Nigeria will do well to learn from Namibia’s experience. At least, public officials facing allegations of wrongdoing should no longer be told to “go and sin no more”. They should be asked to step aside pending the conclusion of investigations into their alleged misdeeds. Also, candidates being considered for high-profile jobs, including ambassadorial ones, should come with impeccable records. Any of them facing criminal or corruption charges should be dropped until they successfully discharge their legal obligations.
I watched a video recently. Since it came without a caption, let us simply call it the “inter-generational curse” video. Fortunately, what matters is not the name by which it is called, but the story that it tells. This is the story of a people making the same mistakes over and over again without learning any lesson therefrom, talk less of making amends.
One mistake that has been repeated times without number is the lackadaisical handling of scandals. Since wrongdoers rarely get punished, bad behaviour seems to have become a tradition, if not a badge of honour.
Indeed, no day passes in which ordinary citizens are not regaled with stories of malfeasance in high and low places. The script is by now familiar, with the government parading high-ranking officials with cases to answer, and the officials either going scot-free, or worse still, getting rewarded with one cushy job or the other. The cases they have to answer often suddenly and mysteriously get cold and eventually forgotten by an increasingly apathetic public, which is inured to wrongdoing at high echelons of government.
