NIGERIA’S PROBLEM BEYOND CORRUPTION

By Yusuf Aloba ACA ACTI

Nigeria’s problem is not corruption, but a lack of discipline and sincerity of purpose.

Almost every sector in Nigeria lacks discipline. Even those institutions that uphold the sanctity of our unity and from which we can trace discipline—can they boast of sincerity of purpose? Our problem is more complex and multi-faceted. As such, we cannot limit it to our leaders’ ineptitude or lack of political will alone.

Every leader of this country was not manufactured elsewhere, but picked from among us. They are an integral part of us. His Eminence Sanusi Lamido Sanusi says, “If we randomly pick 109 people to represent us at the Senate, the result will remain the same.”

It is evident that everyone has a high tendency to replicate what we are witnessing today. Thus, our system has rotted from the root.

By and large, I believe that if we want to get it right, we must go back to the root. There should be social reorientation starting from primary school. A large part of the Civic Education curriculum should be based on the dignity of labour and value addition to society—values that make one a hero. This will dissuade young minds from the ‘get rich or die trying’ syndrome that many of our youth have chosen as a way of life.

In light of this, the Judiciary and the Police need to be restructured and empowered to be independent and to be seen as independent. Only then will the aggrieved have hope of getting justice, which supports the saying: “The Judiciary is the hope of the common man.”

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Yusuf Aloba ACA, ACTI