BY REV FR GERALD NWAFOR
Conscience is the inner voice viewed as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s actions or behavior.
There are types of conscience, but we are going to take a stand here that we are simply talking about the good conscience, which is the moral rectitude for leaders all over the world. When conscience is destroyed, the moral fiber of the people is eternally weakened. Conscience is a wound that truth is the only cure for. When the government of a nation does not hear the cry of the citizens, you ask what has happened to their conscience.
I watch the plenary section of the Nigerian senate, and I ask how those men sleep at night because I know that the softest pillow in the world is a clear conscience. While growing up, the first thing I learned about conscience was, “A clear conscience fears no accusation.” Whenever I hear that a minister, or a senator, or a governor in Nigeria is asking the court to stop an investigation or inquiry into his alleged forged certificate, corrupt lifestyle, mismanaged government contract, and many more, I ask myself what it is that the person is hiding.
We need to open all the cupboards of the public servants in Nigeria and see the ones with skeletons. You look at some budgets of the state governors where entertainment was said to be 900 million Naira in one month.
Where is the conscience, where is the morality, and where is the love for your citizens? The fact that they do not see evil anymore simply means conscience has collapsed.
When the leaders exhibit that kind of recklessness and indifference, I do not see hope on the horizon. I have talked about the destruction of the properties belonging to the Igbo people in Lagos, and a friend said that those buildings were illegal.
I asked two questions: first, where was the government when the land was bought and developed? The acquisition was open, continuous, notorious, and in the public domain for over five years. Second, every action of the government should have a human face. The rascality of the government in the demolition simply shows that the conscience of the government has gone into a coma.
Can you go to the main market in Onitsha and start demolishing shops in the name of illegal structure? These are people’s livelihoods. Anyway, when the conscience is dead, bad things become good things, and good things become weaknesses.
And the shield becomes the sword.The system is suffering from a lack of moral direction. I do not want to go back in time to the first republic in 1960, but let us deal with the present.
Election is coming up soon, and I have watched the type of campaign going on between the politicians and how unprintable words are flying left, right, and center. I ask, where is the conscience of these people? I watched, I listened, and I read some of the information being put out to the public domain in the name of the campaign. I wonder how some of the politicians sleep at night. I know those statements were outright lies, but in the name of the campaign, the conscience has been mortally wounded. The voting public is not exempt from this decadence of conscience.
When you know about people’s antecedents and decide to take money from them to change your conscience, you are not better than the government you are criticizing.
Everyone has a good conscience, but when you decide to shut down the voice of the conscience because of money or any of the material benefits, you automatically collapse the conscience into the bad one.
The politicians who induce the electorate with money to vote for them have no conscience, and the voter who accepts money to vote for a person into power has sold his birthright of a pot of porridge. You have no right to complain when the government is not doing what is right, since you have sold your right to good governance.
We have more than ten candidates contesting to become the governor of the state; only one person will win. Have a sincere look and examination of the candidates and vote for the person you deem fit for the job, not the highest bidder.
I remember one person making a simple request during the election, “Any candidate that you cannot use as an example for your child, do not vote for him.” It was a funny statement, but that should be the standard. Power is a very dangerous thing, and we should be very careful to whom we give it, because it can destroy the giver and the receiver if not well managed. I hope the moral fiber of our citizens will not be weakened, so that the best candidate will win, and happiness will be the reward.
The government always receives the bulk of the blame when things go wrong, but remember that we are in this together. The businessman who sold the fake material to you in the name of the original has lost his conscience. They always make a mockery of the unsuspecting buyer who goes home with the fake material.
The market apprentice would say that they have sold gorillas to the buyer in place of monkeys (Anyi asua ya adaka, na onu enwe). And if the buyer tried to get back his money, they will come up with all sources of statement; “No refund of money after payment.”
I do not wish to mention any business, but if I did not tell the medicine seller that they should not even think about fake medicine, not to mention selling it to anyone, it means that my own conscience has collapsed. Of all the fake products in the world, I think fake medicines should not be manufactured at all. Any businessman who goes to India or Pakistan and requests a fake medicine has no conscience at all.
Furthermore, the priest, the pastors, and the self-made evangelists who collect money for miracles or tell the congregation lies in the name of prophecy should check their conscience. The Church should be the moral compass where consciences are formed and reformed.
If the Church fails us in this regard, I will ask the same question Juvenal asked 2000 years ago “Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes,” “Who will guard the guards themselves?” The Church should not engage in any form of deceit since they have occupied the moral position of the world; it should be on the high moral ground and be the shining light. Direct the government on how to lead with conscience and help the public to make the right decision of avoiding evil and choosing good.
