Professor Bode Sowande has stated that there is urgent need to identify the elusive ethical values of society in Lagos of today.
He made the disclosure at a recent, annual gathering of the Association of Lagos State retired Heads of Service and Permanent Secretaries, ALARHOPS.
Keynote Speaker at the event, D. Oguntola- Laguda, a Professor of philosophy of religion at the Lagos State University, Ojo, had argued in his paper, entitled, “Ethical Values and Belie Systems: The Roles of Religion,” that, ” there is a synthesis between religion and ethical values in Nigeria,” because, “ethical values derived from three major religions of Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religion and other legal instruments have influenced social responsibilities of Nigerians, (Lagos ).”
In his response to the topic, Prof Sowande, one of the discussants at the occasion, provided a historical context that underscores the pathway to redemption for Nigerians in general and Lagos citizens in particular.
“How did we find ourselves with the urgent need to identify the elusive ethical values of society,?” he asked and answered.
“It has been said that to find balance the challenge will be for the triangle of Home, School and Community. Before that consideration let us go to the past. Everything has a beginning.”
According to him, this is how it began; one Empire came across the Seas with the gun, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and the Holy Bible .
“A second Empire came across the Desert with the Gun and the Holy Koran.
Before they came and reached Yoruba land of Lagos we had Orisa and Ifa as old as Time with inherent ethics and morals, religion all of which are attributes of Civilisation .
The foreign Empires had respective contacts with us with violence, cunning, and transaction with every falsehood in the book.
The worst was to pitch religions into competition.
But Europe was wise in diplomacy and duplicity.
Orisa they claimed was diabolical but Europe took Orisa symbols to their palaces.
‘Keep the African standing when he is before you as you are seated. God is in their daily existence, but a standing God before a Seated one is inferior. ‘
This simple gesture of keeping them ‘standing ‘ as psychological manipulation has evolved till today in the ambiguous identity of the black race .
Orisa Ogun is missing in the ceremony of Oaths in Governance.
Are we afraid?
Consider the numerous who perjure themselves in the Justice system of Lagos State.
After all the Holy Bible , the Holy Koran are in the Oaths for honesty.
Why not Ogun.
We see how we cringe and tremble!
The foreign cultures are transactional with inequities of conquests, and the cunning of diplomacy.
Here we are today asking what went wrong.
There is a hidden pathology of mental health in the adoption of what is foreign to a person’s cling to an alien culture that unsettles his DNA.
Drugs of entertainment and the occult ingestion of dead matter in search of WEALTH.
Nobody here can deny its prevalence.
No State equals Lagos in Charisma, to attract because it is where land meets the Sea and Lagoon, inspiring dreams of the exotic. Urban drift is challenging .
Not everyone who comes wants to leave.
Populations come with trade, cargo of junk and stay with unrealised dreams.
All of these load the State with dynamics of ethics of good environment.
Lagos is the MONEY SPACE of Nigeria .
Repeat that in your mind.
Lagos therefore needs the update in ethics of trade and enterprise .
Water talks to Lagos but we wonder if Lagos is listening through the Rule Book of ethics and morals of living in the city of the Lagoon .
Water gives life and wealth .
Do you want Yemanja to hold Master Classes to learn how to treat a water environment?
This is a wealthy city going into infinite future if the ethical values of environment are obeyed ; one of the reasons I wrote the play MAMMY WATER’S WEDDING .
Lastly I claim that after God is Government but the distance between Government and God is eternity in spiritual terms; and infinity in material science . The distance between the citizens and Government is that of the Man and his Face .
The good citizens must fulfill all obligations of morals and ethics and should not go into any competition with the religion of the other
The happy face of the citizen is the true face of Government.
With the administration of justice and enforcement of the law in Lagos, with good citizens the route to the goal of happy community is straight ahead. “
