Can a country flourish without standards? By Usman Sarki

“The power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the improvements of social life,” Edward Gibbon

Let me begin by stating that for the last forty years or so I have kept close to me the stupendous work of the great historian Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, whether here at home in Nigeria or during my years abroad. It has remained, in many respects, one of my constant companions in thought and reflection. Over the years I have drawn deep insights from this voluminous work and applied its lessons to many situations in my life, career and writings.

Gibbon’s account of Rome is not merely a history of emperors, wars, intrigues, cruelties, foibles, conquests and institutions. It is, above all, a profound meditation on power, order, discipline, civic virtue, institutional resilience, moral decay and the consequences of administrative decline. To read Gibbon seriously is to understand that great states do not collapse suddenly. They first lose their standards, their habits of discipline, their respect for institutions, and their confidence in the rules that once held them together.

For me, therefore, Rome has never been a distant subject of historical or antiquarian curiosity. It has served as a mirror through which the condition of modern societies may be examined, including our own. Its rise teaches the importance of patriotism, organisation, law, civic discipline and public standards. Its decline warns us about the dangers of pessimism, indulgence, corruption, complacency, institutional decay and the gradual normalization of disorder.

In this sense, Gibbon’s Rome speaks not only to the past, but also to the present, and perhaps most urgently to countries like Nigeria, where the question of standards has become central to the future of the state itself. Rome was founded by conquest, but it was sustained by standards. Its durability did not rest on military power alone, nor on the genius of its generals, nor even on the vastness of its territories. Rome endured because it gradually developed uniform standards of law, language, administration, manners, discipline, institutions, regulation and public authority.

It understood that conquest might acquire territory, but only order could hold it together. On these foundations, Rome subsisted in one form or another for nearly two thousand years, and its influence still commands admiration, study and emulation. The laws it transmitted to Europe and to many of its former domains became part of the foundations of modern jurisprudence. The language of adjudication, legal procedure, civic responsibility, public office and institutional and military command that Rome helped to establish still echoes in the courts, parliaments, armies and bureaucracies of many nations.

Roman habits of government, administration and public organisation shaped the later development of states across the world. The idea of the senate, the appellations of tribune, consul and senator, the concept of citizenship, the payment of officials through salaries, the hierarchy of public administration, the discipline of military organisation, the codification of law, and the distinction between public and private authority all owe something to Roman standards established many centuries ago.

Rome was not perfect, nor was it always just. But it understood something essential about civilisation: that no society can endure merely on emotion, improvisation, disorder and private convenience. A country becomes governable only when rules are known, standards are uniformly enforced, institutions are respected, and public life is organised around predictable norms and enforcement of discipline. This is the central question that confronts Nigeria today, which is, how can a country lose standards and hope to flourish?

How can a state prosper when rules exist only on paper, when regulations are treated as inconveniences, when public institutions are corrupted by private discretion, when private influence overwhelms public order, and when almost every aspect of national life is carried by dissimulation rather than regulation?

A country without standards may have population, resources, elections, governments, ministries, agencies, universities, markets, roads, airports and courts, but these alone do not make a functional society.

Without standards, roads become death traps, schools become certification-issuing centres without learning, hospitals become buildings without care, markets become arenas of exploitation, cities become unplanned settlements, politics becomes transactional, public office becomes entitlement, and citizenship becomes a daily struggle against disorder.

Standards are not ornamental features of civilisation but its foundation. They determine how houses are built, how roads are constructed, how food is processed, how medicines are regulated, how schools are accredited, how public funds are spent, how contracts are awarded, how public servants behave, how traffic is managed, how waste is disposed of, how electricity is supplied, how water is treated, and how citizens relate to one another.

Where standards are absent, society does not merely become inefficient; it becomes unsafe. Singapore cannot be what it is today without rigorous standards. Likewise, Switzerland would not be so developed and peaceful if it had jettisoned standards and embraced improvisation and a culture of “management.”

Nigeria’s tragedy is not simply that standards are lacking. It is that their absence has become painfully visible and normalized. We have acclimatized ourselves to disorder. We have learned to live with roads without markings or streetlights, buildings without approvals, schools without libraries, hospitals without equipment, markets without sanitation, public offices without service ethics, and cities without planning.

We have become so familiar with dysfunction that we often mistake survival for progress. The lowering of standards has become so common in Nigeria that we no longer seem to possess a clear conception of what loftiness and debasement mean, or what they look like in practical terms.

We have lived for so long with mediocrity that excellence now appears strange, and with disorder for so long that order sometimes looks artificial. The abnormal has been normalized, the substandard has become familiar, and the unacceptable has been accommodated as part of daily life.

This is perhaps the most dangerous stage in the decline of any society: when people no longer merely suffer falling standards, but gradually lose the capacity to recognize that standards have fallen.

No serious country can be built on loose standards and improvisation. Nations rise when public life is governed by rules that are clear, institutions that are competent, and standards that apply to everyone. They decline when exceptions become the rule, when rules become inconvenient, when enforcement is selective, when connections replace procedure, and when the state loses the moral and administrative integrity to insist on order and enforce its own rules.

The question, therefore, is not merely whether Nigeria has laws. It has many laws. The deeper question is whether Nigeria has a culture of standards. Laws that are not enforced do not create order. Regulations that are ignored do not protect society. Institutions that cannot compel compliance cannot build civilisation. A country may possess elaborate statutes and still remain fundamentally unregulated if public conduct is governed by impunity and discretion rather than discipline and obedience.

This crisis of standards is visible everywhere. It is seen in buildings that collapse because regulations are ignored. It is seen in roads that fail shortly after construction because quality control has been abandoned. It is seen in schools that produce certificates without knowledge, hospitals that operate without essential equipment, public agencies that exist without service, and markets where adulterated goods circulate freely. It is seen in the casual violation of traffic rules, the dumping of refuse into drains, the encroachment on public spaces, the inflation of contracts, the abandonment of projects, and the indifference of authorities to the visible decay of public life.

These are not isolated failures. They are symptoms of the same national disorder. The broken traffic light, the fake drug, the collapsed building, the inflated contract, the dirty currency note, the unqualified teacher, the neglected drain, the abandoned project and the falsified certificate all speak to a deeper erosion of standards. They reveal a society where rules are optional, enforcement is selective, and public order has been surrendered to private convenience and avarice.

A country that cannot enforce standards in small things will eventually fail in doing great things. If a society cannot insist on road discipline, building codes, clean currency notes, sanitation rules, school accreditation, professional ethics and public accountability, it cannot hope to build a modern economy, a secure polity or a dignified national life.

Development is not achieved merely by announcing policies or creating institutions. It is achieved by enforcing rules, maintaining systems, measuring performance and ensuring consequences for failure.

The lesson from Rome, Singapore, Switzerland and indeed from every successful civilisation or country is that power without standards is temporary, wealth without standards is wasteful, population without standards is chaotic, and freedom without standards becomes disorder.

A society flourishes not because everyone does as he or she pleases, but because everyone understands the boundaries within which freedom, survival, enterprise and public life can safely operate.

Nigeria must therefore return to the question of standards as a matter of national survival. We must rebuild the state’s capacity to regulate, supervise, inspect, punish, reward and maintain. We must restore respect for planning, procedure, professionalism and public discipline. We must make standards visible in the school, the market, the road, the hospital, the ministry, the courtroom, the airport, the factory, the police station and the local government office.

A nation without standards cannot flourish because standards are the grammar of civilisation. Without them, a country may continue to exist, but it cannot properly function. It may move, but it will not advance. It may grow in numbers, but not in quality. It may speak of development, but it will remain trapped in disorder. For Nigeria to flourish, it must first decide that public life cannot continue to be governed by accident, indulgence and impunity. It must decide deliberately and urgently to become a country of standards. Rome was indeed not built in a day. But it was in fact held together by standards and discipline for nearly two thousand years.

Nigerians must not be condemned to experience the joy, beauty and convenience of regulated societies only when they travel abroad. It should not be only in other lands and climes that they encounter clean streets, orderly traffic, functional transport systems, reliable public services, safe buildings, disciplined institutions, honest officials and procedures, and predictable rules.

Their own country, society and environment must also be governed by rules and driven by standards. The same order, efficiency, safety and dignity that Nigerians seek and admire in other civilised and functioning societies must be made possible at home.

A Nigerian should not have to cross an international border before discovering what it means to live in a country where standards are enforced, where currency notes are clean, public spaces are protected, institutions work, and citizens are treated as members of an organised society rather than struggling survivors of national disorder.

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