Character building has been attributed as key to re-branding Nigeria in the observation of the Constitution and the rule of law, as well as the gateway to every knowledge.
President, Saint Joseph’s Secondary School, Awka-Etiti Old Boys’ Association (1980-1982) Alumni, Obiora Azodo, who said this during the association’s get-together in Lagos, added: “The scheme of character building, as the instrument for re-branding the nation, is the permanent solution to the nation’s collapsed value system.”
Azodo said that character building is the “heritage for national branding hidden in the treasures of honesty,” adding that “One’s character of truth and honesty must be steadfast to fall within these desired prospects.”
He said that the reasoning of man is within his character formation, adding: “Character makes a man. A good and honest character is the best and the only form of edifice anyone can build that can withstand the test of time. Character builders are the moralists and the saints of God, the best breed of men. They can be trusted for leadership capacity, competence and compassion.”
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Also at the event, Dr. Anthonymaria Odukaesieme, Secretary of the SJSS Awka-Etiti Old Boys’ Association, said that theory and practice of character in the curriculum of truth and honesty is character building, and the heritage for national branding.
Odukaesieme said that “character building is a discipline in human development that will re-brand the nation in the compulsory course to achieve a worthy and noble character.”
According to him, “it is the gateway to every righteousness and virtue, including love.”
Odukaesieme said: “Character building in human development is to restore the dignity of man. The failure of man is his failure in character to live and think better,” the association’s secretary said.
He noted that “The future is doomed without character building to make us know better in order to think better and to re-brand the nation, as well as live better in the moral ethics and principles of the law characterized by honesty, the presence of God in us.”
He said that character building calls for compulsory moral education at all levels of learning as the sure way capable of re-branding the nation in the high moral standing of the people’s government called democracy.
“It is the sure way to alleviate the cause of poverty and combat corruption, crime and cultism not only in schools, but in the society at large. “Character building is the sure way to reset the mind-set of the children and completely eliminate any bad character it propagates, and the way the nation is drifting,” he said.
Rev. Leo Ikeora, Public Relations Officer of the association, noted that “re-branding a nation in the character of its people is like re-branding a product in the character of its contents.”
To re-brand a nation, Ikeora said, “is to re-build it in the values of morality.”
He said that values shape attitude and attitude forms character, adding that “The reasoning of man is within his character formation. Character makes a man.”
According to him, “Character builders are the moralists and the saints of God, the best breed of men”.
He added that they can be trusted for leadership capacity, competence and compassion.
According to Ikeora: “The most sacred and most deserving character is honesty, the ladder to lasting greatness and befitting the future. Honesty is the righteousness that exalts a nation. Honesty is the greatest gift of the Love of God, the way of life in the knowledge of the truth.”
This, he said, further explains “Honesty as the purest, finest and nicest extract of life. It takes honesty to give life a meaning. Honesty is the wisdom of the wise and also the principal character in the prevention and cure of all ills. Honesty is the essence of character building that shelters, protects and guides our consciences and repels all forms of evil. The repulsion of evil is the affirmation of the righteousness that tames everyone in the right moral conduct.”