OF HONOUR AND GOVERNANCE

by Okello Oculi, Executive Director, AFRICA VISION 525

The tragic crashes in Nigeria of Bellview and Sosoliso airlines in which 117 and 107 persons died
have aroused various emotions ranging from deep anguish to disgust and a sense of betrayal by
governance and the culture of conducting public affairs. Nigeria's Senate avoided interrogating the performance of its own Committe on Aviation, while rushing to call for the Minister of Aviation to resign.

The matter of resignation by government officials is linked to the principle of honour in governance. Such calls are often muddied by appeals to associate Nigeria's culture of performamnce by officials to those found in "advanced countries", or "more civilized countries", or, simply, Britain. Such invocation often alienates those who sense racial doubt or contempt complexes in such calls, thereby fogging their merit.

There are, however, rich historical records to turn to. Historians have asserted that in 18th and 19th century Yoruba kingdoms through "ORIKI" praise-poems "Great Men" (be they kings or chiefs) had their ranks, appearance, achievements, personality, "and above all (their) individuality" sang publicly. The other face of the coin was the expectation that a failed leader
would commit suicide. The "Eso" generals of Oyo kingdom's cavalry were required never to "survive defeat". Both honour and shame were deeply enmeshed and celebrated in collective community life and culture.

In neighbouring Dahomey a "defeated commander was not expected to return alive", while the leader of the youth saw his honour in his age group pledging to and cultivating the fields to feed the king, and build houses for his subjects. Among the Ashante in nearby Ghana comes the example of Opoku Frefre (1755- 1826) committing suicide, from the high position of being
the head of the Asatehene's civil service, when he was defeated in battle. Among the Luba, Lunda and Kuba of Central Africa (stretching from Angola to Zambia), honour was defended by an accused person "cheerfully drinking poison" (from a plant's roots) in order to clear his name.Among the Tiv "sheme" is used to affirm honour in an accused person.

Among the nomadic Fula/Peul/Fulani, Masai, Shilluk, Shona, etc. (from Senegal to the lowlands of Ethiopia, the East African Rift Valley and today's Zimbabwe), the "paalaku" code of honour has remained rigorous, austeer, and demanding of taking pain without wincing or twitching even involuntarily as an educational device for preparating youths for assuming public
responsibility and "manhood".

This varied and deep rootedness of the value attached to honour as a vital value in governance, has not been readily transferable into post-colonial administartions. This failure is captured in the widely known condition that government is regarded by most communities as "not their own". From 1999 to the present Local Government officials were often watched from a distance by their various communities as they misappropriated public funds sent over from the
federation account. As Professor Adebayo Adedeji has remarked, a widely held gap is perceived to exist between affairs of local communities and that of
"local government administration". Through this gaping
gap have gushed torrents of corrupt practices and
consequent loss of faith in governance rooted in
honour or communal "constitutionalism".

In the circumstances following the plane crashes, the remedy to this condition is clearly not to appear to lightly use the Minister of Aviation as a scapegoat. The blame grease must smear a whole generation of "leaders" at local, state, federal and private sector
levels for their failure, in the last fourty years of
Nigeria's independence, to look back with profound
intellectual rigour and profundity to their ancient
traditions for ropes of honour with which to hold the
stubborn goats of governance. These generations have
too readily adopted the easier root of merely
borrowing constitutional formulas from other people's
histories; peoples, who (as in the case of the United
States) are probably younger at the game of creating
communities and, in anycase, are humble enough to see
their nation-building formula as works -in-progress.

It is unstandable that a mother who lost as many as three children in the Sosoliso plane disaster was shown on television and print media swinging from blaming President Obasanjo personally to doubting her Christian God whom she had been urged to "trust". The tragedy is that there is no collective community fabric of honour for her to turn to as an anchor in the "modern" political arena called Nigeria. It is an arena peopled by brutal and wicked silences; long
silences whose fabric officials use as callous and untransparent curtains for shielding themselves from ancient demands to either commit suicide, or
"cheerfully" rush to drink poison to cleanse their
failures from the records of their families.

Historians have also written that in Yoruba and Hausa cultures the "universal custom" was always that "whenever a chief is out (of power), all his subordinates must go with him". Chinua Achebe, the celebrated novelist, aptly called those out of power as those standing in the rain while others ate soup and mountains of pounded yam inside the house. Such rules of power, patronage and clientage can easily blind the eyes from loyalty to honour in both the
offender and "his people". The challenge in social engineering, as Nigeria gropes towards good
governance, is clearly to tame this culture with lashes from whips of honour.

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