Greed is a vice that has brought in its wake unpleasant situations of damaging consequences.
The insatiable appetite of the actors in Government-appointed, elected and employed-has resulted in underdevelopment, stagnancy, and retrogression. Greed has prompted those in power to involve private hands in governance under various guises. In this interview, the Founder, Spiritual Head, and Grand Imam of Shafaudeen-in-Islam Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke insists that greed has resulted in failure governance in most countries, Nigeria inclusive. Excerpts :
Greed has been identified as a major catalyst for underdevelopment and retrogression? Do you agree?
The success recorded by the lesser animals and insects in their kingdoms is usually traced to be based on collective responsibilities and division of labor with sincerity of purpose and due process.
This is most observable in the ways the dogs of the hunter kill their prey without devouring them but delivering the dead prey to the hunter. This action is expected from the leader or the boss and his or her subordinates in dispensing services for the purpose of building themselves and the institution they represent. The dog will rather go hungry than consume the prey, in addition, it would be patient until it is fed by its owner.
In the kingdom of the termites, the tradition is that the Queen is worked for and passionately protected by the soldier ants, while the workers with consistent efficiency work for the Queen and will never take anything out of what they produce without been instructed to do so.
Among the bees, honey is produced in the built honeycomb by the collective responsibility of the scavengers, workers, and soldiers in the areas of protection and production activities ensuring that quality and standard are maintained at a sustainable level, interestingly humans search for the products of the bees with a lot of risks involved.
When the production ability of the Queen is noticeably low, as a result of aging, the insemination of other females occurs and eventually they replace the Queen, not for the purpose of ambition but for the purpose of keeping up with continuity in production.
The question now is, for humans endowed with superior faculties of reason and with all the guides from their chosen Scriptures, this is aside from their educational advantages, why do humans hate instead of love, backslide in place of obedience and impoverish others when offered opportunities to be in positions of power making the system to retrogress.
Leadership essence depends on professional capability before been entrusted with to be in charge of positions of responsibility. It equally depends on one's loyalty to the establishment in question offering the opportunities to serve as well as to protect the image of one's alma mater and the name of the family.
he reason behind records of failure in countries in Africa, Nigerian and Ghana inclusive, have always been traced to greed in power and greed among aides which by implication usually leads to the impoverishment of the people and kleptocracy by the few in government, hence, the present culture of corruption and indiscipline that is already endemic. It has made the sacred valued of education to be eroded, whereby people seek education for money rather than to acquire knowledge and wisdom.
This situation has created an environment of anti-societal behavior and the desperate drive towards quick money-making initiatives.
The dignity of labor has been sacrificed for ritual killings, known as Yahoo plus, with kidnapping and banditry as other means to ends.
For a solution to the present worrisome state of things, all spheres of human endeavor should be overhauled completely, the houses of God inclusive.
Greed is usually exhibited by people who have the blood of Timocracy running through their veins, such people usually go beyond what they need to survive, to the level of having what they will keep for their next generation. This is in contrast to the teachings they received from the Scriptures,. that upholds their chosen religion, that we must be modest, decent, disciplined and non-destructive to any system we work in and the society that produced us, in order to leave a bequeathable legacy to our children and the future generation.
Nigeria is not making use of religious houses to be relevant in the scheme of nation-building while the government equally underutilize the potentials of our universities and the experts already produced in the areas of intervention need to choose leaders and help the government achieve maximally, to provide the home ned to stem down over-reliance on foreign people and goods with the consequence of our low human development index and continuous devaluation of the Naira to an embarrassing state.
For the culture of greed to give way for development, there is a need for the government to respect the professionals in promoting organization and professional ethics, in addition to ensuring that the Ivory Tower, has the freedom to intervene in training and choosing leaders at all levels of governance.
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