According to an article by Yvonne Ndege of Al Jazeera, the militant group Boko Haram has killed an estimated 3600 people and numbers keep rising. While EFCC continues to investigate #DasukiGate with approximately $2.1b of security funds required to combat the militant group not properly accounted for.

The Nigeria education fact-sheet compiled by the United States’s Embassy indicates about 8.42% of the 2012 budget was spent on education and yet over 10 million almajirai students (potential Boko Haram recruits) exist in the Northern part of Nigeria.

An estimated 33% of school aged children are not enrolled in any Nigerian school. Power generation and distribution still present a challenge to industrial/manufacturing growth and quality of life, the average Nigerian still grapples with the inefficiencies of the power sector and continuously looks for ways to mitigate an epileptic supply.

Gasoline availability is akin to playing with a yoyo as queues persist on an almost quarterly basis regardless of the promises made by both the present and past administrations.

These deviations have become normalized over time resulting in institutional deviance. In her book, The Challenger Lunch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, Diane Vaughan examines how a culture of incremental deviance in the performance of O-rings led to the ultimate failure of mission STS 51-L.

The same theory can be applied to the how an average Nigerian has normalized deviations observed in our society. We have become used to news of a bomb blast by Boko Haram on a weekly basis, found a way to cope with non-existent to scattered availability of petrol to power our cars and run generator sets which are further manifestations of these institutionalized deviations.

Graft is both an old and new norm, individuals accused of state corruption have over the years not been held fully accountable for their atrocities and another arrest is just what it is, a melodramatic exhibition by a new administration which will probably fizzle out as time goes on.

The sight of potholes is no longer unnerving, how do you not get accustomed to this persistent feature of the daily Nigerian commute? The depravation in healthcare facilities have been met by a pseudo middle class who ensures their pregnant wives are not saddled with the unpredictability of these services and instead expends large sums of foreign exchange to deliver abroad.

The logical question from the foregoing is how do we combat these deviations? Just as in the allegory of Plato’s cave, so our truth doesn’t continue to be the shadow of images, “we must encourage our best minds to periodically descend among the prisoners in the den, and partake of their labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not.” There are currently 774 local government authorities in Nigerian, an average of 21 per state, imagine the possibilities if our most enlightened minds partake in this toil of local governance?

We must encourage our most enlightened mind to take up active roles at the local level as chairmen and councilors of various local governments across the country. This active participation would serve as a spring board for addressing deviations at its root. What if an accomplished economist runs a local government in Osun state? A retired major serves as the local chief of police in Bauchi state?

A World Bank publication on State and Local Government in Nigeria provides a blue print on what a local government should look like, an example is given of the LGA chairman in Dunukofia, Anambra State, a 35yr old attorney who had practiced law for 12yrs and returned home to contest the 1999 elections. He was instrumental in starting the needed infrastructural push in a community where it was non-existent, this is a model upon which combating institutional deviations can be achieved.

A close friend who hails from Ekiti State referred to recent happenings in his state and observed that, “this may not be the solution.
Fayemi ran Ekiti state and the masses complained as the leader’s progressive thoughts for his people did not align with their expectation and so we ended up with Fayose.”

These is a very accurate observation, however, it only serves to highlight the extent of institutional deviation that exists. It further buttress the fact that we need more of our enlightened folks to descend even lower and participate in local politics, our people are used to the deviations they see every day and thus the difficulty in achieving any norm in governance.

The key is not disengagement but to increase active participation, why was it any different during the Awo era? The main driver then was that the deviations were not as entrenched in daily life and thus the alignment.

Another model for combating these deviations is that each Nigerian citizen must be an active participant in the national discourse, everyone must feel strongly about issues raised and in time this will develop into a critical mass that might drive a change in social values and outlook.

The Bring Back Our Girls Movement is one example of how institutional deviations can be exposed and not allowed to fester, intentional or not, this movement ultimately led to questions of challenging security in the Northeast and the resultant probe into military funding.

Some might argue that the movement didn’t achieve the desired result but one must know that no movement is an end in itself. It is a lifelong iteration of results to the true North of perfection where deviations no longer exists, until that is achieved then such movements need to celebrated.

In conclusion, the Nigerian citizen must not allow our standards decay and not notice. When noticed, actions should be taken not to normalize these deviations.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Kehinde Olurode writes from the United States