National Echoes: President Jonathan and The Scourge of Indiscipline
By Henri Oripeloye
Recently President Goodluck Jonathan came up with the assertion that the bane of the Nigerian state is indiscipline. He said this has permeated the whole rubrics of our national life. I don’t think any sane Nigerian will argue against President Jonathan’s position. He is the one in the saddle and he knows clearly the tenor of official indiscipline in Nigeria. It was the Buhari/Idiagbon regime that first noticed this social malaise after they took over from a rudderless civilian government of Shehu Shagari. The late Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo gave a riposte that only a useless government will refer to its subjects as undisciplined people. But after a series of the military dictatorship that eventually gave birth to the so-called democratic rule, one would think that the era of indiscipline in Nigeria is a thing of the past. But here is President Jonathan playing the same track of an old album. There is indiscipline everywhere in Nigeria. President Jonathan must have done his research before coming out with his findings and therefore one should expect him to be more elaborate in his analysis. For instance, what is the level of indiscipline in government circle, among market women, teachers, lecturers, politicians, civil servants, students and nursery school children? Again, he did not tell us the fundamental and immediate causes of indiscipline among Nigerians.
Nigeria is a country that defies explanation in terms of the social construct. The main problem stems from bad leaders and President Jonathan knows this but decided not to bother about government indiscipline. How do we expect an iota of discipline from a mass of people who are aware of the monumental pilferage going on in government circle? In what way can a citizen, who knows that the people in government say one thing, plan another and still execute a third agenda, understand what to be disciplined is? What is the rationale for a person who wakes up daily without the hope of fulfilling his/her filial responsibility to be disciplined?
That the people at the helm of affairs in Nigeria are indiscipline is an understatement. Events in Nigeria on daily basis show that our government is not only indiscipline but also morally corrupt. How do we explain the governors’ forum election where the government in power is on the side of the candidate that had sixteen votes and has been harassing the one that had nineteen votes? This is moral corruption which is the height of indiscipline. In Nigeria, it is possible for civil servants and politicians to steal billions of naira and go into plea bargaining that makes them pay an insignificant sum and then go home with the loot. What has President Jonathan done about this before demeaning our sensibilities? This is a country where elected legislators collect money in the name of the constituency project which is never spent on any developmental project. If Nigerians are not disciplined, they ought to have set these legislators government that benefit from such rape of the electorate.
The immunity clause in our constitution is a bastion of indiscipline. A government that supports such has more than a skeleton in its wardrobe and any government that aspires to be forthright and discipline must first yank off this clause as this is the basis of the endemic lawlessness and indiscipline among the ruling class. How do we explain that a governor who forged documents to enable him to win a case in court is allowed to complete his term before he is prosecuted for such a crime? And our government supports this moral anomaly because it is the people in Government that benefit from such rape of the electorate.
Nigeria is a country where there is no orderliness in carrying out government duties. Those in government ascribe to themselves powers with which they unleash pains on those that elected them. Recently the Federal Road Safety Corps came up with new vehicle registration and drivers’ licence as a way of documenting vehicles on Nigerian roads. This was not discussed by the representative of the people at any level of legislation, but the project was introduced and even when people cried foul and the legislators seemed to wake up to their responsibilities, they were swayed to support the project against the people that elected them. The people are yet to come out of the pains of this policy when the Nigeria Police came up with the Central Biometric Motor Registration. Like their FRSC counterpart, the police are presenting the issue of security as the reason for this project. As usual, approval was never sought from the legislators, many of who will read this national policy on the pages of newspapers. If there is any other name for this recklessness, it will be indiscipline and the government pretends this is how to carry out national policies. More worrisome is the duplication of resources and energy on the same venture. If the FRSC has been registering vehicles, all that is needed is for the police to access those information for its own security plan.
That the police, one of the most indiscipline agencies of government are handling such a sensitive matter is another headache. People believe that on every opportunity given, the police will always capitalize on the situation to swindle them. So the fear is already going around that people are in trouble in the hands of Nigeria police this time around. A responsible and disciplined government will save the populace of going through the hassles of biometric vehicle registration by directing the police to liaise with the FRSC on this matter.
In terms of indiscipline in Nigeria, the government is responsible for every facet of this act in the country. The populace has had to contend with various anomie of the government. It is only in Nigeria that people don’t know which agency is responsible for what duties. For instance, this is a country where the police, soldier, V.I.O, Custom Service, Immigration, Civil Defence, LASTMA, KAI, FRSC perform the same function of sporadic checking of vehicle documents on the roads. It is only a discipline populace that can cope with this menace of security agents. The government that is supposed to regulate the activities of these agencies pretends not to notice the level of privations suffered by the masses as a result of its own indiscipline. It is only an indiscipline government that will enter into an agreement with staff unions and continue to prevaricate on the implementation of the same. It is very pathetic to note that the recent kidnap of PDP by some PDP members is not unconnected with gross indiscipline among the people we have allowed managing our collective patrimony as a nation. It is the government that needs to wake up and move away from the arrant indiscipline that has taken over its activities so that Nigeria can move forward.
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