A ‘Hall Of Shame’ For Miscreants

No country can be prosperous and productive when it is in drastic deficiency of right-thinking people. I mean right-thinking people not in the sense of working for the parochial good of self but right-thinking in the light of the general good.

Recently, the Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan made a proposal that intrigued me. While addressing some Nollywood legends at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja, Jonathan suggested the establishment of a ‘Hall of Shame’ where the records (documents and names) of criminals, embezzlers and societal misfits could be registered so as to serve as a deterrent to any Nigerians who would want to indulge in unlawful activities.

According to him, immortalising the names of criminal-minded people in the proposed ‘Hall of Shame’ will make families and young people to be aware of the kind of ignominy they will face after engaging in certain misconducts. President Jonathan said on the occasion: “…I heard you saying that you are planning a Hall of Fame; we are thinking of having a ‘Hall of Shame’ where the names of criminals would be written. This will serve as a deterrent to those who may want to indulge in criminal activities as they would not want to soil their family names…”

By calling it a ‘Hall of shame’, the Nigerian leader was simply punning on the popular and highly revered ‘Hall of Fame’ concept. A Hall of Fame is an edifice, say a museum, where certain memorabilia, usually trophies, connected with exemplars and distinguished and successful people in particular fields of society are kept. In fact, simply put, the ‘Hall of Fame’ is an immortal celebration of successes and heroics of not only great people, but of people who do great things.

In the United Kingdom, for example, there is the football ‘Hall of Fame’ where football players or coaches who have rendered exceptional services for the good of the game are inducted into. In the same vein, other greats in the intelligentsia or other domains of life are also knighted as an honour.

So, apart from just looking at the ‘Hall of Shame’ as mere pun or fun, I however strongly side with President Jonathan’s view and thus urge the Cameroonian authorities that be to consider establishing such in the nearest future.

That some Cameroonians in public offices continue to plunder, pilfer, pillage and line their pockets with unbridled impudence is something to shame. Those who extort money for rendering public services they are salaried for, like police officers, those who promote inertia, those who poorly execute public contracts or are involved in the public contracts mafia, notorious armed robbers, rapists, fraudsters, chronic scammers etc, are all candidates to be added to the ‘Hall of Shame.’

Candidates who cheat or impersonate in public exams, those caught with fake academic or even civil status certificates, teachers and varsity lecturers who are more interested in deceiving and spoiling female students than teaching them, civil servants who go late to work or even stay away from it with impunity, ghost workers who do injustice to our public purse by earning multiple and undue salaries, government ministers who tell lies on public issues, financial institutions that encourage shady financial deals, fake health personnel or those who operate health institutions that pose more danger to society, and why not notoriously quack journalists, should all be potential inductees of the ‘Hall of Shame.’

True it is that it’s dignifying to feature in the Honour Roll of any activity and that everybody relishes positive reward. That’s why every year especially during the National Day celebrations on 20 May, citizens of both the public and private sectors are honoured with labour medals in recognition of their services.

But come to think of it when people’s actions rather retard a country’s development and drag its image into disrepute! One of such cases still fresh on my mind is that of former Finance Minister, Abah Abah, who last week was slammed a 25-year jail term in an affair concerning the National Housing Loan Scheme, known in French as Credit Foncier.

We hear twenty-nine of his duplexes were also seized with the least evaluated at about FCFA 100 million and that nine pricy and ostentatious cars were confiscated too. That’s not all; information also has it that eight of his bank accounts were frozen with the least estimated to contain FCFA 500 million. A veritable candidate for the ‘Hall of Shame’, isn’t it?