WHERE HAS HONOUR GONE?

Any cursory appraisal of the word ‘honourable’ a derivative of the noun, honour, will reveal its affinity with the words such as respect and dignity. In fact, one definition of the word honourable puts it simply as ‘worthy of respect.’

For the principal officers of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) this past week, former President and Retired General Olusegun Obasanjo is a man not qualified to be addressed as honourable. Many other Nigerians, old and young, rational and irrational have joined in condemning Obasanjo. His sin: he dared to suggest that President Yar’ Adua do what is honourable.

The arguments against Obasanjo are as diverse as the protagonists in the national debate. From political jobbers to respectable leaders, opportunists to well meaning personalities: the good, the bad, the ugly; all have one thing or the other to say about Obasanjo and what disqualifies him from making recommendations in this era of national inertia.

Obasanjo, for those who were either too busy to notice or too far removed to have heard, said, though in different words, that he expects no less than a honourable line of action from the president. He tried though unsuccessfully to also veer the blame off himself for the misfortune of an incapacitated president.

Many Nigerians will agree if the question were posed that Obasanjo does not qualify to be considered honourable. So many epaulets he has won, so many medals and medallions spanning his military career. He also could boast of many chieftancy titles. Many Nigerians have their doubts about his qualification for the honours he has been generously given in and out of government.

Though he was the head of a military government that successfully handed over power to a civilian government, many saw more of the second coming of Obasanjo and the hugely unsuccessful attempt to smuggle  a third term after two terms as President. Many cannot reconcile the fact that he knew and yet foisted a sick man on the country as president, with his call for an honourable line of action from Yar’ Adua.

But then where indeed has honour gone among the band of those masquerading as leaders of our country? With a legislature peopled by men and women most of whom never contested, let alone won elections; an executive council of mostly yes men; and a judiciary that has been pummeled front, left and centre by such negative influences as bribery, corruption, nepotism, ethnicity and above all under developedment, we need no Obasanjo to tell us that the honourable path has not been towed this side of the world for a long time.

But then the other truth is also important, if not more important. Majority of Nigerians have become corrupted. A trip to any political office holder will show the level we have as a people dived on the honour ladder. Men and women of good birth; those with impeccable educational competence and those who could outlast any other in any contest for physical capability have all dumped the path of honour in pursuit of hands out from political office holders.

They hang around government offices. The crumbs from the tables of the powerful are okay for them. They can sell anything; take any risk to get to occupy positions of power. What is power for, they must all have to conclude, if not to amass, acquire and accumulate.

The result is that those who ought to be feared are held with no respect and those who ought to be seen as role models have become non-ductile, non-malleable materials; useless for other purpose than that which they have been infamously known.

Few around here have dignity; few have the reputation of good person