By:
Francis O.
Egbokhare (Professor of Linguistics)
University of
Ibadan
I was in Germany for the Humboldt Fellowship in 1996/97 at the University of Hamburg. A German scholar and I were engaged in a hearty discussion. Everything was going on well when he asked me this question: “why is it that all recommendations written by Nigerians are always overly positive, even when it is obvious that the individual is a mediocre.?” I was caught unawares and this got me thinking. I think that it is because we are not allowed to speak ill of the dead…Nigeria is a graveyard of truth and the majority are now effectively the living dead, morally speaking.
Let us take the peer review process in tertiary education as
an example, it has collapsed and now mostly a mere excercise to fulfil all
righteousness. Those who fail peer review are most likely victims of politics.
There is an unwritten code that no one fails a promotion assessment. If you
turn in a negative report, even where everyone accepts that it was objective
and fair, you are vilified as a wicked person who wants to remove the ladder
after climbing up. I don’t think that we understand why a review is done and
that reward is based on performance. Performance means nothing. Merit is alien
to our system and to return a truthful verdict is to commit social and cultural
suicide.
The assessment process has taken on a very terrible turn. A
candidate may be asked to write his own report for the signature of the
assessor. Some assessors are approached by candidates, if not, the assessor may
announce himself. Some candidates are required to select their reviewers. Blind
reviews are a mockery because the eyes are wide open, and with flood lights of
interested persons shinning on the reviewer. People don’t pass or fail
assessments, they are “passed” or “failed” by the assessor. A colleague once
complained about the quality of scholarship of another person whom he had just
assessed for promotion. I asked him about the outcome of the assessment and he
said that he had to “pass” the candidate because he wanted to “help” him.
Afterall, according to him, the beneficiary will not be paid from his salary.
You can see how disconnected we are from the consequences of
our failures. Whenever an incompetent person advances in a system, the system
and everyone else suffers. A student commits suicide because of a terrible
teacher; a patient dies on the operating table needlessly because of a bad
doctor and a nation is ruined by an incompetent leader. Our actions add up from
the seemingly innocuous help we render to undermine the system, to the acts of
subversion of due process which we call help.
I am still trying to understand the cultural basis of the
ideology of Help and the concept of the helper. I was once at an accreditation
exercise and a member of our team was asking us to help the institution. After
spending hours helping the institution to organize its records, this individual
was asking us to forge scores as a way to help.
One highly placed individual wrote a recommendation for an
individual for a sensitive position because he had no choice. People tell
flowery lies about chronic failures for various reasons. One person did it
because the beneficiary is from his village. The basis for recommendations to
offices or positions have very little to do with character, capacity and
competence. Take for instance, what happens when positions are open. First,
smart adverts are done to favor predetermined candidates; the interviews are rigged
to favor them. The process is done to fulfil all righteousness, a
work-to-the-answer. The congratulatory messages are full of lies, with the
individuals told that their appointments are “well deserved.” It is a ritual
which ends in church, mosques and ethnic thanksgiving celebrations. The best
part of the racket is when the man of God declares that the individual is God’s
choice as if God rigs elections. Lying has become a norm in our cultures and
there is an uncodified etiquette that requires one to lie and be lied to.
I would like to return to the issue of thanksgiving and
receptions organized to cremate truth. These are whitewashing events filled
with manufactured tales of exaggerated excellence and X-rated falsehood. What I
find bemusing is when people who have agreed to cremate truth and who show such
disdain for merit, as well as worship at the alter of mediocrity still manage
to conjure hope for a better future for Nigeria. This is a magical oxymoron,
much like coupling development with corruption. How can we have so much
disregard for law and order and still charge forward for justice!
We fail to return change from errands, forge receipts, over
invoice, loot funds meant to construct roads, have such terrible work ethics,
yet still believe that we can thrive. We are very loquacious with prayers, have
the hot telephone lines to deities, routinely converse with God, are ready to
defend God against our fellow men while still being bloody thieves.
Let us check our mindsets. We are epitomes of disloyalty.
The “e no concern me” syndrome is a national malaise. A typical bystander
complex which shows the level of irresponsibility engraved in our cultural
disposition. It is a treacherous boundary drawn which turns the average
Nigerian into a complicit participant in a corruption enterprise. Can you
imagine your driver looking away as your mechanic defrauds you because he
thinks it is the mechanic’s opportunity to “chop his own?” This moral aloofness
and ethical distancing is at the root of many destructive activities, sabotage
and mass fraud.
The attitude to public good is terrifying. There is the
saying that “you don’t put government work on your shoulders.” The saying goes
that if government work gets too heavy you leave it to drop on the ground. So,
you can see how difficult it is to organize Nigerians for any productive
enterprise. Many employees consider their service to their employers as
“Afamaco work”, a thankless job.
Nigerians don’t really care about the system until they
start feeling the pinch of its failures. When you draw attention to the
implication of their tendencies, they would tell you that “it is not my
portion.”
I love to listen to
pensioners. Everyone of them likes to quip about how the country is mistreating
them after serving meritoriously. If indeed Nigerians are generally productive
while in service, why is Nigeria in the doldrums? Do we reflect at all?
Everyone loves to blame the leaders forgetting that they are actively engaged
in destroying the system. The guy who stole his organization silly writes a
memoir about his service to his nation. The indolent and unproductive worker is
in the street protesting unpaid pensions. We weep when people die in the
hospitals; raise hell when we read about the calamities in the land, but we
fail to connect with these as the outcomes of our unfaithful service!"
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