Here’s a piece of article that was published on Professor Pat Utomi’s Facebook wall and we thought to share.
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| Uto,i |
“The truth of the challenge of saving the dying conscience in
Nigeria,
it seems to me, has to begin with enlightenment on our shared humanity.
The death of anyone should, as the great quote goes, diminish us. The
death of so many should crush our spirits and inspire action. The
abduction of so many innocents unto so uncertain a fate should force us
all to lose sleep“.
It used to be said that a conscience can become seared. As I watched a
country carry on after more than 200 young women were abducted by
anarchists who use terror as their signature tune and the powerful
carried on as if nothing was troubling, and most of us as if it were a
distant irritation, I felt rage in my spirit and a sense that in
Nigeria, man’s humanity had been crushed and conscience had passed from being seared to suffering death.
To reflect on the death of conscience is a grave thing. As conscience is
the inbuilt compass that enables the human navigate between good and
evil, if it dies, I wonder if we can truly call who is left, human. Yet,
as you look around, you see conscience in a frightening state. How can
so many young people face a fate worse than terror attack and the
institutions of state function as if nothing happened?
Much has already been said about the President celebrating and dancing
in Kano and Ibadan the day after the first Nyanya bombing left nearly a
hundred citizens dead and so many more severely injured. Many have
compared Aso Rock’s response to that bombing with the response of The
White House to the Boston Marathon bombing in which three lives were
lost. Those comparisons lead me to recall a similar incident I commented
about several years earlier.
In the same week that a cable car accident in Austria resulted in three
deaths, a tanker truck crashed into a traffic jam created by a roadblock
near Ibadan caused more than 200 deaths. Austria went into national
mourning, flags flew at half mast, broadcasts appealed to the national
spirit.
In
Nigeria,
the President, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, did not even bother to ask the
media officer in the Villa to issue a statement. I asked at the time
what a Nigerian life was worth. But we know that the Federal Executive
Council can suspend sitting if a sibling of the Vice-President dies. Is
it a matter of relativising the worth of people?
My friends who teach ethics will tell you that once you relativise the
worth of another, you have made your own worth relative. This is
precisely why people in power are worshipped and the day after, they are
out of power, are treated like dirt by those people who the day before
said they were the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The truth of the challenge of saving the dying conscience in
Nigeria,
it seems to me, has to begin with enlightenment on our shared humanity.
The death of anyone should, as the great quote goes, diminish us. The
death of so many should crush our spirits and inspire action. The
abduction of so many innocents unto so uncertain a fate should force us
all to lose sleep.
Instead of leaders closing ranks in advance of the common good,
everything is reduced to partisanship and some are even questioning that
the abduction took place as some people question that the holocaust
took place. This cannot be our way.
Again, it is important for those who think it is something happening to
one remote part of the North-East to be reminded of Rev. Martin
Niemoller and Dante’s inferno.
Niemoller reminds that they first came for the Jews, and the object kept
quiet. Because those Jews were troublesome anyway. Next, they came for
communists but he stayed mute because he was not a Communist, then they
came for the Catholics but he kept quiet because he was a protestant.
When they came for him, there was no one left to speak up.
To this I would like to remind that in Dante’s inferno, the hottest part
of hell is reserved for those who in a moral question take refuge in
neutrality.
We cannot go on with consciences that leave much to question. We saw a
country cheer on as power raped the banking system, stealing people’s
property and ordinary Nigerian shareholders lost their life’s savings
and investments but we failed to speak up. Those that tried to point to
truth were shouted down. Now, the wound is open. When I called for international consultants to be used to evaluate the Central Bank of
Nigeria’s decisions on bank takeover, some said sour grapes. Now, let us go to the Financial Reporting Council of
Nigeria and see what documents they can find in the CBN after the gang rape of an economy we cheered.
If the conscience can be shut out in one area, it can be everywhere.
Beyond the CBN, this syndrome of impunity, no matter how much it makes others suffer, has become widespread in
Nigeria
and the daily killing and maiming of innocent people have simply become
part of this recession of conscience evident in corruption whose
consequence is the slow death of many but which is now systemic and some
see as an entitlement. The seared conscience prevents us from seeing
the real consequence of the bribes we demand.
The nature of this dying conscience comes alive in what has happened to
the missing Chibok girls’ story which we have to close with.
Imagine for a second that one of those girls were your daughter or
sister. Think what you will be feeling and thinking now. Think also of
how if we fail to nip one social problem in the bud it quickly becomes a
norm. Remember how kidnapping started in the Niger Delta.
Today, the South-East is sliding back because its sons and daughters are
afraid to visit. So, Boko Haram is not a North-East problem. It can be
the death of all of us.
Until we act together from an awakening of conscience, we may be
sub-optimising big time in thinking we are being self-centred. In front
of us is an intersection. We can either walk the road to Somalia or pour
cold water on our snoring consciences.
