By Tunde J. Akande
Society thrives only on healthy principles. A society that is not built on healthy principles is headed for doom. Citizens must therefore be disciplined to imbibe these healthy principles.
Indiscipline has many dimensions. One way in which it manifests is in the form of unbridled self-centredness. Self-centeredness is a trait in a person which propels him to always put himself at the centre of all his actions and calculations. He does not do anything if it does not personally benefit him here and now. In a nutshell, for that person, every other person dies provided he gets what he wants. When a society is populated by such people being in the majority, such a society is doomed unless something drastic is done to reverse the trend.
When self-centredness is not checked, it continues to worsen until it reaches a proportion in which it becomes a disease. At that point, those who are plagued with it begin to steal recklessly. They steal even what they do not need. Public funds in their care become endangered. They lose their conscience and become more and more insensitive to the negative effects of their actions on others.
When such people find themselves in public offices, all they see is an opportunity to gratify their morbid sensuality to amass wealth, even wealth that they do not need. They do everything possible to hold on to power. They kill and maim for rituals, in the erroneous belief that that will keep their hold on power. They create a huge propaganda and lying machinery with which they confuse and deceive the vulnerable. They commit slander with impunity. They loot with impunity.
When money for construction of roads and bridges is kept in their care, they divert it for personal use, not minding that that action would leave our roads as death traps on which many die daily. When public funds for the provision of health care is put in their custody, they divert it into private pockets. At best, they procure fake drugs because they are cheap and divert the remaining funds. They do this, insensitive to the fact that many souls would die due to the use of such fake drugs.
They procure and saturate public markets with fake products. They procure and circulate fake baby foods, fake building materials, fake machines, etc. They are insensitive to the fact that all these would result into loss of lives of many children and collapse of buildings.
As if these are not bad enough, they continue desperately to acquire more and more political powers to fortify themselves. They grow a cabal whose goal and ambition is to see to their ever increasing sphere of influence. They constitute themselves into a powerful clique which ensures that whatever does not accord with their selfish and evil desires does not see the light of day.
They become a huge source of sabotage for good governance. They do not hesitate to use lie and slanders against any person who dares to work for the interest of the masses. They become a gang. A gang of looters, liars, and thieves who do not shy away from employing any means to destroy the truth as well as whoever opposes them.
But society does not and cannot grow like this. If they are not checked, what you get is a society of increasing unemployment, economic hardship, insecurity that continues to worsen unless it is checked.
After unleashing these terrible hardships on the people, these same people will turn around to blame others for the economic and social woes they have unleashed on the society. They will blame others except themselves for the woes. This is why the anti-corruption war of President Muhammad Buhari must rage.
Man is the major agent of change. For, in the words of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Man is a creative and purposive dynamic in nature – all the resources of nature, be they natural, mineral, water, etc., are by comparison in a state of inertia. Man is therefore the prime mover in every economy. Without him nothing at all can be produced. In other words, the resources of nature are negative and inert. Man, on the other hand, is positive and dynamic. He is the determinant for all economic and social changes, and the generator of all the impulses of progress. Above all, he is at one and the same time the initiator, innovator, accelerator, prime -mover, producer, distributor, exchanger and consumer in every economy. This is why major efforts at effecting a change must be directed at him.
For a long time, Nigeria was plagued with the preponderance of the afore-mentioned self-centered people, who found themselves in positions of power. True to their kind of persons, they used what they saw as opportunity to perpetuate their ruinous and heinous misrule on us. For a long time, Nigerian had been gasping for breath from the excruciating effect of their evil rule.
Now, at least, there is light at the end of the tunnel. For once, we have a President who, in thoughts, words, and deeds believe that things should be done differently; who has understood who the real enemies of Nigeria are; and who believes firmly that the real beginning of the fight to liberate Nigeria must be to first fight them to a standstill.
Unless Nigeria is liberated from the shackles of this powerful gang of looters, who see Nigeria as their game of prey, then the fight will not have started.
This is why the fight must rage on. All well-meaning Nigerians must stand up to this occasion. For it is a battle for the soul of Nigeria. It is a battle between Light and Darkness for the soul of Nigeria. This is why the battle must rage.
Broadly speaking, there are two ways to achieve this: through corrective or reformative measures and through punitive measures.
People at the formative stage of life can take the reformative measure, while adults take more of the punitive measure.
Dr Akande, our Guest Writer, is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, University of Abuja.
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