Common Good In The Nigerian Society: The Promotion Of Healthy Relationship -By Emmanuel Samuel

The notorious country Nigeria with beautiful landscapes, green vegetation, timber at its best, food to satisfaction, sugar cane for the factory, lime stone for the cement, coal for the rail, and so many more. This is my country, a black nation with colorful nature, the peak of a beautiful creation. This is the country of my birth, the desire of all nations, and the spice of creation but with blind sight and deaf ears to common good denied it the growth and development accorded to it. I am concerned, I am worried I am disturbed, I move for the promotion of healthy relationships. I am tired of the egocentrism, the struggles for power; my ears are old with the stories of bomb blast, killings and kidnappings. When in this country are we going to get what really belongs to us without actually paying for it, even to the extent of sacrificing our bloods? May be you don’t believe me, so let me tell you more about our dear country, the most endowed black nation on the earth.

Nigeria our country, is a country endowed with so many admirable natural resources, which other countries had admire even leading to the colonization of Nigeria just to hijack what naturally belongs to the Nigerians, due to bias, jealousy and lack of compassion. The Nigerians were seen as set of persons without rationality and lacks the ability to think, create and develop, for this same reason, with heart full of bitterness we fought for freedom. Our heroes past had fought the battle even to the final end of freedom amid happiness and gladness.

The country Nigeria got independence since 1960 but the people are still dependent, what an irony. Our colonial masters had set us free, but not really liberated due to the happenings in the country. It is quite disturbing to note that our dear country today is prone to disorder and chaos due to the monstrosity of ethnicity, citizens regretting to be citizens. It is always fallacious what we are been told before elections, not credible what we listen to as a way of consolation. It is disheartening to live in a country where strangers come to take you away from your comfort zones without committing any crime, kill you with no compassion, destroy your future with zero foresight, where unemployment is the first definition and educational systems are nothing to talk about.

Our dear country has made its leaders a priority rather than the populace; one may be tempted to ask if the term common good has ever existed or is in existence. It is a country that the poor are becoming poorer while the rich are becoming richer, by extension the rich are in the position of impoverishing the poor people in order to maintain and develop their riches. This is one of the problems we are facing in our dear country Nigeria, where the resources meant for the common good of all are not circulated or being enjoyed by all, rather embezzled by the so-called rich men and leaders. It is for this very reason that the youths are now agitating for youthful leadership to emerge. It is obvious in Nigeria that those who dominate and mishandle the resources meant for the common good of every citizen of the country are not confronted by the law rather are encouraged daily to enrich their selves.

There are so many challenges to the practice of common good in our dear country Nigeria, which includes the lack of educational liberation; the prevalent flow of deception practiced in the name of politics, where the supposed leaders promise and fail, living the masses abandoned and regretting; the refusal to live peacefully, for it is difficult nowadays to help a stranded person on the way, no one can differentiate between one who really needs help and one who is working for  armed robbers or  kidnappers. Pitiably, the Nigerian leaders do not have the sense of common good rather have their own good in mind, and are not ashamed of it.

Gone are those days when our parents live in a community full of freedom, communal relationships and thinking about the common good. Little or no wonder Thomas Aquinas, who was an Aristotelian philosopher, in his Summa Contra Gentiles, reasserted Aristotle’s statement that the common good of the community is more godlike or divine than the good of an individual human being. As such, Thomas Aquinas asserts that the good of each human person is linked with the good shared with others in the community, and the highest good common to the life of all is God’s own self.

It is actually obvious that we forgot to admit that the family is the fundamental unit of the society or the state. For Aristotle made it clear, that the family is the fundamental unit of the society because every one of us came from a family even the highest leader of the society. Now, people will want to do things based on their selfish and egoistic beliefs, forgetting that man by nature is a political and social being, that is, no one can live in a society without the other, says Aristotle, the realist philosopher. This is really happening as a result of the early nationalists who built on the atrocious colonial legacy of our colonial masters in their quest for political independence and continue to make the virus spread up till date in their quest for political influence and power.

Even though it is natural to be flabbergasted when things are not going on well in a society, especially when your leaders are not helping matters.  We should not let the happenings of this country take us down, preventing us from fighting for our rights, achieving our goals and giving our children a brighter future. We should be conscious of the fact that the end of every law is for the common good of the community. The common good is that which benefits all in the society; that which creates the environment of peace and happiness in the society and without peace, happiness and security, no society can function. We should always go against every wrong doing in the society no matter the income. Our leaders should be ashamed of themselves because while other nations are progressing Nigeria is retrogressing, the country continue to stay that way. For us to put an end to the individualistic nature of the country and to put on the veil of common good, this country must follow well the teachings and the assertions of so many great thinkers. However, we should be optimistic and not lose hope on our dear country, for change is constant, we move for change and transformation, we believe that one day we shall have those healthy relationships we wish for.

Long live our country Nigeria!

Long live our leaders!!

Long live the amiable citizens of this great nation!!!

FROM A CONCERNED CITIZEN OF NIGERIA

EMMANUEL SAMUEL

A STUDENT OF PHILOSOPHY, VERITAS UNIVERSITY, ABUJA

MOBILE NUMBER: 09052631613

EMAIL: samuelemmanuel1645@gmail.com