If there is one prevalent culture among Nigerians across the length and breadth of this land that has been visibly displayed throughout the fight against Covid-19, it has been the one of indiscipline.
From the indiscipline displayed by leaders and elites who returned from Covid-flagged countries and refused to self-isolate at the onset of Nigeria’s cases, to that displayed by government functionaries at state and federal levels in mobilizing resources to put up a resilient response. It also was apparent in the indiscipline displayed by supposedly enlightened citizens flouting movement restriction orders, to those by religious clerics, commercial concerns and the ordinary man on the street.
At the height of the fears and with news of rising death tolls in other parts of the world, pictures and videos of Nigerians acting in wanton abandon continued to make the rounds. The argument that economic needs of people were of a greater concern to people than public health dangers was in many cases more of an enabler than a reflection of the reality. Many people just didn’t trust that government knew what it was doing. Some others didn’t feel they should be conforming with government directions. Others had spent so many decades being masters of their fate and the new government disruptions to their daily lives were clearly an over-reach which had not been earned.
What is discipline? Wikipedia defines it “…as an action or inaction that is regulated to be in accordance (or achieve accord) with a particular system of governance.”
Systems of governance guide our lives as a society. These range from systems of governance in our homes, schools, communities, businesses, public institutions etc and can be as simple as time the family wakes up to start its day to how as a country we are supposed to respond to a pandemic.
One important thing however is that being disciplined is a learned trait and like most things that become habit and which we eventually become accustomed to, it is in the regular practice and application that our capacity improves. Also, because societies and institutions are built and succeed based on rules, regulations and guidelines, the more disciplined those involved in the processes are, the greater the success that can be recorded. If staff need to be at a bank’s branch by 8:00am and attend to customers daily up till 5:00pm, customers can plan their days around this certainty. Business transactions can be structured around the predictability of this underlying service and so on.
If however, the discipline applied to the service is compromised, ripple effects will travel up the chain affecting transactions and livelihoods even in ways no one could have foretold.
It is these kinds of ripple effects that have continued to assail the structure of our society. The absence of required discipline in areas of commitment to work, financial management, application of values such as merit, honesty and diligence all come around to bite us hard on our national backside.
What we saw on display nationwide was only a manifestation of a national malaise that needs fixing. The damage it has done to the fabric of our existence is apparent in the failure of our country to point to a field of endeavor in which it can beat its chest as a leader.
Now, discipline in a soceity itself is not as often envisioned. It is not about the application of punitive, corrective measures but more about a successful end-state achieved through communication of preferred regulations and acquisition of the buy-in of stakeholders by which they commit to being involved in either living by the regulations or ensuring the implementation of the regulations. Corrective action is usually planned and applied in the existence of resistance. We must bear in mind that in a very large number of cases, resistance itself can a by-product of in-effective communication.
So, to go back to the beginning of this piece, what we saw on display across the country was a reflection of years of poor state communication with its citizenry which has created a culture of rebellion, distrust, disloyalty, antagonism, misunderstanding, resistance and apathy – basically, all the ingredients within which indiscipline exist.
There is a need for the state to go back to the drawing board. The state needs its people on its side for every of its programs to succeed. Government programs do not succeed in meeting rooms. They succeed in the hearts of the people. For that to happen, the prevailing trust deficit starting point for every government program or communication must be neutralized. The state must re-assert itself and attain a position of positive reputational capital. No matter how many times we try to deceive ourselves that we can take the message without the messenger, we know that cannot be true. According to famed Canadian philosopher and Communications scholar, Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message”.
Nigerians need to be set on a new course of national discipline focused on imbibing right values, attained through authentic engagements of the citizenry and clearly proffered methods of applying the knowledge required. Other than this, we will continue to remain a collective of 200 million people disinterested in pulling together in a unified direction.
