Ozi I am happy that you see things in this light. I have always contended that the character and integrity debate in nebulous. Could we say Tinubu has character and integrity? Could we really say same of Buhari--ask Wole Soyinka or late Gani Fawehinmi? I am not categorically saying these individuals lack character to an extent they could not be relied upon for anything, but I am saying that the concept is nebulous and that no modern state therefore could hinge the workability of their country on individual conducts of the citizenry. Ill tell you a little story to validate this: Once my office was handed an official phone as we had prayed for years and we were sternly warned by management of abuse. The phone was installed for public use although in a private office--with about 50 staff entitled to use same. I said to my friends: Lets retire this phone to a point where the management could see itself to be censoring our use of it to avoid embarrassment; this phone may be a booby trap. I told them that for such a phone that was being used by the public, it would be nebulous to distinguish use from abuse. My colleagues refused; they said, we will use it with integrity. Soon even the custodians of the phone who would put the phone to use for tens of minutes for private filed reports of abuse. In their view, those abusing the phones were the rascally youngsters who would periodically come to put raunchy calls across to their girlfriends for twenty minutes. When the phone was seized, certain personnel started suggesting systemic checks rather than dependency on nebulous human conduct. Some suggested an automatic call timer that could cause the phone to trip off if time limit for usage was exceeded, but a particular personnel suggested the most auspicious measure: He stated that arrivals on location be handed tickets to grant them access to phones with call units on the tickets--and that as such the moment any personnel finished their ticket for the hitch, they would not be able to call again until the next work hitch. This way, the company saves money and civilizes the use of phones without necessarily having morally lofty personnel. This is what Nigeria needs! We need to restructure our polity to reflect true federalism and resource control to create governance of self responsibility in every locality at all levels which would in turn civilize the character of our politics by redefining the objective of governance here to local generation and local capacity building by regions/states/ LGAs rather then the bleeding top-heavy system that breeds rent-seeking and politics of sharing and hypocritical nationalism. At the moment in Nigeria, the system is so intertwine with corruption that it is difficult to define corruption--and this is why when Nigerians talk, you find it difficult to tell whether they are up against corruption or comparative corruption. Its appalling. People who have understood this ill with Nigeria should come forth and take over the political discourse and relegate cheap redemption preachers to the background.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 13:39:05 +0000
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