By Godfree Matthew Esq.,
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The word vice, simply means a wicked or immoral behaviour. Its opposite is virtue which means a behaviour showing high moral or ethical behaviour. Ideally man is enjoined by his conscience to admire virtue and distaste vice. As such right from childhood, children in their innocence are enjoined to be good doers and abstain from evil. Civilization also endears man to virtue. Even in warfare virtue is demonstrated towards the weak, sick and wounded. Culturally, some traditions sanction vices with ostracism and reward virtue with traditional titles and accolades. Most interesting is the fact that religions are the greatest antagonist of vice (this assertion is also adjudged to be subjective) as most religious tenets deemphasize sins and qualify even modest acts as sins against their holy tenets. Religions are so strict against vices to the extent that one sometimes wonder even drinking water or breathing may be termed as sin depending on how the deity dictates to its followers.
Among the youths in Nigeria, phrases such as ‘bad guy’ , ‘badoo’ and ‘we die here’, which are negative phrases, are now used as accolades for expressing virtues .While the phrase ‘we die here’ is used as an accolade to describe unalloyed loyalty, bad guy is used to describe someone with exceptional virtue. Thus, among the Nigerian youths it is normal to use bad words to describe good deeds.
Vice as Virtue in Religious settings
Religious leaders are revered as oracle of the ‘gods’. Whenever they rebuked kings and queens, kings and queens shivered to their bones. In African religions, whenever a High Priest rebukes the king, the king become humble and repents. In the Holy Bible, David repented the moment he was rebuked by Prophet Nathan for the sin of adultery with Barsheeba. However in Nigeria, for a cleric to rebuke a seating president or governor he will be ready to forfeit his consecrated office. Recent developments showed that two religious leaders and a traditional leader become political persecutors for criticizing President Buhari’s regime. The former Chief Imam of Abuja Central Mosque Nuhu Khalid censured the administration of Buhari’s inability to secure and protect the lives of Nigerians due to the incessant killings in the country. Ideally such rebukes ought to be seen as a sermon that ought to move President Buhari to a state of remorse and repentance. Ironically, the cleric was sacked from his spiritual office for rebuking the ineptitude of the President.
It is said that sometimes you see the back of your head, through the eyes of your critics. This means that when criticism is taken in good faith, it has the capacity of building the person being criticized. This is true about the present administration under President Muhammadu Buhari. Some weeks after a Muslim clergy was sacked for criticizing Buhari because of insecurity in the land, the Archbishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah also criticized Buhari’s government for its inability to secure the lives and property of Nigerians. His criticism was politicized as being an “enemy of the state” and Buhari’s administration. Ideally, words of wisdom from people like Chief Imam, Nuhu Khalid and Archbishop Hassan Kukah ought to be taken as constructive criticism in the spirit of democracy. But the riposte of presidential spokesmen (rich in flattery and game-blaming) and some religious fanatics, tagged these religious leaders as enemies of this administration.
His Royal Highness Sanusi Lamido was banished because of his forthrightness in speaking to powers on the need to address the plights and prospects of urchin in the streets of Northern Nigeria in the name of religion. He was adjudged as the enemy of the state and traitor of his faith. Consequently, he was dethroned and banished from his Kingdom.
Vice has so overshadowed virtue in that Nigeria Naira is the only currency that can purchase salvations to Christians. Thus, the Naira purportedly became the only global currency that can purchase human salvation at the rate of N310,000. May be we can say this is ‘indulgences redivivus’ in the 21st Century. This infamy was courtesy of Pastor Adeh Abraham who asked members to pay N 310,100 to him before they can enter heaven.
In Sokoto State a Christian female Student was murdered for purportedly insulting a Holy Prophet. Even when the No. 1 Muslim citizen, the Sultan of Sokoto and other Islamic professional bodies condemned the killings, eminent politicians and national leaders endorsed killing of Deborah as expression of love for Holy Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him), even while the teaching of the Holy Prophet is against extrajudicial killings
Still on the death of Deborah, her death left an indelible sense of guilt in the conscience of National Association of Nigerians Student (NANS), and specifically, Student Union Government of Shehu Shagari College of Education Sokoto, for their unwillingness to at least protect their fellow students from being killed by religious bigots. This is more poignant considering the fact that Deborah was killed inside the school campus. Then one wonders where is the plethora of all the Aluta chants that the Students Union Government used during their demonstrations? The further questions is that assuming Deborah was attacked and killed by cultists will the Student Union Government and National Associations of Nigerian Students remains mute? This got to show one thing, that in Nigeria crimes committed by non- Abrahimic religious actors such as cultists, robbers, ritualists and Yahoo boys attract more public sanctions than those committed by either Christian or Muslim. For if Deborah was killed by cultists or ritualists, the clerics would have invoked curses and other imprecations against the perpetrators. But since the killers of Deborah are defenders of their faith, they have the absolution of their religious clerics. So even if one called their acts crime or sins, such a one will be a loner in this perception, as far they are concerned sinful act can be sanctified or beatified once they are done in the name of religion. Thus, it is right to say that men have more inclination of doing evil once it has a religious toga.
Vice as Virtue in Leadership and Politics
In a democracy where banditry is thriving, ‘industry of kidnapping is bludgeoning, crime and terrorism has become the order of the day, and the law is silent. Rather, the culprits of these crimes are rewarded with rehabilitations by schooling abroad, opportunities that some best graduating students never got. Simply put, crime is more rewarding than schooling, and deviance is more appealing than conformity.
Also, while universities have been under lock and keys, while youths are idling and wasting in vain at home because the institutions of learning and citadel of wisdom are in comatose state due to strike. Why are they at home? Because ASUU and Federal Government are in thug of war over about N1.9 Billion. However, the ruling party is tagging the sum of N100 million for presidential aspirants to buy forms. Incidentally, over twenty persons purchased that form.
Again, the primary election by the People Democratic Party (PDP) shows an outright display of corruption and money politics. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar Governor Wike and others in PDP have shown that PDP as an opposition party is not yet qualified to cast the first stone on APC as hub nub of corruption. Both parties are suffocating Nigeria’s democracy with corrupt practices. The only difference is that PDP is far from the corridors of power, while APC is in charge of the affairs of the state. Thus, PDP could be termed as spectators while APC are seen as the real players in the field. As such sometimes the fans and spectators know how to play the game better than the real footballers in the field.
The APC Presidential primaries which took place on the 7 June 2022 was another theatre of money politics. The depth and wealth of aspirant’s manifestos were irrelevant to the delegates. Rather, it was the deepest pockets that won the heart of the delegates. The much insulted and abused Ahmed Bola Tinubu suddenly emerged the candidate at the end, courtesy of money politics. While sterling aspirants like the Vice President Yemi Osibanjo, SAN, Ognonnaya Onu and others were behind Ahmed Bola Tinibu.- the once accursed aspirants. The most sympathetic, among the follow-ups of Ahmed Tinubu, was Rotimi Amaechi. Despite his coronation as the Dan Amanar Daura (meaning the trustworthy son of Daura) the Northern delegates did not favour him. Thus, it is easy for Northerners to trust Amaechi with coronation and title, but he cannot be trusted with the votes of delegates from Katsina, Kano, Sokoto and other Northern States during the APC Presidential Primaries.
The Presidential primaries conducted by both APC and PDP have demonstrated the imports of the maxims that when a cunning man dies a cunning man buries him. This aphorism captures the contests of wits between delegates and the aspirants. While some aspirants collect monies from many candidates and vote for the ones directed by their parties. It was alleged that some party aspirants gave their delegates fake dollars; this was discovered at the point of exchange at Bureau De Change. A question to ask is that if someone is given delegates fake dollars as an aspirant, won’t he do worst that when he assumed office? Further question that demands an answer is that is vote buying only restricted to voters on General Election? Does vote buying exempts delegates during primaries? The response to this question will tell us whether there are different rules for different folks.
In Nigeria, a deliberate poverty endorsing system has been used as a basis for justifying indiscriminate allocation of resources. Thus, making a vice a virtue. Northern Nigeria prides itself in the monopoly of poverty and illiteracy since the Pre-independence day till date. They used that ‘complex’ to justify access to political power. Incidentally, most Nigeria leaders are from the Northern region. Yet, even in the 21st Century, Northern Nigeria is still the epicenter of poverty and illiteracy in Nigeria. The Minister of Humanitarian affairs, endorsed this point during the sharing of COVID 19 palliative in 2020, when she said that there are more poor people in the North than in the South. She said that justify why more of the COVID 19 palliative should go to the North. In fairness to her, she is absolutely right. Her view is further seconded by statics to whoever may want to know further.
But one fatal paradox that caught with ‘One North One Destiny’ is that despite its monopoly of political leadership throughout the history of Nigeria, it has not yet divorced itself in sharing a destiny with insecurity, poverty and illiteracy. It ironic, that when Buhari was about to assumed power, many Northerners especially, the Talakawas (commoners) held him as their liberators. But present situations reveal that they are the worst victims of insecurity, inflations, strikes, poor health facilities and other indices of maladministration under Buhari’s regime.
In politics, as 2023 general elections approaches, politician may be shopping for ‘experts’ and ‘wizards’ in rigging, thuggery, hacking and other cyber-crimes- considering the facts that online transmission of results from polls is now recognized by Electoral Act, 2022. In Nigeria, election season is the time that urchins, bad boys, the yahoo boys, and cultists will become functional to the elites in the society. They will be used as instruments of accessing power, but after politicians access power, they will use them as statistics of undesirable elements, even though some politicians still retain them for other purposes.
Vice as Virtue in Legislation (Constitutional Amendment)
Cross- carpeting without justification by political governors is one of the immoral behaviours that hurts Nigerians. This is because of the discriminatory nature of the law that sanctions defection by legislators, but condoned that of the executives. Equally, there is public outcry by Nigerians about the immorality of defection as many view it as a sign of political disloyalty. Recently in March 2022 , when the Federal High Court sacked Governor Dave Umahi for defecting to APC, many people welcomed the idea on moral ground, despite its odds with the law. Incidentally, at that time the National Assembly was undergoing constitutional amendment. Ideally, since there was a public outcry against such defections, the legislators ought to have sympathized with the public sentiments at that time. This would have been apposite considering the perceived ‘rivalry’ between the legislature and executive inspired by practices of checks and balances. As such one would have expected the National Assembly to take its pound of flesh by voting against defection by Governors and President, however this was not done. Instead, the National Assembly voted that defection by Governors and President should be allowed.
Vice as a Virtue in Combating Insecurity
The exhibition of vice in the selective fight against insurgency, terrorism and other criminal acts are highly lamentable. It appears that Nigeria security apparatus are deployed to be more active in combating crimes in one region than another. Whenever it is alleged that IPOB and other criminal gangs in the South have committed or are committing a crime, that’s the season when Python becomes ‘Dancers’ and Crocodile become ‘Smilers.’ But in the same nation, specifically Northern Nigeria, where passengers in train are captured and detained, ransom are collected, innocent citizens are killed etc., yet the government deployed selective amnesia. When it comes to combating insecurity in the Northern Nigeria, the Pythons and Crocodiles are on vacation. In Nigeria when it comes to fighting criminality in the South Nigeria security forces became Hannibal of Baca ( the only fierce military genius in history that threatened the military might of the Roman Empire), but when it comes to tackling Boko Haram, bandits, militias, etc, Nigerian security forces became Mahatma Ghandi.
Vice as Virtue in Anti-corruption Crusade
In Nigeria, most government officials, once they are facing corruption charges, incidentally become sick. Somebody says, if Anthony Joshua is to face a corruption charges in Nigeria, he will approach the court in crotches in order to create an impression before the courts.
Recently, a video going viral show the former Accountant-General of Nigeria walking in crotches to court as a spinal cord patient. This compassionate posture enthuse the discretion of the court to grant him bail. But according to the video, when the Accountant- General entered his room he undressed his costume and led prayers. A spinal cord patient leading a prayer after deceiving the court of law! The question is to whom was he praying to? Is it to the devil for allowing him to deceive the judge? Or is it a prayer seeking forgiveness from God? Let readers decides.
In conclusion, Nigeria is a rich country with golden prospects. If good leaders and followers embraced the national ethics of patriotism, equity and truthfulness, Nigeria will reach its Zenith among the global powers of the 21st Century. Thus, it is the hope of this writer that one day that Nigeria will be a nation where virtue will count in all spheres of life.
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