Ethical professionals and national development

Every profession has code of ethics. Aside from the technical skills, professionals swore to respect and promote good practices, sound judgement with regards  to the profession and overall development of the society they operate in. They also swore where there is conflict of interest, they would rather stand for what is good. In Nigeria, we have countless number of professional associations,  both national and foreign. Many members of these associations are often proud to display their titles but sadly only few had stood firmly on the oath they swore to. This had affected society’s well being and national development.

Professional ethics comprise of a whole gamut of personal and corporate standards of behaviours. They are more or less like a religious vows. They  guide adherents on how to provide service to the public. Ethics demand doing the right thing  when not being watched. A lack of adherence to professional ethics in many Nations is seen in mega corporate failures and national scandals.

Our experience with national shame or lack of development today will not be here if professionals  working in private and public organizations had adhered strictly to their professional standards.

Since good professional ethic requires everyone to project integrity and honest image,which will disallow pursuit of  anything that may discredit their names and the society in general; it leads everyone to secure inner peace and exaltation of strong personality.

The question today in Nigeria and may be elsewhere is  do professionals care or value honest image or exaltation of a strong personality again? For many, circumstances and prevailing poverty level in the society had taught them to be  ‘gentle as a dove and wise like a snake.’

Many professionals now have different standards or outlooks with regards to what type of services they offer. A common approach is ‘to the crooked, I am crooked and to the smart I am smart.’ In this case, the disposition of the elected officials or management team determine what kind of advice and services they offer. When they have great and ethical bosses, which are few, they project the image of a saint but when they know the boss is very corrupt,  thy help in enhancing its scale.

Through this, many of our professionals are very smart in covering their own ass. Some do not know how to do this neatly and they are often caught in the web of the corruption when new administration comes in. In the past administration we had technocrats handling the major Ministries at the federal level. When we consider the level of  alleged impunities of these past administrations we are quick to ask what value did these technocrats despite their pedigrees brought to governance?

Money in billions were allegedly withdrawn from the state cover while we had technocrats as finance, works, health and agriculture ministers as well as accountants-general? Interestingly because of their knowledge and exposure, these individuals knew how to escape any involvement  in the corruption charges. I kept wondering what happened to sound professional advice and if not taken why did they continue in such positions without feeling and cringe in their consciences?

John Dowdy, President Trump’s lead legal adviser for the Russian case, recently resigned because he felt the President had increasingly ignored professional advice. Why is it difficult for us here to resign? One person who had stood out for me is Mr. Christopher Kolade. He resigned his chairmanship position of a board under President Jonathan.

Or can we just assume most of our professionals here will rather follow Dr. Ruben Abati’s postulation ‘when you are eating, you do not talk.’ A common position I have heard is if the few sound professionals within the system resign because of the impunity, it means we have released the state purse to the hands of the thieves.

Maybe this position has a level of truth, but we have also noticed many continue in such positions because of the fear of the unknown. My question then is does that mean their chosen professions have no more opportunities?

We have seen many technocrats invited to be part of a regime refusing to leave politics afterwards because of the privileges associated with such public offices.  In fairness, a professional who had once been in government as a local government chairman told us if we know the level of corruption at this level of government alone, professionals will know it is not right to leave governance in the hands of the looters called politicians. The conclusion is, involve we must but with strong adherence to ethical codes. That is the only edge we can bring.

Whatever perspective we take, it is obvious our national development and organisational success will be accelerated only when our professionals follow their professional code of ethics and make a choice to deliver value instead of colluding with the bad eggs amongst us.