The Nigerian educational system has failed to emphasize the practical means of cultivating sound moral values and transmitting them from one generation to the next. At the University of Ibadan, from the 1960s through the 1990s, the philosophy of values was taught to undergraduates, but the focus was on explaining the nature and functions of moral values rather than on practical application. This limitation has contributed to the erosion of moral values in Nigerian society.
The growing emphasis on monetary acquisition has reduced human worth to economic value, subordinating social and moral considerations to material gain. The relentless pursuit of money has undermined human values and damaged social relationships. As a result, moral values have become a dispensable appendage of Nigerian life, and moral sensitivity has eroded. Situations that ought to shock the human conscience, such as torture, violence, and suffering, are increasingly met with indifference rather than moral outrage.
The danger is not merely that Nigerians are violating moral values, but that they are progressively losing the capacity to be morally appalled by their violation. Moral apathy is becoming increasingly normal, and the natural flow of human sympathy is drying up. When a society reaches the point at which suffering no longer disturbs, cruelty no longer shocks, and greed no longer offends the conscience, the problem is no longer simply a decline in moral conduct, but a deeper erosion of the moral sensibility.
Historically, very few societies have survived without moral values. The Ik community of northern Uganda, studied by British social anthropologist Colin Turnbull in the 1970s, appeared to have largely dispensed with moral sentiments under conditions of extreme scarcity and deprivation. The Ik had ceased to extend altruistic consideration to one another, and filial attachment and reciprocal affection had virtually disappeared. The question is whether Nigeria is drifting towards a similar state.
Recent incidents in Nigeria suggest that the country may be losing its moral bearings. The brutal killing of the Bursar of the National Open University of Nigeria by bandits on September 6, 2026, in Zamfara State, received remarkably little public attention. The kidnapping of schoolchildren, teachers, and prominent Nigerians has become routine, and incidents that would once have been considered unthinkable, such as a father being abducted by his own son's kidnapping gang, are increasingly becoming part of everyday experience.
The erosion of moral values is also evident in the way parents and politicians behave. Parents once chastised children who became involved in examination malpractice, but today, some parents not only secretly connive with their children but actively facilitate or plan examination malpractice with them. Politicians once planned election rigging covertly, but today, electoral manipulation, including vote-buying, is increasingly carried out openly and sometimes rationalized on the cynical premise that "in politics, all is fair."
The attempt to normalize vote-buying by presenting it as a global phenomenon only illustrates the extent to which practices once regarded as morally reprehensible are now being defended rather than condemned. The cumulative effects of the erosion of moral values are now becoming manifest in disturbing and potentially dangerous ways. If Nigeria is to survive as a society, it must rediscover the importance of moral values and find ways to cultivate and transmit them to future generations.
Key points
- The erosion of moral values in Nigeria is attributed to the growing emphasis on monetary acquisition and material gain.
- The country's educational system has failed to emphasize the practical means of cultivating sound moral values.
- The loss of moral sensitivity has led to a situation where suffering, cruelty, and greed no longer disturb or shock the human conscience.
