loose and wild animals have responded to freedom. Immorality has become the norm or culture of politics. We are defined by what we say, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. One of the things that distinguish human beings from animals is that humans are moral beings while animals are not. Animals have no shame; they eat anywhere, excrete anywhere at any time, they behave anyhow, etc. Come to think of it, some trained domestic animals even follow certain rules of conduct. If there is no morality in politics, it means that the political institution is an animal kingdom. Nigerians are tired of cannibalistic governance. There is need to sweep out the animals and sanitize the political environment so that the nation can breathe some fresh air.

Politics can be defined as the activities associated with the governance of a country or area. It has to do with distribution of power and resources, and management of resources. On the other hand, morality can be defined as conformance to a recognized code, doctrine or system of rules of what is right or wrong, and to behave accordingly. Judging by the above definitions, it is obvious that morality and politics are inseparable because a leader ought to lead by example and not make rules against bribery, killing, etc., only to be exempted from such rules. Immorality, the opposite of morality can be described as the quality of not being in accord with standards of right or good conduct. Acts like stealing, cheating, killing of fellow human beings, etc. are considered immoral. This is to say that majority of our leaders who believe that there is no morality in politics are actually liars, cheaters, killers, thieves, etc. To think that they even say it boldly on air should give us the clue that they not only believe what they say but want to impose the idea on their subjects and convert every one of us to animals.

The basis for Nigerian politics and governance is greed and selfishness and that is why only greedy and selfish people clamor for it. Peradventure Nigeria is one day favored to have a strong willed intellectual or refined leader as a president, who will bring morality to Nigerian politics at all costs, I bet you, majority of our today’s leaders will back out of politics because their motivating factors: cheating, stealing, killing, bribery, etc. must have been removed.

In his statement as reported by Daily Post of November 4, 2014, Former Governor Rotimi Amaechi also advised those seeking to find goodness or morality in politics and governance to look the way of churches instead. Moreover, in addition to his statement as reported by Naira Land on January 7, 2015, former Niger State Governor, Muazu Babangida Aliyu said that politics is all about lying and cannot be the way it used to be. He said that anybody who is talking about honesty or morals should become an Imam or Pastor, and that anybody who cannot lie has no place in politics. It is obvious that our present leaders and politicians cannot bring positive change because they don’t even belief that anything good can happen or come out of the political institution. They have concluded that political institution is an immoral place because they are mentally poor and cannot fight immorality, which has become a political canker worm. It is that serious. Immorality is an infectious virus and it is spreading fast. I plead with our today’s leaders to please back off before every Nigeria contacts the virus.

An Italian political thinker of the fifteenth century, Nicolo Machiavelli advised leaders to ignore morality if they want to be successful politicians. He said that the most important thing in politics is to grab power by all means; fair or foul, and retain it by all means. There is no doubt that Nigerian leaders derived their political ideology from that of Nicolo Machiavelli. Must we copy what is wrong? It is obvious that politics without morality is not working for us, so why can’t our leaders try it the other way round. All developed countries have political institution that developed them. If there is no morality in the politics and governance of America and other developed and progressing countries, then, Nigerian leaders should please adopt their own version of immorality that brought them growth and development.

Nigeria is tired of greedy and selfish leaders who don’t even believe that political or governance activities can be done without cheating, bribery, killing, etc. If our present leaders and political godfathers cannot address their immoral lifestyle, if they cannot discipline themselves for the growth and development of their own father’s land, if it seems difficult for them, then let them all step aside for the disciplined intellectuals to take over. If they are so overpowered by immorality and are helpless, we can understand, but they should please let others come in and change things.

I do not blame a group of people that has described Nigeria as a zoo. Their only mistake is that they generalized it. From my own point of view, based on the belief and comments of our political leaders and opinions of some intellectuals and professionals that has been interviewed at one time or the other, Nigeria is not a zoo but its political institution is. There are still men and women of integrity who can take this country to an enviable height. But they shy away from politics to save their heads from hungry, wild animals. The agitations from different groups are enough indication that everything is wrong with our political institution. The citizens are only yearning for a habitable Nigeria. Their yearnings should not be called hate speeches or be neglected and swept under the carpet. Enough is enough!

Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi

Child Right Act or Child Abuse!

CHILD RIGHT ACT OR CHILD ABUSE!

Sometime last year 2016, a primary school teacher friend of mine narrated an incident that happened in their school that had to do with a pupil in her class. It happened that the child flared up and tore her notebook because her teacher pointed out a mistake she has made while doing her class work. Thereafter, her teacher was forced to discipline her a little by slapping her buttocks three times. The next day, the child came to school with her mother whom she has reported the matter to. On arriving the school, the mother went with her daughter to meet the head teacher and the child’s teacher was summoned. After narrating what happened, the teacher was given two weeks suspension with no due consideration. Afterwards, the head teacher assured the mother of the child in question that such will never happen again, as it is not in their policy to harm their pupils. Meanwhile, the mother went to the teacher and apologized for what happened, adding that she knows that the teacher did what was right by disciplining her child, who she admits is very stubborn, and is getting out of control. She went further to explain that she does not want her child’s trouble and that was why she listened to her, saying that she only followed her to school to satisfy her. The funniest thing is that she was whispering all her apologies so that her daughter, whom she has conspicuously dismissed to her classroom, will not hear what she was saying; else, a fresh war will set in.

The question now is: Are we actually implementing the Child Right Act or Child Abuse? From my own point of view, Child Right Act, based on Nigerian version, as accepted by the National Assembly and passed into Nigerian Law in July 2003 by Olusegun Obasanjo, implies the following:

Ø To protect children from battering, torture, maltreatment etc.

Ø To ensure that every child undergoes a free, compulsory and universal education which is to be provided by the government

Ø To ensure that every child is entitled to rest, leisure, enjoyment, good medical care, food, shelter, good drinking water and sanitized environment.

Ø To protect children against child’s betrothal/child marriage, tattoo marks, female genital mutilation, exposure of children to drugs; criminal activities, prostitution/sexual abuse etc.

Going through the above, I am sure that every well meaning individual have this same understanding. It is just unfortunate that to every good concept in this world, there is always a pollutant to pollute it. We are gifted with the invention of computers to help us lessen our official, personal and academic tasks; but there is also the virus to contend with. For this pollutant therefore, we are faced with the responsibility of either using our computers without having to import files from the internet or spending money to install antivirus in our computers in order to guard our files against virus.

On the other hand, a farmer who plants his seed and expects bountiful harvest is faced with the task and responsibility of checking his farm often to weed out malicious grasses that could render his efforts useless. We can go on and on.

Likewise, the Child Right Act has been polluted by human pollutants. Its concept came in good faith but the pollutants have confused the idea and many people have taken it the wrong way. Some theorists have described the Child right Act as giving the children absolute autonomy to decide for themselves what is best for them, which includes right to sexual freedom, right to choose their mode of education, right to be free from corporal punishment, right to choose where they will reside, right to economic power and financial independence. What height of insanity? Must we always expose ourselves to influenza whenever America sneezes? Can’t we at least adopt some protective measures? Can’t we learn to adopt what is healthy for us and trash what is not? 

I am a Christian and therefore have consulted the Holy Bible to get a clearer view. Proverbs 22 v. 6 says: “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it”. When we bring forth children into this world, they don’t know anything. They solely depend on their parents or guardians to survive and succeed. Having been in the world before them, we have experienced and learnt so many things and therefore, able to differentiate the good from bad. Therefore, it is only right for us to pass on to the children, those values, principles, cultures/traditions etc. that we know will help the children to succeed and become better than us. They are not the ones we should listen to. We are not the ones to obey their demands and therefore shouldn’t be compelled to grant their desires except if we know that those demands and desires are good for them. It is our duty as parents, guardians, teachers, etc. to teach them how to face life and grow; and also listen to their complaints, then advice and guard them based on our experiences and knowledge.

Moreover, Proverbs 13 v. 24 says: “Whoever spares the rod hate their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them”. Hence, the popular phrase; ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’. This verse has been misinterpreted by many to be child battering. Most times, parents, teachers, guardians and most especially masters and mistresses inflict wounds on the children that are in their custody, in the name of discipline. The above verse simply means discipline. When discipline fails to achieve its purpose, then it is no longer discipline.

Inflicting wounds on the children will only harden their hearts. It makes them believe that they are worth nothing, hence seeking an alternative to a better life which might eventually lead them to some vices. The pollutants have also capitalized on the above verse to threaten and question the act of child discipline; giving children absolute autonomy to decide for themselves how to live their lives, which is very wrong.

Before we dance to certain tunes, played by few groups of people with evil or destructive motive, we should be able to think constructively, and create a mental picture of the outcome of our decisions and picture the outcome of the decisions made for us to accept. We are gradually giving in to the demands and desires of children, be it good or bad, without considering the future implications. Gradually, we are turning today’s helpless children into beasts; starving them of good morals and values. That is not what they need. They only think it is the right thing for them but we, knowing that it is wrong for them, carelessly give in to their demands.

We need to go back to the drawing board and learn the right way to discipline our children. Children should be disciplined in love. They should be rebuked or flogged based on what they did wrong and considering their childhood stage. They should also be encouraged and rewarded when they do something commendable. They deserve fair hearing to know when they need help of any kind. Above all, they should be taught the principles of life by their parents, guardians and teachers. They are not to be maltreated for whatever reason and they are not to be left on their own to decide for themselves how to run their lives, because they have seen nothing and therefore knows nothing, as we adults presume.

It is good to copy but best to copy well. Instead of getting confused and misinterpreting the Child Right Act, I think we should study it carefully, and focus on devising means of implementing it as it is. The following should be our focus:

Ø Establishing homes for those children that their parents cannot take care of, and making sure that they get the basic education and are well taken care of

Ø Ensuring that children under the age of 18 years are not made to hawk in the streets when their mates are in school.

Ø Ensuring that parents, teachers and guardians are taught the best way to discipline and nurture their children, and not maltreat them in the name of discipline.

Ø Ensuring that children under the age of 18 are not sent out to slave masters and mistresses to learn trade or as house helps and are abused instead.

Ø Ensuring that children are not forced into early marriage etc.

   Together, we can protect the future generation. Together, we can protect the future leaders. Together, we can stop child battering. Let us stop taking instructions from our children and neglecting them to freelance lifestyle in the pretext of implementing the Child Right Act. Help preserve the human race!

Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi

SAVE OUR INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES!

SAVE OUR INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES!

A child returned home from school one day after listening carefully to her Igbo teacher and greeted her mother: “Nnem Ndewo!” But her English enthusiast mother responded in surprise: Darling, you are welcome; how was school today? The child again shouted her greetings in Igbo. The mother, who was worried at that moment about the sudden change in her child’s behavior kept quiet. Then the child narrated what their Igbo teacher taught them in school and spoke to her mother; “Mum, you people have been deceiving us. We cannot even speak our own language. Our Igbo teacher taught us that English is supposed to be our Ligua Franca which we ought to speak when we find ourselves in a public place where there are people of other tribes. He also told us that those who cannot speak their language came from nowhere, since English is a borrowed language”.

According to May 15, 2017 Press release by Premium Times, The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said that the country’s indigenous languages are endangered and could go into extinction in no distant future if urgent steps are not taken to reverse the trend. He said that the situation report shows that there is a remarkable decline in the usage of our indigenous languages by our children and youth; and that many of them cannot read or write in their mother tongue.” To buttress his statement, half of the global languages being threatened by extinction, according to the UNESCO list, are indigenous African languages.

The problem is not just that our indigenous languages are disappearing from classrooms; they are also disappearing from our homes. The worst is that some parents don’t even speak it correctly; hence their children will get it wrong, which will eventually affect their ability to learn it correctly when they start school.

During our cultural festivals, the communication is in English. Even in the villages the story is the same. (My father in the village blows grammar like nobody’s business) The probability of losing our indigenous language at the international level is so high that if nothing is done soon, our heritage will be a forgotten issue.

We tend to measure intelligence and wisdom on the basis of the ability to speak or write English language. I have seen those who can rap English like the whites but they cannot come up with a solution to some of the common life challenges. Ability to speak English well does not make a non British or American to become one.  This ignorance, which is our lack of self esteem, is the weakness on our part that the whites have always capitalized on to look down on us and treat us like fools. We tend to value everything about the whites but not ours.

Our fathers even accepted the modification of some of our indigenous names by the whites to enable them pronounce them. If we can pronounce their names with ease, why can’t they pronounce our own indigenous names without having to convert it to align with English? But we encourage them to, because to us, our language is weird to them. But for them, we should be able to speak their language or pronounce their names correctly.

How Can We Save our Indigenous Languages?

During my Youth Service in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, I met an Igbo woman in a salon with her kids. Her children were communicating in Igbo, and in the middle of their conversation, one of them said something funny about the hair dresser and I laughed. I commended their mother for not denying her children the privilege of knowing their language despite the fact that they reside in another tribe of the country. I was thrilled by her response which is “Raising them in their mother tongue is what I owe them because I know that apart from their parents, nobody else will teach them that; English is compulsory in schools, and they are supposed to learn the correct English from their English teacher”. Parents should learn to pass on their indigenous languages to their children.

The following other measures can be adopted to save our indigenous languages from going into extinction.

Ø The government must have perceived that our romance with our Ligua Franca will go this far, that made them gear the education curriculum towards the study of indigenous Nigerian languages. Hence, the Federal Ministry of Education made it compulsory for every student to study and register at least one Nigerian language at senior school examination. This is commendable for the promotion of Nigerian languages and should be encouraged by all.

Ø Writing and speaking competitions in indigenous languages should be organized and sponsored by the government, institutions and individuals; whereby prizes will be awarded to the winners. This is better than some of the needless beauty/handsome contests that promote idleness the more.

Ø The Federal and State Ministries of Culture and National Orientation should promote entertainment and other cultural activities in indigenous languages.

Ø Indigenous novels, poems and drama books should be translated to our indigenous languages.

Ø Government and individuals should encourage, support and sponsor the translation of newspapers in our indigenous languages.

Our indigenous languages remain our identity. A person without an indigenous language has no identity. A Lingua Franca is a second language, and those who own a person’s second language will always see that person as an outsider or second citizen as the case may be, as regards citizenship. Our indigenous language is our pride as a people, and should be valued. If we allow it to die, we will be doing great harm to the future generation.

Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi