Continued from on Friday (9-10-2015)

Once the ontological debacle of ethnic suspicion is addressed, then, we can work together as a people with one goal and one vision for a better and united force. From there, the question of origin and language of leaders will not be the determining factor for voting, submitting or respecting ones allegiance.

Hence, our diversity must be understood not in the negative workings of national detractors, in the trappings of anti-progress charlatans and the schematics of the pillagers. One could only wish that Nigerians in all their respective ethnicities will understand as early as possible the dangers involved in superimposing ethnic bias upon national consciousness, especially in the country’s current struggle against her common enemy, which is corruption. This wishful thinking can only have practical expression when there is general approbation that Nigeria belongs to all of us and that it is an area of light, as opposed to the image-blurring idea of ‘dark area’ being propagated in some quarters.

Again, the discourse on corruption appears to many as too over-stretched. In fact, it is being seen as a norm and an attitude that may take a century or more to wipe out. The fight against corruption keeps foot-dragging because a lot of African nationals have failed to recognize the nationhood and sovereignty of their respective countries and the bond that defines the citizenry.

Corruption drains us and sets our collective ideology against it poles apart. We are befuddled by ethnicity and tribal affiliations when decisions and judgments about corrupt leaders are put on the table. If not, how would one explain the obnoxious argument put forward by some in Nigeria that the current Nigerian government is more of a witch-hunt against a people. Worse still, ethnic sentiment is operating to strangle the fight against the corruption hurdle.

Unfortunately, it is in this part of the world that corruption is regarded as a norm and value, and in fact a term synonymous with strong economic policy. Sadly, too, in the event of salvaging the public image of their religious or ethnic kinsmen and allies, many scholars and public affairs commentator, including religious scholars, have openly considered the anti-graft war as a way of plundering the image of past governments. Thus, for them, it is important for the ignorant to know that corruption has no universally accepted definition and as such the need to give a liberal and universal approach to the legal and social understanding and economic damage of the term in question.

Consequently, the corruption suspects who also double as their kinsmen now seem to feel comfortable and can heave a sigh of relief and overtly confront the government and the people in the face with a repugnant chest-beating phrase ‘after all, we are all corrupt.’ Uninterestingly, too, the body language of the President has been wrongly interpreted as indicative of totalitarianism and dictatorship. This again is a cushion effect for past and prospective corrupt persons. There is a growing sentiment and an attitude of extra curiam plea bargaining by some who feel that those who have denied over 160 million people food, development and comfort of life and shelter should be appealed to. This kind of appeal is unfair to the principle and rights to equal, just and fair treatment which Nigerians deserve and for which the constitution provides.

We must show the rest of Africa and indeed the entire world that Nigeria is indeed a pride of political civilisation and that the diversity of culture and ethnicity is not strong enough to bring us down. Truly, a collective voice, I mean courageous and spoken voices of Churchill must reverberate and be given a pride of place as the country moves towards socio-economic and political transformation in today’s politics and in her art of governance. Churchill was very much aware of the evil that would befall the entire world if Hitler was allowed to continue his reign of terror.
Concluded.

• Alabi is a public affairs commentator and works with a subsidiary of Legal Blitz Limited. 2, Ayodele Fanoiki Street, Magodo Phase 1, Isheri Lagos. [email protected] 08039696286.