Dr. Ifeyinwa Nwakwesi

How does one explain the decadence in our society where people are Bible and Quran readers and are always praying.

Character is the true qualities an individual exhibits and reputation is the perceptions and beliefs people have of others.

I think people should be more focused on developing themselves into people that live spirit-filled lives in which case they will be living mostly in the spirit and less in the flesh.

The fruits of the spirit are very evident and include Charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity.

The fruits of the spirit are time-tested principle-centered values which help to build our Character.

Many people think that character is largely dependent on genetics upbringing and education.

They contribute to moulding people’s behavior and character but they do not determine the final outcome of peoples behavior.

The most important thing that determines who we are and become are the decisions and choices we make in our lives.

Your past does not equal your future.

You can decide to rewrite the history of your life and turn your life into a powerful story of empowering life and character.

Many studies have proven that character is mostly an acquired trait so you can do a self-evaluation and commit to working on any weak areas and gradually turn them into strengths.

I often hear people complain about others and their behavior. The sad thing is that we judge people by their external looks.

Once we see a beautiful and handsome face we assume the person should be a good person.

We now become entangled with interpersonal conflicts because we do not understand the person’s behavior and character.

Your character reflects your inner being not your face. Many people that do not have good character are in inner states of disharmony. They are usually not content, no peace of mind.

They do not love themselves so they can’t give love to someone else. They are mostly agitated so they are very aggressive and often in a fighting mood.

They lack spiritual fulfillment so they are suffering from spiritual emptiness.

They are looking to fill their inner void by making money at all costs sometimes stealing public money, kidnapping, and armed robbery. The quest for filling the inner emptiness leads them to have multiple sexual partners and they are never satisfied so they keep moving from one partner to the other.

Lack of good character is at the root cause of most of our life and societal challenges.

We have leaders that do not have the character of true Leaders. They are not compassionate, empathic, content, happy, peaceful, kind, humble, passionate, and impactful.

You can’t give what you don’t have. An apple cannot give an orange, neither can an orange give an apple.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The character of a person is s reflection of their consistent words and actions.

Every character and behavior have a mindset. Your beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and decisions give rise to your habits.

If you live with negative mindsets most of your actions, behavior and character will not be empowering.

This means that we ought to teach people starting from early childhood how to live true Christian and Muslim lives, be intentional about their mindsets so they dwell more in positive mindsets, and develop positive mental attitudes which will help build a great character that will give them a good reputation if people are being honest with their evaluation of the person.

We need to be careful how we allow ourselves to worry about what people think about us.
The truth is that many people are on battlefields in their lives and they are quick to criticize others and will hardly see any good in others.

Some people are full of envy and they are ready to tear others down.

Be more concerned about building yourself into a determined, committed, focused, hardworking, compassionate, empathic, kind, humble, passionate, and impactful person. Be true to yourself, be content and grateful to your God, your parents, your teachers, your pastors, imams, family friends, associates, and focus on continuous and consistent personal development- adopt the integrative lifestyle and become the masterpiece that God has ordained for you.

Dr. Ifeyinwa Nwakwesi
Integrative Health & Lifestyle specialist
CEO Healthy living services & Moodcalls
President Women Alliance Group / Life Foundation,
Chair Enugwu- Ukwu Daughters Community Development Initiative

Inside Stuff With Martins Oloja

I was in our nation’s capital, Abuja last week and I wept over that beautiful city because it is fast becoming John Milton’s classic description of another paradise (being) lost. Our remarkable capital where I have practised journalism for thirty-four years is very dark at the moment. I drove in the night from District to District, from Area to Area, and I was shocked that the capital of the federation where the two major political parties are holding their conventions at the moment has become another Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’.

Even the Eagle Square precinct where the ruling party, APC convention is taking place now is in partial darkness. And curiously, no one is raising questions about the strange darkness in Abuja city . All the streetlights all over the place are gone and no one to replace them.

Sadly, no one within the three arms of government located in the capital has drawn the attention of the Governor and Deputy Governor of Abuja to the darkness that has entombed Nigeria’s barely 45-year-old capital. It is sad that no one within the federal bureaucracy in the same capital is confronting the authorities in Abuja to rise up to the challenge of maintaining the capital of our already challenged federation.

No one within the security and defence community in Abuja has drawn the attention of the commander-in-chief to the nexus between darkness in Abuja and growing insecurity in and around the capital. It is also shameful that even the two Federal Capital Territory Committees in the National Assembly cannot tour Abuja to ask the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Executive Secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) the Permanent Secretary of the FCTA why our nation’s capital is in darkness. We need to know why the authorities in Abuja cannot maintain street and sometimes traffic lights in the Federal Capital Territory.

Doubtless, it has never been so bad. There are other infrastructure challenges in the city but when darkness descends on a city, there is a cause for alarm.
It is important at this time to draw attention to what may be termed an inconvenient truth: Abuja, is one of the most important capitals in Africa and indeed the black race. It is our pearl we should not cast before a swine.

What this ancient word implies is that Abuja isn’t a portfolio to be given to anyone who isn’t a competent technocrat. It is like Lagos you don’t just give to any Dick and Harry. You can see that people who have run Lagos are the ones aspiring to run Nigeria. One of the former Governors of Lagos State, now a front-runner on the ruling party’s platform, is running for president. Two of them who were earlier speculated to be interested chickened out of the tight race. It is like New York, their New York City. Anyone who can win the NYC Mayoral election can contest to be President of the United States. Michael Bloomberg, a successful businessman, a media entrepreneur and former Mayor of New York City has contested U.S presidential election more than once. Lest we forget, Rudolph William Louis Giuliani, (Rudy Giuliani) 107th Mayor of NYC has aspired to be U.S President more than once too. So, it should be with the Minister of FCT. The current Minister of FCT who has been there for seven years needs to answer some questions about his stewardship. But specifically, he needs to wake up to light up the city. It isn’t about the competence of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company. It isn’t about electricity supply to residents of the city centre and territory. It is about urban renewal and city management. Illumination is part of security of even the rural areas. The founding fathers of FCT have tried their best. Controversial as it was in the beginning, the FCT has been accepted nationwide as Nigeria’s capital. Since the constitution provides in Sections 299-304 that the President and the Vice President shall be regarded as the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Federal Capital Territory as a State, it behoves the President the same constitution empowers to appoint a Minister if he so wishes, to consider a person who is as technically competent as Malam Nasir el-Rufai who is still more remembered as FCT Minister than as Governor of Kaduna State.

This discussion point on our nation’s capital is coming at a time of constitution review and election politics. President Buhari should note in his handover papers that the FCT Minister he appointed in 2015 has been a disservice to the nation.

The Minister waited for more than two and half years before he could form his cabinet. The Minister was without a cabinet, (Mandate Secretaries) I complained about for two years. The President approved the cabinet only on November 22, 2021. And no one asked any questions about this kind of docility, nurtured by gross procrastination in public office. Two years wasted in a four year mandate for Mandate Secretaries who should act as Commissioners in Nigeria’s Capital. As I have written several times, the rains of mediocrity will continue to beat us in Abuja as long as the FCT administration remains undemocratic. It will be recalled that a former Minister of FCT, Senator Bala Mohammed, (now Governor of Bauchi State) was appointed FCT Minister by the then President Jonathan because he (Bala) pushed the registration paper of Senators who then supported a strange ‘Doctrine of Necessity’, which paved the way for the then Vice President Jonathan to act as President while his principal, President Umaru Yar’Adua was on medical vacation in Saudi Arabia.

When Jonathan assumed office as President, he rewarded Senator Bala Mohammed with the FCT portfolio – for the way he diligently manipulated the Senate Paper on ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ at the Senate. Here is the thing, the President in any dispensation can always appoint anyone he likes (even if incompetent) as FCT Minister. What is worse, the Federal Capital Territory has no Legislature. The Constitution empowers the National Assembly to assume that responsibility. That is why the Constitution should be amended to ensure that a Mayor of Abuja is elected during a general election.

Let’s return to the brass tacks, darkness should not be tolerated in any discussions. Darkness connotes danger, evil and whatever is negative. That is why evil people such as terrorists choose forest darkness to perpetrate evil.

That is also why even Joseph Conrad’s novel, ‘Heart of Darkness’ is overtly metaphorical and political, demonstrating how colonialism destroys the hearts and souls of all human beings.

Here, “heart of darkness” is a short-hand for European stereotypes of Africa, which Conrad’s novel did its part to reinforce. There is a review of it, which plays on racist anxieties about immigration: the idea that certain places and peoples are primitive, exotic and dangerous.

Darkness has therefore become a symbol of hatred, fear and symbol of the power of evil. A reviewer of Conrad’s classic begins his story believing that these elements exist within the jungle, then with the natives and finally makes the realisation that ‘darkness’ lives within the heart of each man.
Mita Ramani, a young writer in Chicago, while dissecting the struggle between darkness and light notes that the universal struggle between darkness and light, good and evil, is one that has plagued mankind for ages. The human race seeks daylight and yet paradoxically cannot survive without the night.

Traditionally, darkness is associated with emptiness, ignorance, and evil. Shadows hide in the darkness, but without a black night one would never be able to see the stars that light up the sky. Light is often a symbol of knowledge and truth, values that will never disappear from humanity. Humans are seekers of light, as they are drawn towards trying to learn what lies beyond our basic understanding of the world.
Literature and art typically portray darkness as an absence of morality and truth, and ‘The Name of the Rose’ by Umberto Eco follows the common interpretation perfectly. In the novel, ‘Jorge de Burgos’, the elderly blind monk of the abbey, embodies the qualities of darkness ranging from wickedness to ignorance. His physical disability leaves him to live without light, which compels him to perform drastic measures in order to ensure the other monks live in intellectual darkness or ignorance. The fear of widespread knowledge drives Jorge to commit the grave sin of murder at night and hide in the shadows of darkness. His character and actions are a reflection that ignorance and evil fester in darkness. The obscurity or absence of knowledge is the epitome of darkness in the novel. Ultimately, Jorge’s crimes are only revealed with the light of understanding, knowledge, and religion, just as light is the only quality that can combat blindness and ignorance in the material world.

The darkness over the city of power and Nigeria’s capital should not be taken for granted. It is both physical and spiritual. There has been too much darkness over so many fundamental issues in our country. There is darkness over even the status of the Federal Capital Territory 45 years after. There is still darkness over the terminal date of the Buhari administration. It isn’t clear whether insecurity will end for elections to hold so that we have a president-elect next year. It wasn’t clear at press time whether the APC primary will be peacefully held, after all. There is also strange darkness over why a former President Goodluck Jonathan would like to return to Aso Presidential Villa on the platform of the Party that disgraced him out of office in 2015. There is so much darkness in Abuja over why so many presidential candidates have curiously emerged from the South West where there has always been a major candidate who is generally believed to have capacity and war chest to prosecute the #project-2023 (presidential election). It is indeed dark over why Governor Yahaya Bello’s presidential election campaign has suddenly become the most remarkable so far in a survey by our own Channels Television. In the same vein, there is still darkness over the reasons zoning arrangement and policy of the two political parties suddenly collapsed like a pack of cards before the primaries.

In the main, the darkness in Nigeria’s capital may have symbolised darkness over the future of democracy in Nigeria, our Nigeria. It wasn’t clear yet at press time despite declarations of assurances whether some light will drive away darkness over the 2023 hand-over that a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Robert Clark has declared could be affected by consequences of insecurity that isn’t abating. Oh Darkness, why is thy sting resident in Nigeria’s Capital?

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

Devoid of character, the words “politics” and “politicians” are synonymous with deceit and fraud. In the words of Federic Bastiat, French political economist, and philosopher, political activities are nothing but legalized plunder. Put differently, democracy bereft of democratic ideals can kill in the same way a military despotism kills. According to Peter Kreeft, “if we think we are automatically free from the danger of ignorant prejudice and tyranny simply because we are a democracy, we should reflect on the fact that it was a democracy that killed Socrates. A democracy can be as ignorant, as prejudiced (especially by fashion and popularity) and as tyrannical as a monarch. There is no automatic connection between numbers (how many rules) and wisdom or virtue, between quantity and quality…”

As some political analysts have stated, democracy rests on many assumptions. One of those assumptions is that men have enough wisdom and virtue to pursue the end of democracy-promotion of the welfare of the people. But viewed against the backdrop of history, men do not have enough wisdom and virtue to pursue the end of democracy. Democracy is challenged from within by sheer greed and the pursuit of personal interests at the expense of the common good and welfare of the people. Lest we forget, totalitarianism is present in a constitutional democracy as much as it is present in tyrannical militarism. Simply put, constitutional democracy is not a guarantee of progress and human flourishing in a country. In fact, if constitutional democracy must lead to true human flourishing it must transcend political experiment. I remember now that unique Conference I attended in Michigan, United States about seven years ago. Most of the Conference speakers did not mince words in drawing our attention to the fact that democracy is more than a political experiment: that it is also a moral enterprise with a national character that defines democracy and establishes the parameters and moral high ground in which democracy should operate in order to promote the wellbeing of the people. One speaker, in particular, focused on the work of the French historian and diplomat, Alexis De Tocqueville who actually travelled to the United States to study the American democracy and later commented in his often-cited classic work, Democracy in America, that democracy bereft of equality of conditions is bound to gravitate towards despotism. In the last days of that Conference, I came across at the bookstand a small booklet authored by Prof Rocco Buttiglione with the alluring title The Moral mandate for Freedom. In this small booklet, Prof Buttiglione shared the views of James Madison and Alexis De Tocqueville to the effect that democracy not run by highly-principled political leaders is bound to be catastrophic. But it was ancient philosopher Plato who, in my view, set out the parameter for gauging good democracy. Plato, as you are well aware, was hostile to democracy because he feared that the democratic powers and institutions would be imperiled under the watch of men of unruly passions and creatures of appetite. In his classic work, The Republic, Plato wants politics and democracy to be run by those he calls the experts, the enlightened, and the “guardian”. To Plato, politics is not for the unruly populace and creatures of appetite. Politics is for men and women of high ethical principles.

Plato wanted those he termed the “guardians” to be the governors of the States. Plato suggests that the guardians should be educated in these four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. Of the aforesaid virtues, justice is the most important. The guardians ought to engage in just activity even when it doesn’t seem to confer an immediate advantage to them. Though the appetite lusts after many things, the guardians must not be “money-loving,” politicians. Plato likens the guardians to dogs for their strength, loyalty, intelligence and courage. The guardians need strength in order to defend their territory and fight for it when it is needed. They also need loyalty to make fair judgments; intelligence to make wise decisions and courage to pursue goals. The guardians should possess these virtues to enable them to establish justice in society and take care of the interest of the State as dogs serve their owners’ with loyalty and protect their interest. Therefore, defending their fellow citizens with high spirit and philosophical dispositions should be the only concern of the guardians. At the end of Book V of his work, Plato describes the way of life of the guardians thus: “Then let us consider what will be their way of life if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against anyone who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God; the diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the dross which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture; for that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of all the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the same roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviours of the State…”.

Prominent Presidential aspirant Peter Obi easily fits into the mold of Plato’s guardian. Obi is distinguished for having governed Anambra on such a high moral ground of temperance and courage to the extent that, unlike Willie Obiano, his immediate successor, he (Peter Obi) left behind a gargantuan sum of N75 billion in the government purse before leaving office. He says that he left the PDP without bitterness because the values espoused in the party are at variance with his own political principles. He says he does not share money freely to people as some Nigerian politicians do. He says that the greatest undoing of Nigeria today is consumption without production. He regrets that despite the enormous human and natural resources at her disposal, Nigeria cannot feed herself today. He prides himself as being a trader and a wealth creator, who, if elected as President of Nigeria, can create a visible and measurable wealth within his first 100 days in office that will bring Nigeria out of the present doldrums of inefficiency and cluelessness in which she presently finds herself. Peter Obi is very humble, civil and respectful. He always calls himself a trader. He has a sense of distributive justice. He doesn’t return insult for insult. Like Plato’s Philosopher-King, Obi espouses wisdom. He is down to earth. He says that what he needs to get along in this passing life is little money to meet up his expenses and no more. He refused to participate or acquiesce in the bribery and corruption in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the build-up to the party’s Presidential Primary. Peter Obi teaches that there is a convergence between politics and morality. Instead of giving bribes to party delegates against his conscience in order to win the Presidential Primary, Peter Obi preferred to quit the PDP and pitch a tent with the Labour Party. In doing this, he said: “I will rather lose doing the right thing than win doing the wrong thing. In other words, Obi believes that a politician cannot do wrong so that good may come out of it.

Unfortunately, the Nigerian democracy is severely challenged from within by corruption, ignorance, apathy, and pursuit of selfish interests. If democracy is said to liberate all men, it is on the assumption that there are political leaders with high moral principles ready to navigate democracy to a safe harbor. Unfortunately, most democracies including the Nigerian democracy are not run by men with high ethical principles. Most democracies unfortunately are in the hands of men of unruly passions and creatures of appetite. For instance, the separation of culture from politics or from public life in Nigeria has led to a palpable moral bankruptcy in Nigerian politics. This is why in the last twenty-five years or so we have been witnessing a steady and progressive deterioration of those cherished values which form the superstructures for the building of our national ethos. We say that Nigeria is a democracy yet we have been steadily excluding from our policy those cherished values that make democracy thick or lead to human flourishing.

Machiavellianism, unfortunately, rules Nigerian politics. A Nigerian politician, for example, can commit murder as in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in order to satisfy his vaulting ambition and feel justified with the words of Lady Macbeth: “a little water cleans us of this deed”. A Nigerian politician, for instance, can bribe party delegates in order to win a Presidential Primary and afterward feels justified that he has attained his life’s ambition. Machiavellianism teaches that there is no intersection between politics and morality. Machiavellianism exalts pragmatism over exercise of moral virtues in politics. “The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. Therefore if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must learn how not to be virtuous, and to make use of this or not according to need” (The Prince, 61).

In contrast, Plato and Aristotle exalt moral virtues over pragmatism. To Aristotle, the proper aim of politics is moral virtue: “politics takes the greatest care in making the citizens to be of a certain sort, namely good and capable of noble actions.” (Aristotle). I cannot agree less. It is not true that politics and morality are strange bedfellows. Political strategy doesn’t obviate the need to cultivate moral discipline. Contrary to Machiavellianism, the end does not justify the means. A politician cannot do evil that good may come out of it. He cannot, for instance, murder a fellow politician to grab political power in order to improve the welfare of the people. He cannot, for instance, worship the juju shrine in order to break the backbones of his political godfathers. According to Plato “…neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State..”.

Considering the monumental ruin that has overtaken Nigeria in the last seven years, we must vote wisely in the 2023 Nigerian Presidential election. We must vote for Plato’s philosopher-King or the guardian to become the President of Nigeria in 2023. We are tired of the reign of misfit. Therefore beyond social media idle gossip and arm-chair politicking, let us arm ourselves with our respective PVCs and get ready to vote in 2023.

There is no doubt that we need a national character, a national character that defines democracy and establishes the parameters and moral high ground in which democracy should operate in order to promote the wellbeing of the people. No democracy in which wrongs and social injustices are intentionally committed and perpetuated can lead to true human flourishing. No democracy in which the political leaders intentionally commit wrongs against the people can save the people.