In 1994, Rwanda erupted into one of the most appalling cases of mass murder the world has witnessed since World War II. Many of the majority Hutu turned on their Tutsi and moderate Hutu neighbours, killing an estimated 800,000 people. It didn’t end there; it also created a huge refugee crisis when the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) troops entered Kigali, the capital. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions – mainly Hutus – fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) creating another crisis there.
How did Rwanda turn things around in less than 20 years through character education? What can Nigeria can learn from it? For even the most casual of observers, there are striking similarities about what happened in Rwanda in most African countries including Nigeria. So how did Rwanda turned the tide and is today one of the choice tourist destination in Africa?
A number of measures were adopted. Rwanda consciously embarked on national integration and orientation rather than focus on reprisal attacks and vengeance. The British Guardian – while commemorating the 20th anniversary of the genocide – put it this way: “Born in the years since the genocide, children are educated in schools that are strongly encouraged to desist from using potentially divisive labels. Pupils are discouraged from identifying themselves as Hutu or Tutsi and are instead asked to focus on building the future of a common Rwanda. To this end, in 2001, the government unveiled a new flag and national anthem.”
Next was the establishment of special village courts called gacacas. With strong encouragement from the government, survivors across the country then accepted the perpetrators back into their communities. There are unbelievable stories – by African standards – where perpetrators and their victims now live side by side in peace and harmony. This is complemented by the practice of doing regular community work, which was grounded in the Rwandan tradition of ‘umuganda.’ This was reintroduced not only as part of the effort to rebuild the country but as a way to foster a community spirit. Once a month, Rwandans are called upon to perform communal tasks such as building a house for the needy, laying a road and other activities that bind people together.
My intervention today is on the need for character education. Again, even the most casual observer knows that we have deep seated problems in Nigeria. Most of these problems are self-inflicted, endemic and systemic. Both the leadership and the led are guilty. Take a look around and tell me if you’re not embarrassed by some of the people elected who now parade themselves as leaders. Have we had it this bad?
I love what one church in Nigeria is doing. Knowing that it is most times difficult to change the views and perspective of full grown adults, it focuses instead on teenagers and young adults. It deploys huge resources to let them know always that what they see around them daily is an aberration and not the norm. The church sometimes takes them on excursions to developed countries for them to have a practical sense of what they’re being taught and encouraged to believe in. This to me is one of the best forms of character education.
Character education is a learning process that enables students and adults in a school community to understand, care about and take action on core ethical values such as respect, justice, civic virtue, citizenship, and responsibility for self and others. Upon such core values, attitudes and actions are formed which then serves as the hallmark of safe, healthy and informed communities.
Character education lessons include universally accepted character traits or core values such as respect, honesty, responsibility, and fairness. Think of how you would want to be treated by others, and there’s a good chance those actions are part of a character education lesson. It is more than slogans as it strives to assist children truly understand what good character traits are, and must help them think through how to live a life based on good traits. It equally focuses on teaching kids how to make good choices when faced with difficult situations.
Our nation is gradually falling apart because of gross character deficiency. Can we honestly say the majority are trustworthy, have respect for authority and each other, take responsibility, act fairly, are caring, and are good citizens of the country? We all know the answer. But these are the superstructure or pillar which progressive societies rest upon. In essence, character education focuses on trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness/equity, caring and good citizenship.
These six pillars of character education include topics about being honest, doing what you say you will do, respect for others, using self-control, being accountable, playing by the rules, treating people fairly, forgiving others, and more.
We have a growing youth population whose world view are systematically being shaped by pervasive meaninglessness and twisted logic of crass materialism and demented social values. “Leaders” giving praises to god after spending time in prison, Senators dancing and displaying exotic cars they ‘worked so hard for.’ How they ‘worked so hard’ to get them we all know, yet they would be voted back to power again and again.
This shouldn’t be surprising because we’ve chosen the road of less resistance as we continually nurture anti-intellectual environment that glorifies everything but learning. Even where we learn, some products of these learnings are an apology. It wasn’t the case two decades ago.
I believe that the moral and ethical challenge we have today can be effectively tackled through character education to save succeeding generations. We should imbibe character education because of the positive impact it would have toward a child’s emotional, moral, and intellectual development. I came across a research which indicated that schools that teach character education in one of the western countries report higher academic performance, improved attendance, reduced violence, fewer disciplinary issues, reduction in substance abuse, and less vandalism.
The research indicated further that students’ who attend character education schools report feeling safer because they know their fellow students value respect, responsibility, compassion and hard work. From a practical perspective, it’s simply easier to teach children who can exercise patience, self-control, and diligence than adults whose views and perspectives have been shaped and fixed.
Prof Nail Fergusson, a Harvard historian in one of his book “The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die” said the real issue for societies is the quality of public reason. He shows how the degeneration of western society occurred or could occur. What stands out from his analysis however is that the quality of institutions for coordinating social transactions makes the critical difference between prospering and declining societies. So, when societies think clearly and act intelligently, they create superior social institutions to solve their problems. But when public reason is weak then problems persist or compound.
The dilemma of public reason in Nigeria is very evident and troubling. The quality of debate is also depressing. In the place of logic there is anger, emotion and fury. This is where a vibrant civil society comes in. The focus of civil society is formulating policies and programmes that affect social and economic outcomes for the people. It plays its role best when it plays the policy game and not politically partisanship. Of course, policy is politics. But that is only to the extent that policy seeks to achieve broader political outcomes. Not just partisan outcomes.
But the question to ask is where the civil societies in Nigeria are. When are we going to get there? We can only get there if we look at one of the core issues which is character. Character defines the man, and where there’s an absence of character everything falls apart.
