The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has decried the erosion of values among different strata of the Nigerian society.
According to him, the Nigerian society must stop rewarding people who stole the nation’s commonwealth as public office holders with more public opportunities.
“The entire value system of the country has been eroded,” the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor stated on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.
“A society in which material wealth, no matter how you get it, is respected, is glorified, where people who are known to have stolen money get rewarded with ministerial appointments, that society will continue to reproduce itself.
“We don’t have a sense of disgust for people who hold public office and amass wealth; we reward them with appointments, with more public offices, and more opportunities to amass wealth, and this is what Nigeria has become,” he stated.
Sanusi said many people in public offices were not well brought up, and that accounts for their misbehaviour and faulty orientation of the essence of being in public offices. “Many people go into government to make money but you don’t go into government to make money,” he said.
“We have been ruled by people who have no values; they have no name behind them, and they have no desire to leave a name after them. These are people who define themselves by what they own; how many houses they have, how many private jets they have, how many billions they have in bank accounts. And they think that is something.
“It is not important to them that people look at them and they only see thieves, they see criminals, they see people who have taken the commonwealth. It is simply not important because for them, values do not matter,” he stated.
The emir, who reflected on the memories of the late former military head of state Murtala Muhammed 50 years after, said the Nigerian society needs a regeneration of values.
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He said both leaders and citizens alike are responsible for the regeneration of values in the country.
For him, material wealth should not be elevated beyond values such as honesty, diligence, compassion, among others.
“I think we need an entire regeneration of values. It is not about one person, the president or the governors, or the ministers cannot on their change this country,” he stated.
Sanusi observed that politicians destroyed the civil service, stressing that Nigeria needs to go back to strengthening the system to embolden civil servants to say ‘no’ when asked by politicians to break the rules.