The real tragedy (of moral collapse) is not that people commit evil, but that they no longer recognise it as evil — Shaheed Murtaza Mutahhari

INTRODUCTION: MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

A few years ago, after leaving a meeting in Oregun Ikeja, I carpooled with a couple of colleagues who didn't drive their cars that day. One of them was planning to stop at the Onipan bus stop area on Ikorodu road. I chose to drop him at the Conoil petrol station to avoid the hassle from public buses, street urchins, LASTMA and other non-state actors who have made public roads their personal fiefdom. As that colleague alighted from the vehicle I was about to access the road again to continue my journey when I saw him, my wife's cousin, quite young at the time and surrounded by fierce looking thugs. His car was parked on the side of the road just outside the Conoil petrol station. I immediately parked my car and asked my other colleague, a huge intimidating fellow, to back me up because I knew the person surrounded by the thugs. What unfolded next was a lot of street smarts and emotional intelligence topped with a healthy dose of good fortune.

My relation had had some work done on his car and the mechanic had failed to properly tighten the bolts on one of the rear tires. Out of five bolts, four had already fallen off and the tire was about to fall off. Fortunately he noticed something was off before the tyre completely fell off and he decided to park and check it out. Having identified the problem, the plan was simple; have the vulcaniser remove one bolt each from the other three tyres, and secure the failing tyre such that all the four tyres would now have four bolts instead of five securing them to the car and drive the car carefully home and have the missing bolts replaced by his mechanic. Unfortunately, he parked just outside the petrol station instead of inside because he saw a vulcaniser(local tyre repair technician) closeby. Since he was on the road shoulder and not inside the petrol station, the thugs approached and demanded money from him because according to them that stretch of public roadway was their territory. Being born and raised in Lagos I have acquired significant street smarts that allowed me navigate the unfolding situation. First I identified the "most reasonable " and the "most aggressive" of the lot. The aggressive one was issuing threats and I pointedly ignored him and faced the reasonable one but I insulted the aggressive one and at the same time issued subtle threats of my own in Yoruba language… The English language cannot accurately convey the nuances of these interactions but the key is knowing how to read body language and the tempo, knowing when to soft pedal and when to go on the offensive. A lot of subtle nuances that can only be learned through years of daily interaction with the eco system. Ultimately, I got them to calm down and promised to give them money if they would allow the vulcaniser fix the car. We continued to banter whilst the vulcaniser worked as soon as he finished I told my wife's cousin to leave immediately. I did this because the only cash I had on my person at the time was Fifty Naira, a ridiculous sum even at that time, but the bottom line was they had no more leverage because the car was fixed and gone. When they started to protest, I removed my now empty wallet and in Yoruba language, invited them to search my pockets and take whatever they found, of course they declined because of several factors, I had established myself as a "son of the soil", I had taken away their leverage by getting my relative and his car to leave and it was broad daylight. Bear in mind this was several years ago and I know that there was also a bucket load of luck involved. Fast forward till today, I'm not entirely sure that I can pull that off again and go completely unscathed.

THE PROBLEM

Unfortunately, this sorry state of affairs plays out daily on Lagos roads and in some other states in Nigeria on a daily basis. In fact I have argued in jest that we do not need the vehicle inspection officers and the Federal Road Safety Corps on the road because no one will knowingly allow his vehicle breakdown on Lagos roads. If you are lucky you get extorted and you fix your car, if not you get robbed or worse and the car still has to be fixed. Interestingly, a few days after I wrote the first draft of this edition, I started seeing videos circulating on social media of a Lagos State Government Taskforce that was arresting these hoodlums on major roads when they waylay people whose' vehicles have broken down. It is a welcome development, a long overdue and desperate one but a welcome development nonetheless. However, this latest development, laudable as it is, raises more questions than answers and I will attempt to pose the questions and see if we can find solutions together. Some of the questions that come to mind are as follows:

• Is this approach sustainable? If you've been following my writings you'll know that I am no fan of the chaotic enforcement processes employed by our government agencies. However, this being a security matter and given the antecedents of the perpetrators you would expect reasonable use of force in the apprehension of these hoodlums. The question is after apprehension what next? The brutal truth is we do not have any system or infrastructure in place to rehabilitate them. Our criminal justice system is already overburdened and our prisons are bursting at the seams with overcrowding. Assuming our terminally ill criminal justice system can even keep up and effectively process these hoodlums, all they would get is a prison sentence or fine or both depending on what law they are charged under. Now when they are sentenced to prison, without proper rehabilitation they come out hardened and have a higher likelihood of recidivism. This in the mid to long term poses greater security risk to both the general public and the officials tasked with arresting and detaining them when they are found committing these crimes. Without structures in place to rehabilitate and re-orientate these individuals as well as equip them with a skill or trade, I fear that we may have the opposite effect in the long run with citizens at the mercy of more hardened and/or vicious criminals who now have absolutely nothing to lose.
• Does this address the root causes? In order to answer this question we have to first identify what are the root causes of this kind of deviant behaviour. Where did we miss it so completely as a society that a large section is comfortable with benefitting and profiting over the pain and misfortune of others? We need to declare a state of emergency in the education sector as well as revisit the extreme poverty and the silent collapse of moral values through the decline of the family system. It beats all imagination that a person would see another person in distress and the first reaction would be to extort the person under threat of violence. Practically every one who has lived in Lagos long enough has learned to be extremely wary of the unsolicited "good morning" or unsolicited help offered when one is in distress. This unfortunately contrasts sharply with the values children grew up with in the 80s and the 90s… I specify this time period because that's what I am intimately familiar with. Back then, it was proper to greet and help because as children that's what we were taught to do. In many states outside of Lagos, I have had the opportunity to take public transport and interact with complete strangers in all the geo-political regions of the country and I must say people are generally personable outside of the major hustle and bustle of cities like Lagos, Onitsha, Aba, Port Harcourt, Benin and Kano to mention a few. What's common to the cities mentioned above? Population density, however while it is a common theme, it is not a determinant factor. These states also have a high population of out of school youth and other vices like youth drug abuse and cultism. With the growth of individualism, communal ways of life that acted as checks and balances under our traditional systems are no longer available. The aggrandisation of crime and societal celebration of get rich quick schemes, wealth without work, instant gratification has gotten so deep into the fabric of our society that most youth cannot simply understand the need to work for anything. It has created an entitlement mentality amongst the majority of the population. For example, if I'm walking on a public road and my wallet falls without me noticing and some random person picks it up and hands it over to me, both the person and the people around expect me to dip my hand into the wallet and handover cash to him for being "good". Afterall I could have lost it all but since I didn't I am expected to "share" or "show love". They do not care that the funds in the wallet may not belong to me or may be the only hope my dependants have of having a meal. "Thank you" without a corresponding cash gift has become an obsolete term and a synonym for a selfish, unappreciative miser. Therein lies the bane of our problem, we've lost our moral compass and with it a host of avoidable vices have crept into our society. So back to the question does this enforcement address the root causes? No.
• How did we get to this point? "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" — George Santayana. As long as we continue to make excuses for people who "cut the line or jump the queue" we will be condemned to repeat the mistakes that got us into this situation in the first place. One of the things I have loved so much since I was a child is astronomy (not to be confused with astrology). One of my favorite terms from watching documentaries about rocket and satellite launches was the phrase "launch window". You see, a journey from Earth to the Moon can either take several months or several years depending on when and where the rocket is launched from on earth. Given that the rockets can only carry a finite amount of fuel, the engineers have to calculate the optimum time to launch the rocket in order to get the shortest possible path with optimal gravity assistance from surrounding celestial bodies, hence the phrase launch window. The window of opportunity within which if they do not launch they cannot fulfil the mission. In addition, space is vast and a 0.01% deviation from the proper launch trajectory can determine whether the rocket eventually ends up on the moon or on Mars. Bringing this home, making excuses for children instead of disciplining and guiding them in love, ultimately creates morally bankrupt adults who know the right thing to do but realise that they can also take short cuts because they have someone to bail them out when consequences come calling. The problem is that by the next generation they raise children who don't even know that cutting the line (for example) is wrong and who believe it is normal to have your parents bail you out of consequences. Continue this over three generations and the prevalent value system would be completely unrecognisable from where the grandparents started. Consequently, you have a society that now sees deviant and abhorrent behaviour as normal. The good news is that the trend is reversible as long as there exists the will to make real change. The fix is to manage the behaviour of those that are already grown while giving proper orientation to those that are just growing. Again, fix our education sector, tackle poverty head on, make corruption unattractive and serve consequences for actions.

IT'S NOT COMPLETELY HOPELESS

Having identified the why, how do we now stem the tide and get off this self imposed path of self destruction?

• Education and Reorientation: There is no gainsaying the need to revamp our educational sector. In the Policy Brief edition titled Lessons From Rwanda, I already stressed this point using the example of Rwanda. I wish to reiterate all I'd said there and further stress the fact that one of the first steps in revamping education in Nigeria is to start with the reorientation, training and welfare of the educators themselves. Have you ever wondered why the competence and quality of drivers on the roads have declined significantly in Nigeria? I did until I went looking for a driving school to enroll someone in my care. To cut the long story short, I allowed the person do the course in order to understand how to manipulate the clutch and gear and to understand the basics of moving a car. Afterwards, I spent the next month teaching the person how to drive i.e. lane discipline, reading and understanding road signs, how a four way stop works and how to navigate it in the context of uninformed Nigerian drivers. This is important because if you ever get involved in an accident you'll suddenly realise that there are comprehensive road traffic rules in Nigeria. Back to the topic, we need to look at the quality of people tasked with implementing policies that we keep formulating to patch rather than repair the education sector. A good plan is only as good as the people tasked with implementation. If you purchase the most secure and sophisticated lock available on the planet but you mount it on a flimsy wooden door with weak hinges attached to a termite infested frame, that lock is useless. It is useless because even though it would not be broken into, the door on which it is mounted can be compromised with a good kick thus exposing what it is meant to be securing.
• Decriminalisation of Dissent: Public office holders and public servants need to develop a thick skin. They must learn to take criticism in the spirit in which it is offered. No one has a monopoly on knowledge or perspective. I will give a personal example that I hope will shed light on what I'm trying to say. For many years after I started driving I stopped taking public transport and trekking for the most part. I observed at different times when I would drive down some trunk B or C roads that pedestrians were particularly upset, possibly because they felt I was not careful enough. I on the other hand was not only confident in my ability I had seen all of them and had taken their safety into account in choosing my path and speed. However, I, on occasion after many years, had to walk the same roads and suddenly I could see my journey from a different perspective from that of a driver and I realised that the perspective of a pedestrian is radically different. I immediately understood that even though I knew I was a safe driver and had accounted for the safety of the pedestrians, the same pedestrians had no way of knowing which of all the drivers they encountered was a safe driver. I adjusted my driving speed on those roads to a more comfortable pace for the pedestrians. As a public service officer or public office holder, you may have the best of intentions and may actually be doing the best you can within your structure and organisation but you are not on the receiving end of your actions and to truly improve and deliver excellence you must encourage criticism. Sycophancy does far more harm to society than criticism ever did. There is constructive and there is malicious criticism, but even malicious criticism has its roots in facts that are being exploited. Thus even malicious criticism exposes areas for improvement. Unfortunately, (I stand to be corrected) no outspoken critic of government or government officials over the last 15 years can say he or she hasn't had a brush with law enforcement agents within the same timeframe. Our current structure punishes criticism and rewards sycophancy, the result is a society in decline.
• Direct Social Intervention Through Sports: Mr Tunde Onakoya has become a household name because of his "Chess in Slums Africa" initiative. He has through teaching chess to homeless boys transformed the lives of so many youth, gotten them off the streets, back in school and given them opportunities. He has not only transformed the lives of these boys, he has saved society from future criminals and liabilities. He has decongested the courts by reducing the number of people that would definitely have a run in with the law. Sports can do the same and so much more if the government actually recruits these homeless and jobless people into different sports, drug use and abuse would significantly reduce. The mini stadiums popping up in local governments across Lagos State are a good initiative but there needs to be a diversification from football (soccer to my American readers). It would also reduce the number of people who develop chronic health issues because an active body is a healthy body.

PARTING THOUGHTS

There is so much more but I am conscious of the fact that "it is not how far but how well". If the suggestions above can be implemented faithfully, it would make a world of difference with minimal input. To sum this edition up, the decline of our society is fully evident with the different vices we see on a daily basis. Our society has turned the misfortune of others into an opportunity for extortion and illicit gain simply because we have lost our moral compass. We need, as a matter of urgency, to stem the tide and reintroduce morals and discipline into the upbringing of the children and the youth. The recent attention of the Lagos State Government to the menace of hoodlums that waylay people whose vehicles breakdown on the roads is a major and welcome development. However, it is a desperate measure for desperate times with only short term gains. It is not sustainable and does not address the root causes of the problem in the first place. What are your thoughts on this and the solutions proposed? I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.