FILLING THE ETHICAL AND MORAL VACUUM IN NIGERIA--BY REV. FR. GEORGE EHUSANI

Nigeria: The Reality of an Ethical and Moral Vacuum

On account of the much talked about failure of leadership and the general system breakdown in our society these last few decades, the moral fabric in Nigeria has suffered a fatal assault. Today’s generation of Nigerians appear in large measure to have lost the sense of right and wrong, of values and vices, of what is desirable and what is condemnable, of what is good and what is bad. As a corporate entity we seem to have lost quite a dose of our sense of shame and outrage at the preponderance of corruption and violence. Though we are acclaimed to be a very religious nation, many of us Christians and Muslims have lost the sense of sin and iniquity and the fear of hell and damnation.  We therefore carry on our criminal exploitation of a dysfunctional and disdainful social system as if indeed we dwell in a jungle where might is right, and where the gangsters and the fraudsters are the heroes and heroines that are constantly being adulated and decorated.

Today’s generation of Nigerians appear in large measure to have lost the sense of the dignity, the sanctity and the inviolability of human life. We have become a very violent people, and our national landscape is now painted red with blood. For the slightest provocation or the most ridiculous malfeasance, fellow countrymen and women are daily being shot, slaughtered, set alight, lynched, beaten to death, or “wasted” - to use the callous and sadistic codename of the Nigeria Police for the extra-judicial killing of mere suspects in their charge! We fight and kill over elections. We fight and kill over religious differences. We fight and kill on account of boundary disputes. We fight and kill over chieftaincy titles. We fight and kill over minor disputes between cattle rearers and local farmers. And of course we fight and kill over the sharing of the oil loot. The students of our universities and colleges have in recent decades set up violent cults that are now and again devouring the lives of young people in their prime, in what was meant to be citadels of learning and oases of sanity. We never seem to run short of excuses to fight and kill our kith and kin.

Corruption on its part is a pandemic social pathology. It is systemic. It thrives in its various dimensions and manifestations, and in practically all the sectors and departments of our national existence, including the political, the corporate and painfully also the religious. We witness what is generally referred to as Petty Corruption. It now appears to be the normal way Nigerians run their lives and do their businesses – cheating at exams, falsifying documents, pilfering public property, giving and taking bribes for pushing files, jumping queues, asking for sexual gratification in exchange for marks at university and college examinations or for bank deposits, etc. Petty corruption is a key element of what many shamelessly refer to as “the Nigerian factor.” 

We have the Grand Corruption.  It is that monstrous variant of corruption whereby for example huge contracts are awarded by government departments, not for the good of the stated beneficiaries, but primarily to raise sufficient funds from the public treasury to out-rig the opponent in an oncoming election. Grand corruption is also manifested in cases where huge contracts are awarded, paid for, and certified executed, but the project exists only on paper! We can almost say that today corruption defines the character of the Nigerian state-craft, notwithstanding the checks and balances in our statute books and structural framework, and the existence of multiple anti-corruption agencies, including the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the Code of Conduct Bureau.

There is indeed today what may be described as an ethical vacuum in the Nigerian society. Our public square appears to have been stripped naked, and there appears to be no more taboos in these climes. Just anything goes, as moral leaders, men and women of thought, champions of the public good, torch-bearers, mentors and inspirers, have been driven underground. Now rogues and scoundrels, thugs and bandits, mediocre functionaries and charlatans, sycophants and greedy merchants of power are hanging around the corridors of power, destroying everything of value, championing the cause of national degeneration and setting the stage for an eventual collapse of our socio-economic and political system. The shoddy, knee-jerk response of our public institutions and security agencies to the ongoing menace of terrorist insurgency in the North and the kidnap and settle syndrome in the South of our country is evidence of the extent of rot in the land.

The Imperative of Ethical and Moral Revolution

No nation can survive for long as one corporate entity, let alone make progress and achieve any measure of peace and stability, when it is plagued by such multiple self-inflicted ills as ethnic bigotry, rampant indiscipline, gross mis-governance, monumental corruption, political banditry, religious intolerance and widespread social discord.

We must acknowledge however that not everyone in the Nigerian society is insane. Not everyone in Nigeria celebrates the triumph of mediocrity. There are little oases of sanity here and there whose small voices are often drowned by the cacophony of greed and avarice, political manipulation and the exploitation of religion for selfish gain, and who daily suffer the agony of isolation and alienation. So what must we do to resuscitate the dying giant? What must we do to salvage the collapsing superstructure? How are we going to be saved as a people from our collective death-wish?

 My dear friends, nothing short of a true ethical revolution will save our sick nation from the destruction that accompanies a prolonged moral decadence in the polity. What we require is a radical turn-around, a national conversion experience as it were, if this superstructure is to be salvaged. Religious bodies are ordinarily the best placed and the most equipped to champion such ethical revolution. In a country like Nigeria where the overwhelming majority of people claim to be religious, and Christians claim at least 50% of the population, Christian Churches by their very calling, must play a critical role in the project of national moral and ethical re-awakening.  

Though Churches have not been spared of the devastating effects of the culture of violence and the moral decay in the land; though many Priests and Pastors  have often not risen above the mucky waters of violence and corruption in the land; and though many highly placed religious leaders have betrayed in the conduct of their own lives such elements of our national malady as ethnic and religious bigotry, indiscipline, greed and avarice, the  society will nevertheless continue to look up to religious institutions and clerics to play critical leadership roles in the enormous task of moral re-generation.

Troubling Development in Contemporary Nigerian Religiosity

Nigerians make a lot of noise in the name of religion, but their lives often betray a near-total lack of the sense of the fear of God, the sense of right and wrong, the strong desire for and commitment to the virtuous life and hatred for sin, commitment to the common good, care and concern for the poor, discipline or self-control, self-sacrifice, chastity, modesty, frugality and the aversion for violence that are traditionally associated with truly religious people. It does not matter whether it is Christianity or Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism, religiosity used to be closely associated with the practice of virtue and the cultivation and promotion of a life of discipline, frugality and self abnegation. It is incredible how in this country we have found a way of practicing and promoting a kind of pop religion that is devoid of the above critical elements of the true religiosity. No wonder the widespread rot in the land.

The ethical and moral teachings of our various religions however remain intact, and could be found in the Hebrew and Christian Bible and the Muslim Qur’an and Hadith. It is not difficult to see that the practical lives of many so called religious people in this society run contrary to the best teachings of their professed religions. No one doubts for example that the high ethical standards and strict moral teachings of Jesus Christ and his early disciples as contained in the books of the New Testament will bring about a just and peaceful society, if we could only imbibe them and live by them. But to what extent are these high ethical standards and strict moral teachings being adequately taught to adherents today?

 

A major part of the challenge before us is how to rid our society of charlatans and con artists who parade themselves as religious leaders and preachers. These people are propagating primitive superstition rather than liberating the people from the shadows of a by-gone pre-scientific era of witches and wizards and evil spirits and demons.  They are promoting corruption in the land instead of teaching the people the way of discipline, honesty, truth and justice, by denying for example the cause-and-effect relationship in the order of nature between hard work and prosperity. They are encouraging malice and vengeance rather than preaching the sacrificial love and forgiveness that make for peace and social harmony.

Indeed the Christian Church has not been spared of the triumph of mediocrity that has plagued practically every sphere of the Nigerian society. Today our national landscape has been overrun by noisy prayer warriors, dubious contractors of healing and deliverance, and fraudulent prophets of prosperity and abundance. Yes religion is the fastest growing business in contemporary Nigeria, and it is an all-comers affair. Just anyone can open a church and find followers from our ever gullible population – from con men to cult men, from fraudsters to pop stars, and from entertainers to magicians – they are all opening churches, cashing in on the gullibility of the generality of Nigerians, exploiting the ignorant poor of the land, and smiling daily to the bank.

A most embarrassing dimension of this ugly development in our country is the gradual incursion into the Catholic Church of the contemporary Nigerian pop Christianity - a noisy, shallow, hollow and opaque enterprise characterised by an all-pervading fear of demons and evil spirit on the one hand, and on the other hand by a multiplicity of preaching crusades, prayer vigils, and healing and deliverance services, whereby government offices, corporate boardrooms and motor parks as well as long distant passenger buses have been turned into places of worship. Such multiplication of prayers and rituals however have no bearing with, nor impact on the ethical and moral conduct of the worshippers, as everyone can witness with the growing level of corruption and violence, even amidst this upsurge in outward display of religiosity.

My dear friends, we are witnessing in our country today what we may call a gradual de-spiritualisation as well as fetishisation of Christianity. The religion that appears dominant in the consciousness of the generality of Nigerians today is what they seem to have received from the numerous half-baked preachers and cash and carry evangelists whose messages dominate our airwaves and websites, and billboards and signposts, and not the authentic religion of Christ preached by St. Peter and St. Paul, not the one propagated by St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas, not the one witnessed to by St. Francis of Assisi and St. Ignatius of Loyola, and certainly not the same religion professed by Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta,  Blessed John Paul II or our own Blessed Cyprian Iwene Tansi.  There is no doubt in my mind and in the minds of many enlightened Catholics about the true identity of the Christian faith proclaimed by the Apostles, nurtured by courageous martyrs, kept aflame by austere monks, and witnessed to by self-sacrificing believers through the course of the last two thousand years – a religion characterised by purity of heart, mellowness of spirit, and calmness of soul; one whose fruits include frugality of life, sacrificial love, forgiveness, compassion, peacefulness and self-control. Instead, what is spreading like wild fire in our country today is in my critical assessment actually a new religion that is only marginally related to the Christianity handed over to us by the Apostles.

To illustrate the point: what is relationship between the faith handed over to us by the Apostles and the celebration of vengeance and vindictiveness which we find among Nigerian Christians today, especially as championed by the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries? What is the relationship between the faith witnessed to by St. Francis of Assisi with a life of poverty and frugality, and the prosperity gospel and such flamboyant display of vanity and vainglory as we find among Pentecostal pastors and preachers in our day? What is the relationship between the exorcism carried out by Christ and traditional Catholic exorcists and the widespread manipulation and abuse that go on today in the name of deliverance from demonic forces, whether real or imagined?

Yet, these days many Catholic Priests, Religious and lay faithful have fallen for these heretical and unorthodox beliefs and practices. Many agents of the Catholic Church have today resorted to the cheap gimmicks and unorthodox rituals invented by the untutored Pentecostal prophets and pastors as they have been discovered to be very attractive and appealing to our poorly educated Catholics. I will say that this unwholesome development in our Church is fast gaining momentum, first on account of critical failures and gaps in content and methodology in the formation of our agents of evangelisation, and second, on account of what appears to be a close affinity between traditional African superstitious beliefs and practices and many elements of the new pop religion.

But the pop Christianity which the majority of Nigerian Church-goers seem to have embraced today, is a religion without sacrifice, a religion that has no place for the cross – which is otherwise the central doctrine of the Christian faith, a religion of instant gratification, a religion that elevates carnal desires and glorifies vanity and vainglory. The pop Christianity we refer to is a religion in which priests and pastors, prophets and evangelists shamelessly display wealth and ostentation as evidence of their closeness to the God of abundance, even as we live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people are stuck in degrading and dehumanising poverty.

Somebody has tried to identify or define the fundamental theological error behind this new religion that is sweeping through our gullible population. John Piper says it is an over-realised and an all-too materialistic eschatology, whereby no distinction is made between the already and the not-yet in the salvation wrought by Christ. For the prosperity Gospel and all who subscribe to it, Jesus has already won salvation and abundant life for us, and those of us who belong to God have a right to all the pleasures and riches of life here and now! The poor are poor because they are cursed or robbed of their riches by all kinds of demons they have brought upon themselves or inherited from their parents! How could this theological error have spread so quickly and so massively across the land and even into our own Churches, such that many of those who celebrate the Eucharist with us on Sunday live the rest of their week with a religious orientation that is clearly at variance with, if not in contradiction to the theology and spirituality of the Catholic Church?

Perhaps we are witnessing today within the Christian fold something equivalent to the problem that has afflicted dominant groups in Islam for many centuries. The problem with Islam as identified by Pope Benedict XVI in that controversial Regensburg address of 2006 is what he called the de-hellenisation of Islam – a situation whereby the religion at a time in its evolution abandoned intellectualism or any recourse to rational or philosophical enquiry. Perhaps what we are witnessing in what I call Nigerian pop Christianity of today is a combination of afflictions, namely:  the de-hellenisation of Christianity, the de-spiritualisation of the Christian Gospel, and of course the fetishisation of Christian worship.

Unfortunately, due to poor theological education or catechesis, our people have not been sufficiently vaccinated against these deadly afflictions. That is why many come for the Eucharist on Sunday, but the conduct of the rest of their week is largely inspired by the teachings and practices of Pastor T. B. Joshua of the Synagogue of All Nations, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy or Pastor Daniel Olukoya of the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries.  Many healer priests and merchants of deliverance within the Catholic Church in Nigeria have fashioned their ministries along the theological parameter set by these pastors, rather than the long-standing teachings and ritual practices of the Catholic Church.

A Re-Vitalised Catholic Education to the Rescue

Christians are called to be the light of the world. We are to shine the light of Christ the Redeemer into an environment that is otherwise plagued by the darkness of greed and selfishness, ethnic bigotry and political banditry, violence and crime. In an environment of widespread ignorance and poverty, we are called to be agents of individual enlightenment and social transformation. But how can we play this role effectively for our society when we are not firmly established on the same theological foundations? How can we truly be the salt of the earth for our generation when we have no unity of purpose, and no common concept of what gives life meaning?

The challenges that face the our country and our Church today call for massive investment of men and material in the project of education at all levels, from Nursery School to University, and from Catechism and Sunday school classes to Seminary formation and the ongoing formation of Priests and Religious. We must take responsibility for the future of our country and for the integrity of our faith, by investing heavily in the intellectual, doctrinal and moral formation of our people. We must accord children and youth formation programmes first priority in the Church, such that they attract even more funding than the building of Cathedrals, Parish Halls and Mission houses. We must set up more institutions for formal and informal education. We must channel the best of our human resources to work as teachers, chaplains and counsellors in schools, colleges and universities.

We need a major review of our formation programmes and our method of training at all levels. Catholic Education must rediscover its original purpose. At all levels, Catholic education must be experienced as a transformative experience. The Gospel of Christ is the most potent agent of transformation. It is capable of, and has indeed transformed individuals and whole societies in the past. Such transformation must be brought to bear in those who attend our Churches as well as those who pass through our schools, colleges and universities.

We need to re-conceive our entire educational enterprise. We need education for character formation and for the realisation of meaning and purpose, rather than simply education for wealth-accumulation. We need value-based education, an education that liberates from the shackles of corruption, from primitive superstition, from ethnic and religious bigotry, from selfishness and parochialism, from mediocrity and sycophancy, and from greed and avarice. Yes we need a transformative education, an education that liberates the masses from an exploitative and abusive leadership, as well as from an apathetic and despondent citizenry. We need an education that inspires excellence, true patriotism, high level individual and social morality, good, accountable servant leadership, respect for human rights and dignity, and respect for women and children’s rights. We need an education that promotes the democratic culture and popular participation in governance.  We need an education that promotes critical thinking, hard work, entrepreneurship, the spirit of creativity and initiative. We need an education that promotes selfless service, the common good imperative, the principle of deferred gratification, high level individual and social discipline, social harmony, national unity, peace and non-violence.

What Catholic Institutes Can Do

1. Higher institutions of the Catholic Church such as the Godfery Okoye University, must help define what are supposed to be our core national values. A functional education must include the development and dissemination of such core national values that give meaning to a society and define its cultural perception and praxis. Educational systems do provide insights into the value preferences of the community within which the systems thrive. The Nigerian society and its educational system are today in such a mess partly because there are no clearly defined national values that make up the philosophical framework for educational policies and for national development plans.
2. Higher institutions of the Catholic Church must formulate strategies for the church’s involvement in policy formulation. In a society where Catholics constitute no more than 25% of the population, even if all Catholic Schools had excellent programmes, the impact would remain minimal, if Church agents are not involved in the sphere of policy formulation. Involvement in policy formulation will call for the setting up and the adequate funding of policy research units in our Catholic Universities and Social Development Institutes such as CIDJAP, that will generate resource materials for state and national policy formulation.
3. Higher institutions of the Catholic Church must promote effective networking with institutions and organisations with similar objectives and values in the country. In a mixed – pluralistic - society like ours, we cannot achieve the desired national transformation and development alone. Our efforts may amount to a voice crying in the wilderness, unless we are able to reach out to others and work with them to promote reconciliation and peace, to advocate for social justice, to lobby for good economic policies and to monitor the conduct and performance of elected leaders.
4. Higher institutions of the Catholic Church must train personnel for mass media and develop programmes for the much needed evangelisation of the media that is today often dominated by a dangerous culture of crass materialism and secularism. Church personnel should be trained to make optimum use of the modern mass media for evangelisation and pastoral care and for social development programmes. Creatively new uses should be sought for the internet based new media, including websites, web-blogs, web TV, web-radio, podcasts, bulk emails, bulk SMS and the social media.
5. The mass media along with the internet have emerged today the most powerful agent of socialisation. Religious institutes can help develop programmes and projects for the evangelisation of the media and the training of their practitioners in human rights and dignity, in developmental reporting, in the promotion of dialogue and reconciliation, in the promotion of peace and non-violence, in the promotion of spiritual and transcendental values, and in strategies for counteracting the scourge of materialism, hedonism and consumerism.
6. We must make Catholic Social Teachings an integral part of Catholic Education. To raise up change agents and inspire the required transformation in our society, all Catholics involved in developing educational curricula should find a way of making the social teachings of the Church an integral part of the curriculum of studies for schools and colleges, not just one of the courses offered. Catholic educational institutions must be constantly engaged in critical social analysis and responding to issues of national development with socially relevant course designs.
7. We need to establish value-based, development and civic-oriented clubs in schools, colleges and universities, where they do not already exist. Besides good religious and moral education, Catholic educational institutions will enhance their training for transformation by promoting such clubs among the extra-curricular activities in the institutions.
8. If the above lofty objectives are going to be realised by our educational enterprise, we must all work towards raising the social profile of teachers in our country. We cannot make progress in education and in national development if we continue to denigrate those who form our future generation. As Church, we must therefore be in the forefront of the campaign to accord the teaching profession greater recognition and see that teachers are not only remunerated more adequately, but that their general conditions of service are drastically improved.
9. Finally, there is the need for collaboration and networking among Catholic schools, colleges and universities whose establishment and programmes are inspired by similar objectives and values. This may require the setting up of some forum for Administrators of Catholic Schools across the country, as well as some networking strategies for students of such schools.

Conclusion

With the ethical and moral contents of our Catholic faith, and the structures of formation that we have, if Nigerian Catholics and other Christians are not living by the moral and ethical standards founded on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ and his disciples, then something is seriously wrong. If there exists such great gulf between the ethical standards of the religion we profess and propagate and the practical lives of our people, then we religious leaders need to look inwards.  It is either that as a people we all un-teachable deaf and dumb, or that we religious leaders at all levels – Bishops, Priests and Religious, Catechists, Knights, CMO and CWO Chieftains, Coordinators of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Legion of Mary, St. Anthony, St. Jude and other sodalities in our Church - must review critically our method of formation in Christian ethics and social morality, in order that the gospel we profess will have its full transformative impact in the lives of individual Christians, in the conduct of our ecclesial life, and in the Nigerian society as a whole.

We must as a people each take interest in leadership and in the quality of persons that assume public office. We must take responsibility for the future and do all we can to stop the thugs and the rogues, the charlatans and mediocre performers who now populate the corridors of power and who are bent on ruining this nation. Until now it has been garbage in, garbage out. But the ugly trend can and must be reversed. So let those among us who have any serious commitment to the survival of our corporate entity invest some time and resources in cultivating leadership values and value-based leadership from the level of primary school prefects, through the level of parish priests, and up to the level of Governors and the Presidency of our country. 

We must all work towards helping our countrymen and women understand that in a nation desiring lasting peace and progress, rogues and brigands, murderers and assassins, and sycophants and charlatans, have no place in the public square. We must all work towards demonstrating in various ways to our countrymen and women that true leadership is characterised by a compelling vision, an all-consuming sense of mission, an acute sense of sacrifice, rare courage, passion for the poor and the weak and commitment to the common good.

We must use the structures of our Catholic education to impress on the contemporary Nigerian elite the fact that “to live a good life is to impact positively on the lives of other people,” and that true, genuine and lasting happiness is to be found in a life of service and sacrifice, not in primitive accumulation and personal aggrandisement. We must use the structures of our Catholic education to help those desiring leadership positions in our society to realise that political leadership is about passion for the common good, not an exercise in treasury looting and corrupt enrichment. Politicians and public office holders must be helped to recognise that governments exist to ensure the safety of the lives and property of the people they govern as well as provide the greatest good for the greatest number of the people, and not to secure the functionaries and provide for them at the expense of the generality of the people whom they claim to govern.

Using our educational infrastructure, we must help the generality of the people themselves to come to recognise that they have a major stake in the governance of their society; that they must participate actively at every stage of the political process, defending the rule of law, working against impunity and protecting the commonweal against any attempt by a crop of rulers to domesticate or privatise their common patrimony. In a democratic society, we must help train the people to be vigilant, constantly dragging the feet of those occupying positions of power to the fire of democracy. These are among the ingredients that must be in place if we are ever to have a stable, harmonious, peaceful, and prosperous nations, and our educational institutions can help nurture them in our society.

I thank you for inviting me to share these random thoughts with you on the occasion of your third diocesan synod. May the good Lord bless this diocese with even more growth and vitality in the years to come. Amen.