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Corruption:
Williams urges return to cultural values, norms
Retired Maj.-Gen. Ishola Williams, the Executive Secretary, Pan African
Strategy and Policy Research Group, says Nigerians must return to their
cultural values and norms to minimise corruption.
He was delivering a public lecture entitled: ``Can our Culture help to
combat Corruption?'' Friday in Lagos.
The lecture was organised by the Centre for Black and African Arts and
Civilization (CBAAC).
Williams, who commanded the Training and Doctrine Command of the Nigerian
Army before his retirement, noted that Nigeria's culture had been greatly
influenced by European colonisation and trade migration and religion.
``Foreign religions have come to dominate our daily lives, our cultures and
traditions, therefore, to many it is prayers that have made Nigeria less
volatile and violent, but then not less corrupt,'' he said.
He said Asians were not only far ahead of Nigeria but were challenging the
superpower status of the U.S., Russia and Europe because they stuck to their
cultures, especially their philosophical and spiritual values and norms.
``The Chinese had, and still have well-educated and carefully selected
Mandarins founded on Confusian ideals of meritocratic government. They
adapted Marxism and called it Maoism,'' he said.
According to him, Nigeria's refusal to adapt the African religious
traditional system to modern day challenges had created the enabling but not
justified reason for corrupt practices.
Williams regretted that traditional rulers who should have been custodians
of Nigeria's culture were destroyed by the colonial administration.
``Traditional rulers in Nigeria were made public servants when they were
given offices and paid like other public officers, and also they succumbed
to foregoing traditional religious practices with the spirit and the
philosophy of their people.
``I am not surprised then that most of our traditional rulers rarely come
together to warn their subjects that those who continue to make us suffer
and increase our poverty through corrupt practices will face traditional
curses and sanctions,'' he said.
The minister of culture and Tourism, Prof. Babalola Borisade, said it was
his dream that Nigeria would one day become the least corrupt country in the
world.
`Skeptics would say that it is a tall dream, perhaps a wishful thinking
borne out of false optimism, but I know it is certainly not an unachievable
ambition,'' he said.
Borisade was represented by Dr Ahmed Yerima, the Director General of the
National Theatre.
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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 24 2006