Re-injecting Ethics And Values Into Society

Sociologists mostly ascribe systemic crises in aspects of human relationships to a breakdown in values and ethics that prevail in the society at any given time.

Whether in business, politics, governance and other forms of human interactions, the ethical values that moderate such endeavours determine successes or failures attained in them.

Against this backdrop, many citizens view the nation’s systemic failures, manifesting as corruption, bad governance, professional incompetence, insecurity and associated vices as products of such collapsed values in the society.

It was no surprise, therefore, that President Goodluck Jonathan recently appointed Mrs Sarah Jubril — a resilient woman politician – to the new office of Presidential Adviser on Ethics and Values.

No doubt, Jonathan believes that the nation’s social ills needed to be redressed and that the starting point was to identify ways and strategies to re-inject values into the Nigerian society.

In furtherance of her responsibility, Mrs Jubril hosted a media forum in Abuja recently, where stakeholders brainstormed on ways and means to redress collapsed ethics and national values, which severely limit the nation’s socio-economic development.

Jibril said it was imperative to draw up a reformation agenda in consonance with the visions of the President, emphasising that “we need to re-inject lost glorious virtues into the families, communities, organisations and institutions”.

She explained that Jonathan desired inputs from the generality of the populace on how his administration could change the nation’s classification as one of the most corrupt nations of the world to an “ethically decent nation”

The presidential adviser underscored the role of the nation’s mass media in the crusade to re-orientate Nigerians to imbibe right values. She stressed that the media, as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, must ensure the ethical transformation of Nigeria, Africa and humanity at large.

“Ethics is the antidote to corruption, violence, wars and other forms of insecurity and ills in the society,” she said.

Outlining measures to achieve the dream of her new office, Mrs Jubril disclosed that Community Transformation Centres as well as the body — Ethics and Values Crusaders, would be inaugurated in the nation’s various communities in due course.

“The centres will teach ethical values and principles, especially among the youth. Such teachings of core values in humaneness, community service, patriotism and sincerity will help to eliminate corruption, violence and other unethical acts in the country,” she added.

She challenged the nation’s media to also redefine its focus, so as to imbibe the values of “journalism for transformation” even as she pledged to collaborate with developmental partners and NGOs to revive ethics and values in the country.

The Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, said that the campaign for right values and ethics in the country must include appropriate dress mode, as dresses worn by some youths and adults across both sexes in the present age had become scandalous and embarrassing.

He added that measures have been taken by his ministry to ensure that strict dressing code was observed by actors and actresses in the nation’s film and the entertainment industry.

Mr DenisInyang-Mbekwe, the Managing Director of the Abuja-based Information Marketing and Training Company, on his part stressed the imperative to co-opt religious and traditional leaders in communities into the campaigns.

“We also have values that are attached to religion. It is good to also carry along the imams, pastors and leaders at community levels to fashion out the campaign content. They are in good positions to define what posed threats to old and time-honoured values of our people.”

He tasked Jubril to adopt the participatory approach when the campaigns take off, while warning against any form of “command mentality in structure”, as was typical of many high-level schemes that never worked on the long run.

A former Minister of National Planning, Mrs Ebun Oyagbola, lauded the President for creating the new office to address the decay in the nation’s ethical and value standards, expressing confidence in the ability of Mrs Jubril to handle her assignment successfully.

Oyagbola urged the media to support the crusade and give women the necessary encouragement to contribute to national development.

On his part, Dr Patrick Njoku, President, International Institute of Leadership and Governance, urged Nigerians to revive the noble place of ethics and values in their various communities.

“I think that we must go back to the basic level. We were born in families; we came from villages and these villages had values,” he stressed.

He recalled a common practice of old when parents and community members critically examined the sources of wealth of its members as distinct from the present practice where no one cared how you made your wealth, thus giving room for perpetration of various evils.

“If you came to the village with a flashy car in those days and invited people out for ‘washing’, many were critical to ask about the source of such money but nowadays nobody cares,” Njoku bemoaned.

He said it was most desirable for Nigerians to be reconnected to their past; to appreciate the glory and honour that came with right and purposeful ethical values in the society.

Njoku felt piqued by the way Nigerians veiled certain evil practices, wondering why words like “corruption” should not be bluntly described as “stealing”.

“In our moral lexicon in the village, there was nothing like ‘corruption’; it was simply ‘stealing’ and the force of that word was an anathema to the people and a stigma that transcended generations.”

He added that Nigerians must learn to appreciate the virtue of hard work and be dissuaded from any tendency that made them think that there was always an easy way to success.

“The Federal Government should encourage Nigerians to go back to the farms and stop looking forward to the sharing of oil revenue every month by state and local governments.

“A situation where money is shared at the end of every month breeds corruption. This money should be ‘quarantined’ and directed at real national development,” he said.

In his view, “what you see in that huge volume oil money is ‘toxic’, stressing that people should be asked to go to farms, cultivate crops, harvest, process or sell to earn a living”

Whether such a suggestion is taken in or not, it obviously reflects the frustration of some citizens over the perceived wastage of the nation’s resources and dearth of value systems to ensure prudence.

As Mrs Jubril braces to the challenge of re-injecting ethical values in the Nigerian society through various modes, many citizens share the viewpoint that the wrongs of the past must be urgently corrected to guarantee a prosperous future.

Abdulwahab writes for  News Agency of Nigeria.

Deji Abdulwahab