WHEN fictitious Federal agencies can secure physical offices within the Federal Secretariat, forge executive seals, open Central Bank accounts, appoint State and National coordinators and draw official budgetary allocations, the issue goes far beyond administrative failure. It exposes a profound moral vacuum at the core of governance.
When the Machinery of the State can be mimicked and monetised from within, legitimacy becomes purely cosmetic. For Nigerian youths, watching this bizarre spectacle unfolds an existential lesson, in high places impunity is not just tolerated it is institutionalised.
A nation cannot preach discipline to its youth while practicing lawlessness at its peak. Youth indiscipline in Nigeria is not an isolated failing of character among the young, it is a mirror reflecting the absence of credible guidance at the top.
Also, the moral health of any Nation is largely a reflection of the figures it holds up for admiration. In Nigeria today, a growing crisis of youth indiscipline, manifesting in widespread cybercrime, substance abuse, cultism and obsession with instant wealth is often met with public outrage and heavy handed law enforcement.
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Yet treating these behavioural symptoms while ignoring their root cause is an exercise in futility. Young Nigerians are not inherently undisciplined, rather they mirror the malaise displayed recently through the existence of fake agencies coupled with navigating a social landscape defined by a glaring leadership void.
The true challenge of Nigeria’s youth crisis is the acute scarcity of credible, ethically sound mentors. In the absence of credible older role models, a dangerous mentorship substitute has taken root, peer to peer influence and the meteoric rise of anti-mentors.
Lacking access to seasoned guides who embody patience and character, the youth turn to social media influencers, local political enforcers or peers who have achieved fast wealth through illicit means. These figures become the default blueprints for success.
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Furthermore, discipline does not emerge in a vacuum. It is cultivated through unspoken social contract. If young people study, respect the law, hone skills and act with integrity, the system should reward such efforts, but that’s a tall tale in our country today.
When a generation witnesses phantom agencies operating openly in Federal corridors, the moral authority of the state evaporates.
In Achebe’s submission, true leadership requires moral integrity and personal discipline, leaders set the tone for society, and when leaders act with impunity, indiscipline filters down to the populace.
Elders and political leaders forfeit their right to lecture the youth on civic responsibility, hard work or national pride when the upper echelons of power resemble a kindergarten playground for grand deception.
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A nation cannot preach discipline to its youth while practicing lawlessness at its peak. Youth indiscipline in Nigeria is not an isolated failing of character among the young, it is a mirror reflecting the absence of credible guidance at the top.
Until Nigeria fills this moral vacuum with leaders and mentors worthy of emulation, demanding discipline from a generation left to guide itself remains an impossible expectation.
This picture is succinctly captured in the opening line of Chinua Achebe’s 1983 essay, titled, “The Trouble with Nigeria”, and I quote: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else.
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“The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.”
In Achebe’s submission, true leadership requires moral integrity and personal discipline, leaders set the tone for society, and when leaders act with impunity, indiscipline filters down to the populace.
Tiav, a broadcast journalist, writes from Makurdi, Benue State.
