Opinion: The FG ethics and integrity policy: A fundamental onslaught on corruption (1)

By Jim Unah

Just as the locomotive of the Nigerian State is galloping dangerously through its portholes infested expressways of agitations for separation to clock 60 on October 1, 2020 with agonizing uncertainty, and just as the dispensation’s anticorruption battle is embarrassingly gravitating to the inauguration and celebration of corruption as a bizarre form of political practice.

The Federal Executive Council—FEC—rolled out the Ethics and Integrity Policy of the government of Nigeria.

With this development, it does appear that the President Muhammadu Buhari Government is eventually placing its fingers squarely on the root cause of incompetence and corruption at every stratum of society and the unending agitations for separation by aggrieved ethnic nationalities; since the binding cord of unity had snapped and the centre could no longer hold.

The National Ethics and Integrity Policy (NEIP) approved by the FEC at its 20th meeting on 19th August 2020 is a child of necessity birthed after several miscarriages conceived to populate the Nigerian social space with well-bred citizenry on the ethos of civilized social conducts and cultures of integrity which constitute the building blocks of great civilizations.

This laudable policy, we are told, transmogrified from the collaborations of several agencies of state notably, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) and the National Orientation Agency (NOA).

The expressed objective of the policy is to make good and ethical conduct take root in the life of Nigerians.

A laudable policy with a clearly stated and well intentioned objective! But the policy has a long history of conceptions by teachers of ethics in the nation’s universities and concerned Nigerians from practice direction.

The first visible inkling by the Nigerian State that the citizenry needed to be fortified ethically and morally was, perhaps, the creation of the NOA to drum it into the ears of the people through radio jingles and other forms of media presentations that the ethical is the way to build a nation.

Immoral and unethical people cannot build a sustainable nation and cohesive civilization. Unfortunately, the message of NOA, despite its noble intentions, did not clearly resonate with the audience.

Then came the ICPC-sponsored values orientation curriculum approved in 2004 by the National Council on Education which directed the infusion of twelve (12) identified core values into the existing school subjects.

The values are to be taught as the subjects are delivered in classroom learning experiences.

This has been kickstarted, we are told, since the 2007- 2008 school sessions. Now, what are the core values and what are these subjects into which the twelve core values have been infused?

How are they taught and by whom? Who are the experts in ethics and values and what role has the commission and council assigned to them in ensuring that the core values are successfully transmitted to the students?

What are the metrics for determining that the values have been successfully transmitted to the learners?

Has a change of behavior occurred in the conduct of the learners?

If it has not, and there is no reason to believe that it has, why should anybody assume that the values would be successfully transmitted under the circumstances?

And if the core values have not been successfully transmitted does it not point to the fact that the mere infusion of values into existing subjects is not the way to inculcate the right social conduct?

Have the policy makers sourced the opinion of the trained and designated experts in elthics in the nation’s institutions of learning on how best to inculcate ethical principles in human populations?

All of these questions can be collapsed into a conjoined twin question namely, how can the right social conducts be effectively transmitted to learners and by whom? I begin with the first part.

The Greek encyclopedic Aristotle credited with the authorship of two classics in ethics—the Nicomachean Ethics and the Magna Moralia—had canonized that values (things highly treasured) are best deposited on admirable moral character. Aristotle calls this virtue.

You have to prepare and nurture character for it to take on core values. Superimposing values on uncultivated character is like planting corn or wheat in uncared-for-garden inhabited by weeds. No crop can thrive there.

The first task of any nation that wants to change the behavior of the citizens in the socially desirable direction is to cultivate virtue in the citizenry.

But how do you cultivate virtue or admirable moral character in people such that values or core values can take root?

Again, Aristotle and the great traditions in ethics answer that you have to teach character more than you teach other subjects; not to infuse ethics in the subjects. Imagine infusing mathematics into history or religion or law, for instance.

What would you achieve by that? Would expert and knowledgeable mathematicians emerge from such a cocktail of learning experience? Never!

To cultivate virtue successfully, you have to teach character fortifying principles in the two great schools known to mankind—the family and the schools.

At what age? Ages one (1) to eighteen (18) or rather what is accepted by a given society as the “formative years” of human life. It has to be done systematically, consistently, in a sustained manner within the formative years, from kindergarten through primary and secondary schools to tertiary education.

Then, you cap this with at least six (6) courses in ethics and values in tertiary institutions for everybody enrolled at that level of education.

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How can the family come in here when many families have issues?

How can disoriented families be involved in transmitting virtues to the children when they themselves need to be rescued, even morally?

The same question can be asked about a morally depraved society proposing to transmit virtues and values to its citizenry when those in leadership positions are shamelessly corrupt and morally bankrupt.

We reserve this and other unanswered questions for another day.