INDISCIPLINE IS EVERYWHERE
Take a cursory look at every facet of our dear nation Nigeria and other developing nations, you realize that the evil of indiscipline is just everywhere. It is displayed on the road, when a private car owner parks indiscriminately and taxi drivers stop literally in the middle of the road, delaying other road users just because he wants to pick a passenger. Lack of discipline is responsible for the plane crashes, road crashes and the folding up of many companies in the countries. Indiscipline is even deep seated in churches and mosques or how else do you explain indiscipline if a supposed man of God will collect money from people before he prays for them? I even learnt supposed pastors now ‘claim’ other people’s wives and engage in spiritual bathing of women who are not their wives. What a demeaning situation stemming from lack of discipline! What of Nigerians attitude to public property? Indiscipline appears to have become a culture as it is now the norm for people to treat public properties with disdain and sometimes damage them simply because they think ‘it belongs to nobody’. Yet, these are ways by which we stunt our growth as a nation.
I really feel bad when you look at the way some people pride themselves in indiscipline which appears to have become a sign of being modern or twenty first century compliant but unfortunately it is the cause of moral decadence, and other heinous crimes in our society. You may however want to ask, is indiscipline the concern or worry of a particular age group only? Is it only young people who are not discipline enough?
Indiscipline Is Not Limited To Any Age Or Grade
Dear friends, before you start to think indiscipline only manifests in the lives of young people or old people or some category of people only, let me quickly say that indiscipline is deep rooted in the lives of many individuals and societies, old or young, employed or unemployed, developed and developing nation, in fact, it is an awkward issue which affects both the leaders and followers, educated and the uneducated, parents and students alike.
Perhaps you want to check out how people of all age grades flout rules and regulations with reckless abandon; how we throw dirt on the roads and dump waste arbitrarily. Cars are parked anywhere whether in authorized places or not. People evade the payment of tax, display their goods anywhere convenient for them and build unapproved structures with substandard materials.
You must have heard and read how Customs official stationed at Nigeria borders engage car smugglers in gun battles simply because car importers attempt to evade the payment of customs duties which is legal. On the other hand, indiscipline Custom officials collect bribe from smugglers and allow them drive in to the country without paying the required amount to the government coffers, these are indiscipline acts that require collective and individual efforts to halt. What of military and paramilitary officials who cannot resist the temptation to brutalize ‘bloody civilians’ because they carry arms, they also board vehicles and refuse to pay transport fares. Police officers brazenly collect bribes on the road, in their stations before an offender is released on bail even when it is stated that ‘bail is free’. Some of our judges who are to enforce our laws are corrupt. Some of our attorneys are unruly. Some ‘land owners’ sell land indiscriminately to multiple buyers, collect money and create confusion. I have heard of countless lives that have been lost in this regard and so many legal cases are in Nigeria courts because of this very issue.
Politicians ride on the wings of poverty to gather people who perpetrate evil for them before, during and after elections. They make false promises and stimulate their supporters to confront the rules and customs of society. Furthermore, aggrieved youth confront police officers, burn down police stations, school buildings or carry out jungle justice. Students in both secondary and higher institutions of learning create and join cult groups, terrorize teachers and their colleagues; maim and kill people who dare cross their part. All these alarming scenarios are unfortunately happening in a manner that affects every category of persons and in this twenty- first century and we seem to watch helplessly. Many of our societies in Africa nations are full of gross indiscipline, but it must stop now if we hope to experience a positive turn around.
The absence of this very important virtue is why you see an angry father or mother say or do things which they later regret saying or doing. The same thing is responsible for elected public officials throwing decorum into the wind and engaging in the exchange of fisticuffs on a very simple issue as we sometimes see in the Nigerian National Assembly. The same thing is responsible for people quitting a task or leaving a project midway without achieving success in it, because they deem it too hard. When these things happen, it is a pointer to the fact that DISCIPLINE is absent and we see the manifestations of indiscipline in laziness, poverty, corruption and system failure etc, in the lives of individual and Developing societies.
To be continued Tomorrow, don’t miss it.
Excerpts from the Book “THE POWER AND FORCE OF DISCIPLINE FOR TRANSFORMING LIVES AND NATIONS”. #DSABOOKS
This book can be found on dsabooksplanet.com and Amazon.com
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CHURCH AND NATION
By Pastor Sunday Adelaja.
