Ethical reorientation and the Nigeria moral question

Abstract

Man is gregarious by nature and thus has come to live in communities of various descriptions. Social life demands orderliness, and to endure its existence, norms and rules become integral parts of any community or society. It is however common knowledge that some members of most human communities and societies exhibit behaviours that strain the tolerance level of other members of the community. Those who exhibit such acts are labelled deviants or preverts and their actions termed criminal when sanctioned by the laws of the state. It is as a consequence of this that Nigeria, like many countries of the world, has witnessed high level of activities and life-styles considered inimical to the good of society. Efforts have therefore been made by different government regimes to stem the trend. The thrust of this paper in this regard becomes an attempt to expose the specificities of these government programmes to know what extent intended goals of checking those social maladies were archieved. However, without prejudice or bias against whatever the achievements of these government policies and programmes of government were, it is the position of this paper that those measures were inadequate. And this accounts for the reason those misbehaviours have escalated rather than abate. To wrest the challenge of the Nigeria moral question which calls for ethical reorientation, the paper calls for the adoption of the ‘Socratic Model’ this lifted the Athenian society of Socrates’ time out from its worst moral decadence.