By Douglass Anele
Previously, political office holders stole thousands or millions of naira, dollars and pounds sterling; these days they embezzle hundreds of millions and billions which they use to finance absurdly ostentatious lifestyles and buy expensive property both in Nigeria and overseas, while ordinary Nigerians they are supposed to serve wallow in avoidable abject poverty.

The irony is that Obasanjo established two anti-corruption agencies, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), yet the tidal waves and eddies of immorality and corruption have been expanding ever since and are threatening to overwhelm even the judiciary, the “last hope of the common man.”

Why? Because Obasanjo and his successors weren’t really serious about dealing with corruption at the highest level where it matters most. Many of our politicians these days are immorality personified. Nothing demonstrates this more starkly than the abominations going on in the National Assembly and in the State Houses of Assembly as well.

The National Assembly and the State Houses of Assembly constitute a drain pipe on the country’s tottering economy. In terms of cost benefit analysis, they rank as one of the worst legislative houses in the world.

The unnecessarily expensive nature of the inverted or chop-and-clean-mouth democracy which our politicians are operating reflects the acute crisis of moral values in the ruling class and in the general population.

It is a sordid case of the tail wagging the dog when over sixty percent of our national income is spent on less than two percent of Nigerians. St. Augustine of Hippo, the great African philosopher_theologian, suggested that without morality, governments are nothing but gangs of robbers.

In this connection, the low level of moral consciousness in majority of Nigerian politicians implies that the country is under the dominance of robbers. This creates the erroneous impression that “politics is a dirty game” fit only for the morally diabetic.

Clearly, such negative portraiture is at variance with the ideas of great political philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham, J. S. Mill, Bertrand Russell, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo etc, who saw politics as one of the most important vocations for the noblest minds, because of its critical importance in the sustenance of civilisation.

As we suggested before, the pioneer nationalists and politicians, even though they were far from being morally perfect, manifested some of the attributes of philosopher-kings. Indeed, some of them spent considerable intellectual energy articulating visions of the ideal Nigerian state, that is, morally informed and value_centred ideas about how Nigeria can become an ideal republic suitable for the optimal development of her tremendous human and natural resources.

For example, Azikiwe, in his treatise, Ideology for Nigeria: Capitalism, Socialism or Welfarism?, worked hard to formulate a pragmatic political ideology for the country that reflects the communalistic character of indigenous communities and simultaneously reckons with contemporary economic situation.

He extolled the spirit of solidarity of our ancestors which, inspite of their heterogeneous languages and culture, sustained them and enabled them to survive. As a result he advocated neo-welfarism, a midway house between capitalism and socialism.

Morality occupies a prominent position in Azikiwe’s main proposals for the neo-welfarist state, because he envisaged a democratic society in which liberty and equality before the law are guaranteed. Furthermore, such a state will assume responsibility for freeing the citizens from hunger, disease, ignorance, fear and want.

Awolowo, in his autobiography and works such as Path to Nigerian Freedom and The People’s Republic, worked out some interesting ideas concerning the ideal Nigerian state and the moral, intellectual, and spiritual qualities of individuals that should lead. For Awolowo, genuine political leaders must enter the regime of mental magnitude, “properly and eminently equipped with a considerable measure of intellectual, comprehension and cognition, insight and spiritual illumination.”

At that level, he argued, they must overcome what Immanuel Kant called “tyranny of the flesh” and become free. There is no patina of doubt that both Azikiwe and Awolowo were world class politicians and political philosophers who would have provided the quality of leadership Nigeria needed had they been given the opportunity to serve either as executive President or Prime Minister.

Now, can anyone compare these morally cultivated and enlightened giants of Nigerian politics to the horde of clever but morally and spiritually disabled politicians who dominate the political firmament presently?

Such comparison, we believe, will be far_fetched. Indeed, it seems almost sacrilegious to compare Azikiwe and Awolowo with the present group of agbata ekee politicians who are in complete bondage to the tyranny of the flesh. Of course, as human beings both men were imperfect, and their political theories contain several inadequacies.

But how many politicians, particularly those holding public office now, can match the level of intellectual, moral and spiritual insights of these two icons? Who in the Presidency and the National Assembly has a solid philosophical understanding of Nigeria’s leadership challenges comparable in rationality and profundity to the ideas Azikiwe and Awolowo articulated in their works? None, we should say.

Frankly speaking, genuine morally cultivated intellectuals are a vanishing breed in Nigeria’s political ecology, which is increasingly being dominated by political parasites.

Sensitivity to morality and willingness to act in accordance with its basic prescriptions, we maintain, is a sine qua non in politics and political leadership. Any society where the leaders routinely flout fundamental moral principles, as is the case in Nigeria, is in deep trouble. Nigeria is turning into a living hell, simply because those who purport to lead are suffering from acute moral kwashiorkor. Concluded.