Recommendations and Referrals and the Moral Dilemma in National Development

By:

Francis O. Egbokhare (Professor of Linguistics)
University of Ibadan

I was in Germany for the Humboldt Fellowship in 1996/97 at the University of Hamburg. A German scholar and I were engaged in a hearty discussion. Everything was going on well when he asked me this question: “why is it that all recommendations written by Nigerians are always overly positive, even when it is obvious that the individual is a mediocre.?” I was caught unawares and this got me thinking. I think that it is because we are not allowed to speak ill of the dead…Nigeria is a graveyard of truth and the majority are now effectively the living dead, morally speaking.

Let us take the peer review process in tertiary education as an example, it has collapsed and now mostly a mere excercise to fulfil all righteousness. Those who fail peer review are most likely victims of politics. There is an unwritten code that no one fails a promotion assessment. If you turn in a negative report, even where everyone accepts that it was objective and fair, you are vilified as a wicked person who wants to remove the ladder after climbing up. I don’t think that we understand why a review is done and that reward is based on performance. Performance means nothing. Merit is alien to our system and to return a truthful verdict is to commit social and cultural suicide.

The assessment process has taken on a very terrible turn. A candidate may be asked to write his own report for the signature of the assessor. Some assessors are approached by candidates, if not, the assessor may announce himself. Some candidates are required to select their reviewers. Blind reviews are a mockery because the eyes are wide open, and with flood lights of interested persons shinning on the reviewer. People don’t pass or fail assessments, they are “passed” or “failed” by the assessor. A colleague once complained about the quality of scholarship of another person whom he had just assessed for promotion. I asked him about the outcome of the assessment and he said that he had to “pass” the candidate because he wanted to “help” him. Afterall, according to him, the beneficiary will not be paid from his salary.

You can see how disconnected we are from the consequences of our failures. Whenever an incompetent person advances in a system, the system and everyone else suffers. A student commits suicide because of a terrible teacher; a patient dies on the operating table needlessly because of a bad doctor and a nation is ruined by an incompetent leader. Our actions add up from the seemingly innocuous help we render to undermine the system, to the acts of subversion of due process which we call help.

I am still trying to understand the cultural basis of the ideology of Help and the concept of the helper. I was once at an accreditation exercise and a member of our team was asking us to help the institution. After spending hours helping the institution to organize its records, this individual was asking us to forge scores as a way to help.

One highly placed individual wrote a recommendation for an individual for a sensitive position because he had no choice. People tell flowery lies about chronic failures for various reasons. One person did it because the beneficiary is from his village. The basis for recommendations to offices or positions have very little to do with character, capacity and competence. Take for instance, what happens when positions are open. First, smart adverts are done to favor predetermined candidates; the interviews are rigged to favor them. The process is done to fulfil all righteousness, a work-to-the-answer. The congratulatory messages are full of lies, with the individuals told that their appointments are “well deserved.” It is a ritual which ends in church, mosques and ethnic thanksgiving celebrations. The best part of the racket is when the man of God declares that the individual is God’s choice as if God rigs elections. Lying has become a norm in our cultures and there is an uncodified etiquette that requires one to lie and be lied to.

I would like to return to the issue of thanksgiving and receptions organized to cremate truth. These are whitewashing events filled with manufactured tales of exaggerated excellence and X-rated falsehood. What I find bemusing is when people who have agreed to cremate truth and who show such disdain for merit, as well as worship at the alter of mediocrity still manage to conjure hope for a better future for Nigeria. This is a magical oxymoron, much like coupling development with corruption. How can we have so much disregard for law and order and still charge forward for justice!

We fail to return change from errands, forge receipts, over invoice, loot funds meant to construct roads, have such terrible work ethics, yet still believe that we can thrive. We are very loquacious with prayers, have the hot telephone lines to deities, routinely converse with God, are ready to defend God against our fellow men while still being bloody thieves.

Let us check our mindsets. We are epitomes of disloyalty. The “e no concern me” syndrome is a national malaise. A typical bystander complex which shows the level of irresponsibility engraved in our cultural disposition. It is a treacherous boundary drawn which turns the average Nigerian into a complicit participant in a corruption enterprise. Can you imagine your driver looking away as your mechanic defrauds you because he thinks it is the mechanic’s opportunity to “chop his own?” This moral aloofness and ethical distancing is at the root of many destructive activities, sabotage and mass fraud.

The attitude to public good is terrifying. There is the saying that “you don’t put government work on your shoulders.” The saying goes that if government work gets too heavy you leave it to drop on the ground. So, you can see how difficult it is to organize Nigerians for any productive enterprise. Many employees consider their service to their employers as “Afamaco work”, a thankless job.

Nigerians don’t really care about the system until they start feeling the pinch of its failures. When you draw attention to the implication of their tendencies, they would tell you that “it is not my portion.”

 I love to listen to pensioners. Everyone of them likes to quip about how the country is mistreating them after serving meritoriously. If indeed Nigerians are generally productive while in service, why is Nigeria in the doldrums? Do we reflect at all? Everyone loves to blame the leaders forgetting that they are actively engaged in destroying the system. The guy who stole his organization silly writes a memoir about his service to his nation. The indolent and unproductive worker is in the street protesting unpaid pensions. We weep when people die in the hospitals; raise hell when we read about the calamities in the land, but we fail to connect with these as the outcomes of our unfaithful service!"