The Bible upholds politics as a good thing willed by God for the well-being ofhumanity. It was for this good reason that St. Paul affirms that “allgovernment comes from God” and that “The state is there to serve God for(peoples) benefit…” (Rom. 13:1-7). It is has become obvious that the Christianconcept of politics is founded on the common good and is opposed to separationof politics from morality. This is further confirmed by a South AfricaTheologian T.S.N Gqubule thus, “The Christian religion teaches that God is lordof the whole life and the lord of all creation. There is no sphere of life suchas politics, economics education which is not under his lordship.”
The decayed value system is affecting ourgrowth. Values give direction and firmness to life and they bring to life theimportant dimension of meaning which adds joy, satisfaction and peace to life.Values identify a person, giving him a name, a face and character. Withoutvalues one would be floating like a piece of driftwood in the swirling watersof a river. Values bring quality to life. The philosophical study dealing withthe nature of value and the types of value, as in morals, aesthetics religion,and metaphysics is known as axiology. Morality which is part of our valuesystem is gradually eroding away thereby making politics a do or dies affair.All hands must be on deck to resurrect our values to enable us stand the tasteof future civilization.
Man is a moral being, unique in creationpossessing higher powers. His conduct is controlled by thoughts and emotions,by desires and intensions. His actions become the subject of his own and ofother men’s criticism. These actions may be judged good or bad, praiseworthy orblameworthy, right or wrong. In the light of the above, man is termed a ‘moralbeing’. Man is not just an animal, he is a person who can choose what he willdo and who is in some way responsible for his actions. This is exactly whatEthics (which is derived from the Greek word Ethos (meaning ‘conduct’ or way oflife) is all about.
Ethicalscience seeks to examine conduct and to deliberate on correct modes of conduct.Down the centuries man has speculated about what constitutes “the good life.”Socrates for example maintained that education is the secret of virtue for knowledgeaccording to him is virtue, this was his famous dictum. The Epicureans, ontheir own, regarded the pursuant of pleasure and the avoidance of pain as theonly worthwhile aim in life.
Late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe maintained thateducation constitute more than learning when he said, “By education I do notmean simply learning, I mean…Training…the head, hand and the heart…Training inmind, in morals and in hand that helps make one socially efficient”. In myterm, if people are denied of books, I mean the right type of books that couldhelp in molding them morally; the society suffers from academic malnutrition,starvation, moral atrophy and depravity. Such a society will continue toproduce morally depraved leaders, those without conscience, who on the otherhand, will not allow their lives to be guided by same. Like the sayings of JuanAries, “I am free when I accept the fact that my life should be ruled byconscience”.
Thoseleaders who disobey their consciences know without being told that theyformulate new premises for life everyday which will in turn hunt them. Ourconscience is an avenue through which the divine passes his message to us. Itis unfortunate that some of our leaders belong to the school of thought thatsays that conscience is an expression of feelings of pleasure or pain.
Theabove school of thought tells us that an action is right if it ispleasure-producing and wrong if it is pain-producing. These philosophies belongto the ‘Hedonist School of Ethics’ and are very dangerous to our daily morallife. If conscience is just related to what makes us feel pleasure or pain,then life becomes entirely a matter of what we feel we like or dislike andthere is no room left for God or for his will. It was this obnoxious thoughtthat influenced the high level of looting the state treasury, abuse of human right and constant threat tolife witnessed in this nation.
A situation in which some state Governors rulewithout conscience, hoodwinking the masses with deceptive slogans and policiesbereft of positive imparts becomes an achievement. Few days ago, I could recall, I had a chartwith a friend who informed me that there’s great hope for Nigeria to become oneof the world growing economy. I was happy when he said it and I quicklyinformed of my fears, I see domination, intimidation, and control. However, weneed to keep faith alive! If a politician promises good governance and turns todo otherwise, it’s bad and amounts to political corruption.
This in my opinion is political corruption which is the anti-thesis to our valuesethics and morality. In the words of Philomena Agudo, “Values are so importantto human beings, that without them, one cannot possibly discover a meaning tolife”. In more or less different words C. Kluckholm expresses the same view asfollows, “A selective orientation towards experience, implying deep commitmentor repudiation, which influences the ordering of choices between possiblealternatives in action”.
Politicalcorruption is a social problem found in various degrees and forms in mostprimitive societies. It is a characteristic of life bereft of morality. It isendemic in both authoritarian and party systems of government. For James C.Scott political corruption “must be understood as a regular, repetitive andintegral part of the operation of most political systems”. I am of the viewthat this phenomenon is more prevalent in the developing countries than thedeveloped ones.
Political corruption is the practice ofpolitics without morality. What can we say then? If criminals rule asgovernors, Ex-convicts are in various positions of integrity and authority. InNigeria a governor who tell a lot of lies on AIT and Channels TV, loot statetreasury to influence people can win an award of any type. Thieves are givenplaces and titles of honour both in the churches, mosques and in the society,integrity goes for a pittance. In this country, there is nothing money cannotdo. The way both opposition and ruling parties worship and kill for money is athing that threatens the interest of the common man.
The naïve voice of a mediocre in leadership whonevertheless, is not willing to abide by the true political philosophy of “thecommon good” which in the words of Mathew Hassan Kukah, “The common good makesbeing a spectator an act of treasury to (ones) community…No one can remain indifferentto affairs that affect the welfare of (ones) community”.
David Knostant described ‘the common good’ as “something that many people will findfamiliar but may not have had a name for”. David Knostant’s statement isinformed by the fact that humanity ought to know what is right and wrong.Though it is obvious that there are leaders whose purpose of leadership isbereft of “the common good”. The ancient Romans variously called it ‘bonumCommune’, ‘utilitas’ communis’ while the Germans named it, Gemeinwohl or‘Gemeingut’ which is to say that the reality was known to them. The greatquestion today is where is the reality of this in our nation Nigeria? Where isthe trace of this in our various states?
It should be noted that ‘the common good’ isfor the well-being of human beings living together in so far as they aremembers of a concrete human society, family, association etc. It was consequentupon the above that the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales(CBCEW) warns, “If democracy is not to become a democratic tyranny in which themajority oppresses the minority, it is necessary for the public to have anunderstanding of the common good and the concepts that underlies it”. This isthe bottom line! Democracy in some of our states is the practice of oppression,humiliation and suppression of opposition who are in minority.
Thatreminds me; in fact Nigeria’s independence was only one year old when theleader of opposition (late chief Obafemi Awolowo) in the Federal House ofRepresentatives called the attention of the government to the declining moralsof the country. He maintained that the outstanding feature of Nigeria was adangerous decline in moral values, whereby honesty was at discount and therewas a high premium on corruption and mediocrity. “Prophet” Obafemi Awolowo wasprognosticating on the future of our nation which today is highly conspicuousthat great minds are asking, where are our values, morals and consciences?