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By Rev. Fr. Evans Offor
Ethics in the political arena is an imperative mix for every qualitative leadership both politically and otherwise. There is no doubt, that that the present of things in Nigeria have turned turpsy turvey. It’s so sad that in an era of betrayals, nothing positive seems to be coming the way of millions of Nigerians. Our political leadership, doubtlessly, is clouded with discouragements, frauds, sufferings, undemocratic inanities, hunger and official extortions through government agencies, such, power supplying companies, Customs, taxes and insecurity. If not the power agencies manipulating their devices to cheat the already pauperized masses, it’s the registration of what they call NIN with communication providers, etc. In all these; it’s the poor masses suffering grievously. There is an increased level of insecurity, kidnapping, anti-clericalism, poverty, unemployment, suicide bombings, corruption, ethnicity, nepotism and absolute religious favoritism, etc. Things have reached an irretrievable crescendo, as ro attract the anger of our youths who invaded the streets destroying and demanding for a better Nigeria. Nigeria indeed is living in the past characterized in the state of nature. Nigeria can’t boast of any positivity in economic, cultural, political and technological perspectives. Are Nigerians not hungry, jobless, and corrupt and our political representatives so insensitive to the masses? Are little jobs available not given to a particular region and religion? Is the federal governments concern not to inflict pains and woes on the poor masses? Are poor Nigerians not suffering looking for where to register their NIN? What are their nasty experiences searching for places to register, when government should have made it easy for them? If not petrol hikes, their electricity tariffs hike. Why the EndSARS in the first place; because the poor persons rights here are trampled upon with impunity, and nothing happens. Bishop Kuka, an outspoken cleric was right to have seen a snag with our irresponsible elitist political players. He has seen our elite driving a hopeless vehicle loaded with tyranny, over-drunken with power, monopolists, greedy and selfish political leaders. And in the midst of these political gerrymandering, and the inability of the Church, full of elites, to come out and speak out against our political intellectuals who are supposed to be self-mortifying and self- sacrificing, is also aiding such elitist unethicality in governance. And his invitation to the Igbo elite to ally with other regional intellectual, to fight for justice and equity, is commendable. The Igbo need equity, restructuring and the 2023 presidential tickets. And these are symbols of justice and equity. The amalgamation of both the clerical and political elite should be a reality to speak out rotational equity and respect. This is a wholesome task for both classified elite, if they could live beyond selfhood and parochial trifling. Unless our intellectuals in and outside political arena, realize the essence of education, and employ it politically, our country would be better.
By all standards, well educated political elite should live above electoral corruption, violence and immorality. Our present socio-political saga, will become things of the past, if philosophically-minded elite with disproportionate hearts of equity and respect for justice and fairness. Such philosopher kings will disapprove of selfishness and greed, religious bigotry. Still, advising the Igbo, he quotes Sirach 2419-22, ‘’come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of my fruit-to obey me is to be safe from disgrace, those who work in wisdom will not go astray’’. Our persistent imbroglio is the lack of wisdom of our political elite, and that the practice of wisdom would bring us victory. Hence, our elite need to hearken to prophet Isaiah 1:17, ‘’wash yourselves clean. Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes. Cease doing evil and learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, and defend the widow’’. Evil has grown wings in this country. Political evil has turned into political goodness for them. They are incapable of learning good. When you advise them, they take your good advice to be heartless and crazy for national development.
Are we still talking about the evils meted out to the Igbo in the past and even begging for a restoration, integration and equity? Where are justice and security of lives, when life here has been reduced to vacuity? The Christendom too, that re-enacts the Lords Supper everyday has even fallen into a world of insensitivity, neglecting the poor among them, thereby making the Lords Supper at Corinth, a charade. Is it not wrong to have privatized our spirit and knowledge? How many times has the church as the master, been in the side of the poor and suffering Nigerians. Has the church ever been the voice of Nigerians in distress and on heavy burdens? The lord told us to bring all our troubles and worries upon his shoulder. While our political leaders become richer, our pensioners, workers, youths and old citizens go to sleep on empty stomachs. While we have natural oil and gas, we go to even some neighboring African countries to refine it. Haba! Instead of calling us together to enjoy our heroes’ pride and public treasury, the few from the local government through states to the federal all congregate to mesmerize with it with absolute wickedness and criminality. For the different Houses of Assembly, their onerous and most vital work is to congregate to enact laws that would propel easily their whims and caprices. Their inhuman sittings are designed to get them immeasurable allowances of all sorts in the name of deliberations. For example, their sitting allowances have continued to deny us our collective daily bread. Are their ill-gotten gifts to Gods house not repugnant to him? They use public funds to create estates, which of course, belong to them and their likes. Their worship o God is only lip service. They build houses on sand and let them out to the poor who will die when they collapse. What a fall, the Lord ha said. In matters of leadership, we ought to put into considerate tripartite convivial relationships between God, political leaders and the masses. As God had a fruitful covenant with his people, so also should our political leaders concretize the constitutional contents of the federal constitution of Nigeria in the service of the masses. As the covenant of God bound together himself and his people convivially, so also our constitution bind both the leader and the led symbiotically. Our political elite quickly swear with the name of God, but have no concern for such a covenant with God in any way. The bishop is insisting, I think, that as the Covenant which provided contexts for worship and the grounds for ethical responsibility, so should our national Constitution and the Bible, which our leaders swear to. Since, they are not respecting these elements, now it’s the duty of the Church to call our elite to fidelity to our Constitution and the bible they swear to. How much faith and respect do our leaders have in and for the Constitution, the bible or the Koran to, to serve the country with all their strength? Instead of respecting the constitution to serve the common good, they misquote it to suite their capricious mendacity and gobbledygook. Instead of them making the constitution free and true Nigerians with equal rights, they have only succeeded in militarizing, tribalizing and religionizing it, for a specified sectional greed, parochialism and advantage. The bishop is right to make a comparison of Jewish covenant having its origin in the great liberating act of God, who brought them out of Egypt, and led them through a formative desert experience into the promised land, while our experience is imprinted in pains and woes, hunger, insecurity and hardship, anarchy and confusion. Just as the Jewish covenant of Israel engrossed a code of laws which constituted its constitution, our country is even a ghost one, without any form of proper or willful amalgamation to become one people how much more generally crafting a covenant or social contract. Quoting exodus 19verse 24, Israel was seen committed itself and all the people both leaders and led observe God’s laws faithfully, ours is to decimate and make a horrifying anti-constitutional hocus-pocus. Stealing themselves constitutional conclaves, they set laws to oppress the masses to absolutely corrupt the system and create horrendous entities. Is the world not aware that we so-called Nigerians never for one day come together to have a consensus to become one people with a destiny, but forcefully and wickedly forced to be one people, just for the advantage of the British and disadvantaged northern Nigeria. While the advantaged region is comfortable others are not with this cracked and disjointed arrangement. Hence, our problems will continue abated because creators of our illicit constitution disrespect its ethics and principles which is adherent to the covenant with God. For sure, an adherence by our leaders to our constitution, though roundly imperfect, is adherence to laws of God. To gain Gods love, we must be faithful to him and his laws. They make laws to prevent over-speeding on high ways, but with their retinue of cars will not only over throttle, but kill innocent people. They will tell us to wear facemasks and give distance, but will threaten citizens of disconnecting them, thereby create rooms for overcrowding and disobedience to facemasks. When our constitution is well redesigned or crafted willy-nilly, it should provide grounds for our ethical- political responsibility. If our constitution is proper and consensually crafted, our relationships with God and with one another will surely be cordial, trustworthy and convivial, our ethics in general, morality and relationships with each region and religion out to be inseparably grow the way we relate with God privately and politically.
*Fr. Offor writes from Enugu
