Undoubtedly, it is natural for every human being to aspire to be successful in all aspects of human endeavours. Consequently, man works diligently toward the actualization of his dreams. Even the Almighty Creator also throws weight behind industrious, diligent and hardworking individual who wants to excel.
On the other hands, God frowns at lazy and slothful people who do not want to labour to excel but want to feed on others people’s sweat, without making any meaningful contribution toward improving their lives.
Unfortunately however, gone are the days when ambitious people honestly labour to excel in their academic, vocational and political careers. For example, in olden days students in both secondary and tertiary institutions studied rigorously during examination so as to obtain excellent results, apprentices in vocational training tried to spend stipulated number of years with their masters so as to have mastery of their vocational skills before going into private practice. The principals of secondary schools ensured that teachers under their leadership were committed to teaching the students and there was no room for truancy on the part of both students and teacher. They made sure that their students were adequately prepared to sit for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) or West African Schools Certificate (WASCE), as it was called in those days.
In fact, if one must continue to recall the sweet memory of those good old days, no candidate could induce either principal, invigilator or examination officers so as to allow him or her cheat in examination. The parents could not employ the services of under-graduates from either university or polytechnic to write GCE or WASC for their wards who had attempted severally and continued to fail.
They would rather allow them to continue to write until when their (children) obtained the required number of credits that would qualify them for higher education.
Politicians did not use thugs during the general elections to snatch ballot boxes and perpetrated other electoral offences so as to win election.
Also in those days, civil servants who were privileged to work in public offices did not abuse the privilege by looting the government treasury to build mansions, buying flashy cars for girl-friends and marry as many wives as possible. The motor-mechanics, for example, who repaired vehicles for their customers could not use old spare parts in the absence of their customers and claimed to have bought new spare parts; deceiving their customers.
Unfortunately, these days, there is a departure from societal norms and value system. The question is, what happened to our old value system that Nigerians no longer consider as shameful and ignominious when they indulge themselves in acts that could soil their names? Although answers to this heart searching question are numerous, one may assume that inordinate quest for materialism without fear of God is responsible.
For example, these days, some principals of secondary schools have mortgaged their consciences and charged students to pay some token in the name of entertaining the invigilators and external examiners who would be supervising the examinations. As a result, the principals, invigilators and examination officers allow those students to cheat right in the examination hall. The few teachers who have sound conscience and were bold to kick against such acts have become the enemy of students. Also, the civil servants who have the privilege to siphons the government’s funds do it with impunity and any effort to expose him would land the informant or the patriotic individual in a problem. These wicked public officers prospered in their wickedness as they build many mansions, send their children to the best schools at home and abroad. They have many fuel stations, housing estates, concubines and neglect their rightful wives and children, sometimes subjecting them to untold hardship.
Worst still, the politicians who gain access to office through hook and crook are waxing stronger in their popularity and oppressing those who oppose them. They abuse the privileges and overwhelming mandate they claim to have received from the electorate even though they got there without proper election. The mechanics who cheated on their customers have also built many houses. Many students have also graduated from secondary schools with fake or worthless GCE/WASC results. The result is that the labour market is now saturated with half-baked school certificate holders whose results cannot qualify them for admission to high institution… what a dilemma!
However, what the bourgeois class fail to realize or are innocently ignorant of, is the fact that the evils that men do live with them on this planet earth and not even after them as Shakespeare’s philosophically asserted in his play “Julius Caesar”. Obviously, there are many living testimonies to support the new axiom that the evil that men do live with them. For example, some politicians are being threatened by the same political thugs who helped them to snatch the ballot boxes before they were declared winner of the election that brought them to office.
Worst still, some politicians and privileged civil servants who looted the public treasury to build houses and fenced them very high lost some of those houses to fire incident that the cause can best be described as mysterious. In some cases, kidnappers are now trading with their relatives and collecting ransom before releasing them.
Certainly, as a way of retribution, the ill-gotten wealth is usually blown away by the boisterous wind of catastrophe. In some cases, they use such stolen public funds to train their wards in higher institutions of learning at home or abroad. Their children could be in the best schools but on the completion of their courses from universities at home or abroad, while coming home, some lost their lives in automobile accident or air crash. On the other hand, some on the completion of their courses, contact sickness that has no medical solution in Nigeria or abroad until their parents spend the last kobo in their account.
Although some who do not subscribe to the writer’s idea in this article many say “why, does he not know that death is inevitable? Doesn’t the wards of the poor also die on completion of their courses also? Well, it is true, that death is inevitable and as such, the children of both the poor and rich answer the call. However, the Bible says “no wicked shall be left unpunished”. Though it takes longer time, nemesis would always catch up with the wicked who commits atrocities with impunity.
During the administration of late President Umaru Yar’adua the Attorney General and Minister of Justice Mr. Michael Aondoakaa one of the few that held the ace. When the president was sick he practically took the centre stage of governance. Along with some other key members of the kitchen cabinet he hijacked the machinery of government to the detriment to the Vice President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
Even though the minister of Information and Communication, Professor Dora Akunyili urged the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to do what is moral and constitutional to resolve the power vacuum at the presidency, the Justice Minister was in the vanguard of defending the position of FEC, though his defence, was baseless.
However, Nemesis caught up with him when the Minister of Communication, Professor Akunyili was vindicated when the vice President, Dr. Goodluck Ebere Jonathan was eventually confirmed as the Acting Vice President. Consequently, he proved himself unworthy of that exalted position as the minister of Justice and he was eventually sent into oblivion. In fact, nobody heard anything about him again until recently when a High Court rule that he is banned from participating in active politics.
The evil that men do live with them and not always after them.
Unfortunately, men would hardly learn or do not learn from history.
If not, if man were to learn from history, the catalogue of evil doers would have reduced while the grave consequences on them would have been a lesson for them. However, if anybody cares to learn, it is universally established that the evil that men do sometime live with them. At another time it can pursue them to their graves.