Character is everything

If wealth is lost, nothing is lost; if health is lost, something is lost; if character is lost, everything is lost……….

I heard that last week, Reuben Abati, a foremost journalist with the Guardian newspapers wrote an article of how his email account was hacked into and his friends had all received emails allegedly from him stating that he was currently in India attending a conference and his daughter who was very ill and needed to undergo a life saving operation urgently. The mail stated that he urgently needed N250,000 to balance the operation fees and that those who were willing to help should pay to a particular account with the details of the account included.

Mercifully, those who were willing to help immediately gave him a call on his number expecting that even if he was in China, he should be roaming. To his perplexity, his phone rang at 4am Nigerian time and one of his friends is on the other end of the line commiserating with him and expressing their suprise at haven not known about his daughter’s condition before they received the mail. He was said to have felt like fainting. His shock couldn’t be hidden as he told his friend and all the other friends that called him after that the information on his daughter was as knew to them as it was to him.

This is a scenario that is being replicated everyday in Nigeria. Scammers looking for people to steal from. I just imagine if only 10 of his friends had responded immediately to that distress email and each sent in their magnanimity N250,000 to the stated account. Soneone or some people would have made about N2.5 million immediately. Why is it that in Africa and ofcourse Nigeria corruption and fraud have become the character of the people.

When Nigerians go to certain places now, the warning lights that flash in people’s minds are “corruption, greed, fraud…“ Why? Why must we be set aside for humiliating searches at airports? Why are we considered security risk in many places? Isn’t because NIgerians have built a culture of wrong doing? Isnt it because people now lack character. If the quote at the beginning of this post is anything to go by, can we say that for the majority of Nigerians, “all has been lost?”

Or how do you explain parents who hire mercenaries to write exams for their children? Or governors who loot the treasuries of states they were elected to serve in and get chieftaincy titles from royal fathers within and outside those states?

The corrupted character Nigerians exhibit is no longer seedlike in form. It has grown to become a very great tree and regardless of how much the leaves and branches are cut. The tree will still continue to remain and to grow except it is cut down and uprooted. That is to say a total paradigm shift may be necessary. I also do believe that the several corrupted trees in Nigeria that constitute the dark forest can be set on fire and razed down till they are burnt to ashes. (those who need to be killed, jailed, disgraced or banished need to get those measures meted out to them urgently)

Good character is a product of a good heart. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”. Until Nigerians change the content of their hearts, Nigeria will never be known for good character. Until character is more celebrated than money, Nigerians are not likely to take it as priority. Until our children, the next generation, understand that possessing good character is sufficient to get them wealth and even health, EVERYTHING will ultimately be lost.

No related posts.