“When a Nation pardons its criminals faster than it rewards its heroes, it teaches the next generation that corruption is not a crime but a career.”
The quote is moral arithmetic. When the state moves faster to forgive the guilty than to honor the faithful, it rewrites the syllabus for the next generation. And yes, Nigeria is caught in that cacophony right now.
Ex-convicts walk into state houses, collect pardons and titles, while a teacher retires with 35 years of service and no recognition. A soldier dies at the front, but trending news goes to the scandal. Children watch. They learn incentives, not slogans. If corruption gets you a board seat in two years and honesty gets you a plaque in twenty, “corruption as career” stops being insult and becomes strategy.
Pardons aren’t evil. South Africa’s TRC used them to end apartheid. Clemency corrects wrongful convictions and heals nations. The rot is selectivity. When pardon power only answers connected names, while whistleblowers are silenced and civil servants are ignored, justice becomes PR.
Make honour as visible and urgent as punishment. Name schools after teachers, hospitals after nurses, not only donors. Publish hero awards monthly, not every election cycle. If EFCC can freeze accounts in 48 hours, the presidency can announce national awards in 48hrs too.
Nations rise not by punishing evil alone, but by making good irresistible. Until heroes eat before criminals, we’re training our children in the wrong profession.
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bcradle@ymail.com
