Where Are The Values?

Oftentimes we hear lamentations like, ‘our society is suffering from moral decay’ ‘everybody is pursuing money’, ‘parents do not have time for their children, neither do husbands have time for their wives’. Others include, ‘the society is so corrupt’, ‘people no longer care for one another’, ‘you cannot trust anybody’.

These expressions and their likes point to a major factor, that the society is bereft of essential values.  Our values are those things that are most important to us. They determine our behaviour and decisions per time as well as guide our choices.

I listened to a phone-in radio programme one day, where the Presenter wanted to know if Callers think they truly had values, since most people agreed that the society as it is was bereft of values. I remember someone calling to say she has values but that the system keeps pushing her to go against those values. The Caller gave example of situation where she had to purchase examination question papers for her child because if she failed to do so, the child would fail the exam, since that was what obtained in writing such exam.

It is also common knowledge that people give and take bribes based on agreements reached at the time of getting a contract that certain percentage would be given out. I know I have been told of a willingness to give me whatever I would take, provided I ensured a job contract was won. Well that was the first and last time the person would ask such a question, but has since been working for us; that was after apologizing for ever asking.

My interest here is that if values are individually based, how come people are quick to give reasons of the system as the reason for not keeping to them.

Yesterday again on a radio programme I heard of the story of a Nigerian woman, in whom was found 5 pounds weight of cocaine, concealed in 150 pellets in the woman’s body. It was said to be the largest to be found so in the US and that it broke the record of another Nigerian woman in her forties, found carrying 4 pound weight in 100 pellets in 2010 in US.

Reacting to the story, some Callers said it was the hardship in Nigerian society that may have pushed someone to do such thing. Gratefully some other Callers were quick to counter such view. That is what I am talking about, where are the values, if hardship and corrupt system were enough to quickly change them. If there were values, are they negative ones? Or else we conclude that values are lacking.

A senior associate of mine commented to me some days ago that the environment in Lagos had become so rowdy with people behaving the way they liked and wondered why it was so. I told him that people live as though they were in a jungle where there is no law and everyone behaved they way they deemed fit. This makes me think about value for law and order. What has happened to value for law and order.

As a pupil of Social Studies I remember being taught that the Police’s major responsibility was to maintain Law and Order in the society; growing up, I have seen the Police flout law and Order as well as watch the Citizens flout Law and Order without correcting or arresting them. Instead I see them receive tips and look the other way as the Laws are flouted. I see the Police sit in a Commuter bus, as immunity to the Bus Operators against any traffic offence. Where are the values? How about respect for one another, a trait of the value of Love for others; where is it in the citizens?

Where is the value of justice? Appalling stories of various ways people are killed by law enforcement agents and fellow citizens abound in our news media, yet most of them go unpunished.

 

Hmmm..., to be continued.