It has never been in doubt that a nation gets the kind of leadership it deserves based the family values, norms and traditions obtainable. The erosion of family values has been identified as the major culprit in the many problems associated with leadership in the country.
In line with the reason for founding this column I have from time to time written articles on core leadership issues, which in my thinking are central to the development of the Nigerian nation.
It is easy for any rational person to notice that our nation has lost those values and norms that once made it the envy of its contemporaries and, hence, is now immersed in serious self-inflicted trouble. It is barely surviving as a united nation, having been suffused in increasing degrees of evils that pervade it, especially insecurity and moral laxity.
It has never been in doubt that when evils are found in our “idols” – politics, sports, films – they are even seen as normal making it difficult for people to distinguish between good and evil. So, what is right is admitted as wrong, and wrong as right. In this kind of environment nothing seems to work; indeed nothing really works. Even the leadership cannot deliver on its promises, because the people it was elected to govern have lost faith and have become seemingly ungovernable. When this happens the natural consequences are chaos, strife, insurgency, crimes of unimaginable dimensions, moral decadence: prostitution, drug abuse, examination malpractice, promiscuity, licentiousness, greed, ritualism, cultism, etc. This has been the tragedy of our national life.
Whichever way one looks at it our nation, Nigeria, is sick and comatose. The ominous signs have continued to appear on the horizon with immeasurable certainty. From east to west, north to south everything points to chaos, anarchy and doom. But are we going to fold our arms and do nothing? I have repeatedly drawn attention to this troublesome situation for some time now. I have written severally on the evils of society, erosion of family values and traditions and inept leadership that has continued to be an albatross to national development.
And I wonder why nobody is doing anything tangible to remedy the situation, save for the little done by President Muhammadu Buhari and his team to sanitize our nation.
Those that hear harden their hearts, while those expected to work to change the situation have gone into slumber. However, what, particularly, bothers me is the dwindling influence of parents on their children and the continued erosion of family values and traditions.
The family, which used to drive the social life of the nation, has suddenly lost its pride, focus, and fallen victim of the destructive and sleazy activities of the modern world. Why have parents steadily developed apathy to the upbringing of their children? They look the other way as their children indulge in immoral and indecent acts. They no longer bark and bite, unlike in the past when the sight of one’s parents could easily elicit trepidation in one’s mind. In fact, many parents today have lost the courage to correct their children when they go wrong. It even looks as if some children have outgrown their parents in terms of who calls the shot. Some parents even depend on their children for survival, and by so doing lose the moral courage to scold them when they do what is wrong. What is then responsible for this worrisome development?
Read the papers or rummage the social media every day and what you see will awe you. All kinds of obscenities – pornography of all shades – assault your sensibilities. In fact, the nude photographs of our young girls litter the internet. Sex and promiscuity have become the order of the day.
I have taken time out to look critically at the likely causes of the crises that have threatened to destroy the fabric of our great nation, nay the family. And what I found was quite baffling. The tragedy of it all is that those charged with the responsibility of steering our collective destiny have abandoned the substance and are now chasing shadows. Instead of placing the cart before the horse they have done just the opposite. The consequence is that we have continued to drift endlessly into self-perdition. Is this where our nation should be today, despite the speed at which other nations develop themselves? We behave like a people hypnotized. No nation of the ilk of Nigeria would have allowed itself to degenerate to this pitiful level when it had every opportunity to excel.
Let me ask: Did we not have clear-cut opportunities to be a great nation and write ourselves into global history books in the positive sense? Definitely we did, but why we failed to capitalize on those opportunities is where the whole problem lies. Can anybody confidently say we are surviving as a nation with all the troubles afflicting us? I doubt.
Curiously too, strange things have continued to happen in our dear country, yet only a few persons are talking. It seems everybody has decided unwillingly to maintain studied silence and take the situation as normal. Those that have chosen to speak out have done so with great caution and reservation.
There is a popular saying among my people that when an elder is in the house the she-goat does not give birth tied to the teeter. What is happening in Nigeria today is an indication that our elders and, in fact, leaders have lost touch with the realities of the moment. For how else can one describe the high rate of crimes and immorality going on daily, which have painted a very bad image of our nation and its people. Even all the efforts to combat them have met stiff resistance.
Who should be blamed for the way our nation is going today? Who are those that have ganged up to destroy the very essence of our existence as a nation?
No rational and responsible person needs a telescope to see that evil is gradually enveloping our nation – threatening to destroy its soul and essence. The target of this devious plot is the family, since it is the most important social unit. For ages the family has remained a single most important driver of societal development. The progress, security and peace in any society are measured by the kinds of families that make up such a society. What is a society without the family? It is the family that gives the society its existence and essence. This is why the global community has continually placed emphasis on the development of the family and the child.
Family values and traditions have been thrown to the dogs. Parents have continued to shirk their responsibilities to their children, while the children on their own part now behave anyhow they like. The result is that the centre cannot hold any longer, and life has become sufferable.
I recall a time parents took time to train their children, monitor their activities and lay good examples for them to follow. They moulded their children’s character with the precision of a craftsman, and taught them basic principles of life, which sustained them when it mattered most. In those good old days, parents and guardians saw their role in the development of their children and wards as a divine duty that demanded absolute devotion and stewardship. It was in those days that the upbringing of a child was the duty of both the parents and the government. Through this subtle partnership, parents were able to provide the platform for the moral development of the child at home, while government concentrated on the provision of infrastructure for the cognitive development of the child in school. That was why it was possible to develop the total child that could stand the pressures that life entrusted on it later in life.
Today, our homes and schools have become slaughterhouses for the decimation of the moral fibre of the child instead of moulding it. All the evils that work against our national development are cultivated at home. Children are permitted to view and listen to whatever they like so long it pleases them. Misapplication of social media has suddenly become their pastime – from where they learn all kinds of atrocities: pornography, violent movies and other debasing films that add no value to their lives.
The recent and rampant cases of murders of young promising girls by their boyfriends and traducers could be traced to this devious phenomenon. Such things were unthinkable some 30 years ago. But today, it happens with such frequency and ease that astound the citizenry. Thank God the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are often gradually brought to book. Thanks also to modern technological communication gadgets!
So, who knows what other dimensions this evil can take in the foreseeable future, especially as the world advances? This is why I am worried over the inability of stakeholders (leaders) to do something to salvage the situation. Unfortunately, when somebody summons the courage to condemn the evils in our society he is seen as being judgemental and awkward. This is not supposed to be so. When evil is tolerated it becomes acceptable and gradually it turns into a norm. By becoming a norm society begins to see it as cultural. And within a short time it envelops the society and causes strife and pain to it. This was how the present evils that afflict us today came to be.
Also in the old days, the church as a veritable social institution brought its weight to bear on the development of the child – right from infancy through adolescence. It achieved this through organizing catechism classes and strict adherence to moral and religious instructions. The coming of the missionaries, at that time, aided the moral transformation of the child, including the institution of laid down procedures, for its systematic development.
In fact, it was easy to see an unwritten working relationship between parents, the church and the school – the three working hands in gloves – to produce perfect children that would drive the future of the nation.
The partnership worked perfectly with the establishment of schools by churches. These schools were run strictly in compliance with laid down rules and regulation which guided the activities of both the teachers and the pupils and students. Students of these schools also exhibited exceptional discipline, character and studiousness in everything they did. In fact, adherence to rules formed the bulwark of the training models. Instructional materials and other teaching aids were designed to capture and expose the hidden talents of the children and drive their capacity for development – both cognitively and morally.
How the conflict between the state and the church – that led to the confiscation of mission schools – came about is still a mystery to many. There was no basis whatsoever for such a conflict when government was aware of the danger in taking over of such schools. Indeed, the take-over of schools is partly blameable for the falling standards of education and the subsequent thriving of evil in our society. It is not arguable then that the inability of government to stamp out these evils is traceable to its refusal to return the schools to their original owners. It is gladdening to note, however, that some state governments have returned some schools to the missions. This is the right thing to do if we are to stem the dangerous tides.
It may not be out of place to state that it was easier in the good old days to look at a child and tell what he would become in life. That was how great men and women that later became nationalists of our independence struggle emerged. In any case, the never-say-die attitude of parents at that time also made it possible for children to realize their dreams, because they were ready to make sacrifices, even losing their personal comfort, to see that their children were well-trained. Despite the obstacles in the way of acquiring higher education in Nigeria at that time parents still succeeded in sending their children abroad for further education. Those children whose parents could not afford the enormous resources required to achieve this goal made do with correspondence studies. And they still succeeded.
London Cambridge examinations became the vogue. It offered many Nigerians the platform to realize their life ambitions. Today many Nigerian-born academics and other professionals that call the shots in Nigeria and abroad were trained through these platforms. And it is from them that the leadership of the nation has emerged in the past 64 years – long before independence.
The fear now is what happens when the present generation is gone and the new one takes over.
What I am trying to arrive at is that parents demonstrated rare competences and steeled determination in those hazy and hectic days that life was brutish to bring their children up. They did not allow the human obstacles placed in their way to dampen their desire to achieve great goals. This is why I find it incomprehensible that many a today’s parent does not operate with the same belief and commitment. It is, therefore, painful that in spite of the advancement in technology and better conditions of life many of our children have continued to perform poorly in every facet of life, particularly in moral development. This is the crux of the matter.
To be continued
from The Sun News http://ift.tt/1mxEVvW
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