Deuteronomy 15: 1-18 And Social Justice Concerns in Ancient Israel: Lessons for the Contemporary Nigerian Society

Abstract

Nigeria is bedevilled today by many problems ranging from the breakdown of traditional values due to the pressures of modernisation to corruption, insecurity, poverty and social injustice. The Covid-19 pandemic has also highlighted the inequalities in the Nigerian society in which the poor are asked to go into lockdown with nothing to eat and are left to fend for themselves when they get sick while the rich receive the best medical care and have more than enough supplies to last for a long time. The average Nigerian family has no access to portable water yet they are asked to wash their hands under running water. The decades of neglect of the health and educational sectors have left their mark on a society unprepared to face a crisis of such magnitude. The judicial framework for change has been weakened so much that justice belongs to the highest bidder. Legislators are generally self-centred and insensitive to the plight of their constituents while laws are enforced in favour of the high and mighty. The Executive seem insensitive to the people’s pains and plight and so govern without recourse to the wishes of those who elected them to the public offices they occupy.