@Uchekorie: Why have our value systems become so broken? (Y! FrontPage)

by Uche Okorie

I am not sure exactly when it happened. But it must have been surreptitious, creeping up on us ‘like a thief in the night’.

I am not sure when our values became totally hollow.

I vaguely recall in my childhood as well as the early part of my teenage years between the eighties and early nineties, that the last vestige of our national moral fibre was still visible if you cared to look hard enough. Then, a certain kind of ‘perverted’ meritocracy still existed in public service, where the son, daughter, relative or friend of anyone that mattered usually got into our many ‘lucrative’ ministries and agencies by at least having some sort of relevant qualifications other than con-sanguine or congenial relationship with their benefactor.

Then, a suddenly opulent person with no verifiable legitimate means of income, could expect righteous indignation at the very least and in many cases a determined disdain of his ill-gotten wealth, from his neighbours.

Then, you could reasonably expect that a WAEC or JAMB certificate was a testament to the imperfect exertions of its bearer. Then, you would be far from naïve to believe that a parent will be extremely hard pressed to find common grounds to aid his indolent child to perpetuate examination malpractice or more serious crimes like fraud, drugs and the like.

Then, you could be rest assured that even a ‘prosperity professing’ Pastor would be circumspect as to the trappings of a rash machismo display of deserved or undeserved wealth. Then, you would be completely nuts to think that even the most corrupt of politicians will ever have the audacity of greed required to ferry out millions of dollars in cash under one fatuous excuse or the other.

Then, sleeping with someone for monetary or financial rewards had a name and class of people whose stock in trade it was. It certainly wasn’t called runs and certainly didn’t have young secondary school girls, undergraduates, employees, starlets and wives giving the pros a run for their money and trying to outdo themselves.

I elusively remember how hard work was valued and cutting corners was not the norm. I remember when environmental sanitation was taken very seriously and people strived to keep their environment tidy. I remember when tradesmen and handy men like carpenters, plumbers, tailors and diverse service providers took their endeavours seriously and strove to deliver on orders.

I remember the almost Spartan discipline in our homes and how hands-on parents were in their approach to the upbringing of their children.

I remember these things and many more.

When did our value system get so broken that it is now almost an impossibility no matter how brilliant you are to enter into the public service of your own country if you don’t have ‘leg’ in the right places? When did it become fashionable to celebrate mediocrity in our national lives and deride excellence?

When did things get so bad that parents who should know better gleefully collude with their indolent and increasingly dense children to engage in exam malpractice by patronising ‘special’ centres, buying marks and bribing their way into our Institutions of Higher learning, thereby producing a generation of retards who does not value hard work and will rather cut corners?

When did we become so tolerant, no cross that, reverential of emergency millionaires and billionaires sprouting like weed all over the place with a very foggy trajectory to wealth? When did our families, neighbourhoods and society at large start viewing obtaining by false pretence, a wickedness practised across board these days by almost all and sundry, with such vigorous understanding and concoction of excuses to justify it?

When did our bread winners lose focus of their hallowed roles to the extent that they now brazenly encourage their daughters and wives to engage in prostitution? When did sexual promiscuity reach such dizzying heights that it is now a profession of choice across societal strata and affectionately referred to as ‘runs’?

When did things get so absurd that a mother will not only be aware that her child is a drug peddler, but go ahead to offer her maternal skills in cutting, wrapping and moulding illicit substances, advancing the cause of her son’s illegitimate enterprise and in the process diminishing and destroying humanity?

When did we become this slothful as a country that we have delegated almost all responsibility for our lives to smooth talking pastors and imams, high on theological bombast but so lacking in integrity and character?

When did we become so obsessed with crass materialism? When did our value system mutate to such an extent that money and the possession of it became the sole yardstick to measure an individual’s worth or value to our society?

Where are our men and women of honour? Why has our moral value and code so eroded that these days finding someone who would return millions forgotten in a cab or elsewhere calls for a National honour?

How did we come to such a sorry pass? Why have we allowed all these to happen?

I always maintain and will maintain again that the problem with Nigeria is as much a problem of a rogue citizenry as it is of leadership. We deserve the current leaders we have because we have epitomised crookedness in our national space. We have put all that is warped and frivolous on a pedestal and they have become our golden calf. Why won’t we be ruled by selfish and callous idiots? Why won’t we?

The reason why corruption thrives and our anti-corruption laws are doomed to failure is because of our broken moral code. It is a broken moral code that would allow people to so unabashedly defend corruption whenever it rears its ugly head. It’s a broken code that leads to a lack of political and social will to fight corruption. Only a broken moral code will permit such debilitating materialism which daily drives Nigerians to seek validation in the acquisition of stupendous riches, mostly through corrupt means.

Our family moral code is broken. Our sense of individual propriety is in tatters. Our national ethos is now a farce. More than ever, if we are to move Nigeria in the right direction, we urgently need a revaluation and recalibration of our values system. We need to enthrone meritocracy, a culture of doing things the right way and an appreciation of traits like integrity, diligence and a zero tolerance for frivolity.

I am convinced this is by far the easiest and best way to change Nigeria and it begins with YOU!

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Uche Okorie can be reached on twitter on @uchekorie

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

 

Comments (3)

  1. “Then, sleeping with someone for monetary or financial rewards had a name and class of people whose stock in trade it was. It certainly wasn’t called runs and certainly didn’t have young secondary school girls, undergraduates, employees, starlets and wives giving the pros a run for their money and trying to outdo themselves.”

    and

    “When did things get so absurd that a mother will not only be aware that her child is a drug peddler, but go ahead to offer her maternal skills in cutting, wrapping and moulding illicit substances, advancing the cause of her son’s illegitimate enterprise and in the process diminishing and destroying humanity?”

    so we wonder what women have done to you.

    Issokay. Good article tho. Even though less emphasis on women’s perceived role would be welcome.

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