BAD CHILD BAD SOCIETY (First male contributor)

So…

As usual, I had just got home after a hard day’s work. Hungry, tired and gloomy, I decide to lay down for a few minutes to get back my bearings and make up my mind on whether it was going to be another round of indomie noodles for dinner or the left-over I got from my sister’s house 2 days back. I weigh my options, shake my head and imagine if bachelorhood was a thing to be proud of. A story for another day. While deciding on the fate of my stomach, I hear the usual notification beep from my phone. It was Facebook. I needed the distraction, so I quickly reached for my phone and scurry through. I had been tagged on a news piece concerning the prosecution of the son of a former high profile minister. It was a long read and here I was hungry and tired.
My first thought was to ignore and come back to it later but all of a sudden, I remembered how a few months ago his father was arrested on allegations of corruption and remanded in custody as well. Voraciously, I dug into the piece. By the time I was done, I had a myriad of questions and thoughts flowing through my tiny brain. I continuously asked myself  “How could someone that age have come across such huge amounts of monies and property?” What manner of business was he into to have acquired such wealth? But no sooner had I started asking these questions, that my mind began drifting into asking deeper ones.

What does it take to train your children the proper way?  No scratch that! What does it take to instill the right virtues into your child? Is it being strict as a parent? By giving daily lectures on the need to be virtuous? By outsourcing this responsibility to other family members? Or do we simply allow nature/destiny run its course? By Virtues, I mean hard work, dignity, honesty et al. Now, whichever answer we derive from this, it will actually provide an insight on the level of importance we place on inculcating and enshrining values deep within our society. Most importantly, the roots of a good society are planted right from our homes. A child’s behavior, his/her principles are most often than not a reflection of the parents. Our parents are our role models right from the cradle. We look up to them for guidance and to a large extent, what we become in future is as a result of how well they discharge those duties. In turn, what we learn and derive from them is what permeates through and shapes our society, therefore completing the cycle of societal evolution.

As a nation, corruption has been our bane for decades. It has hampered whatever attempt at any meaningful development we have sought to achieve. It is a cankerous infestation that has eaten deep within the fabric of our society and has become a permanent stain for us as a people. Nothing could be so frustrating than presenting a green passport at an international airport and being given that look of suspicion and condescension simply because we have made an anomaly a culture.

More heartbreaking, is how this culture of impunity and societal degradation is continually been passed on from one generation to the other. In a society like ours where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening, the rich continue to aggressively position their wards, granting them unfettered access to our commonwealth in a bid to perpetuate their dominions upon the vulnerable masses. Else, how does one begin to explain how a father could co-opt his son into a multi billion naira corruption racket? What sort of father does that? Why deprive your child the moral virtues of hard work and honesty, which will in turn make him a productive member of society? Now lets even put aside the need for securing a comfortable future as that happens to be the lame excuse most of them give to justify this sort of greed. Yes! It is nothing but greed. Because only greed makes you amass more than you will ever need in your life. Only greed makes you blind to the point of ignoring the fact that you feed your self and family with what is plainly unlawful. Only greed blinds you from realizing that for every one kobo stolen from our national wealth, you have automatically deprived one citizen of a basic necessity. A necessity, which could make the difference between life and death. Now quantify that in billions and I’ll leave you to imagine the amount of damage that has been done.

Tragic of all, is how we destroy the future of our children and burden them with the weight of a negative tag that is bound to trail them throughout life. No parent would want to have his/her child branded a “thief”, yet we deliberately do so while erroneously thinking it is all part of showing love. This is in no way saying we should not provide the good things of life to our children. By all means do but if you must, do it the right way. Let the child know how to work for what he wants. Do not give anything on a platter or put him/her on a path of corruption. I cannot begin to imagine how as a parent I will feel seeing my child accosted by prison officers and in handcuffs, and knowing deep down I am responsible for his predicament. I will never be able to live with myself.

Now, we can blame the government till thy kingdom come for not doing much about fighting corruption, as we would like to see. But that is just one miniscule part of a whole process. The most critical part of this begins right from the home front. To prevent is still much more effective than to cure. As parents, we should try as much as possible to create a better society by raising good citizens and inculcating the right virtues. Hard work has never killed a man before, neither has honesty. As peers, we should always strive to encourage one another from desisting from bad behavior that is likely to stain us for the rest of our lives. Bequeathing a worthy and virtuous society filled with pride and dignity is one duty we owe the future generations and ourselves.

Let us always remember, a good name is far better than silver or gold.

Oops! My Indomie dey burn. I dey come.


writen by Aliyu Ameen