The local media is alive to its
constitutional duty of disseminating, informing, educating and entertaining the
Nigerian audience with rich body of stories on issues of the dwindling value
system in contemporary Nigeria. There is hardly a day passes without some of
the very vibrant national dailies running stories about examples of how some
Nigerians debase and devalue our cherished moral and traditional value
system like the sacred value attached by most traditions of Nigerians to
life. Nigerians, traditionally attach respect to the value of hospitality and
high moral rectitude. Traditional Nigerian communities also respect the value of
honesty and in those days persons who ran into questionable huge sums of
money and therefore live ostentatious lifestyle are ostracized but in our time,
many people who amassed wealth through odious and inordinate means are accorded
first class treatment in most communities and are awarded different traditional
and religious titles and the populace have lost their sense of rage so much so
that when high profile government officials are charged to courts for eye
popping financial heist and theft of public fund running to tons of billions of
Naira, the members of the general public are not known to have publicly
denounced these bad immoral and criminal offences.
In the twenty first century, the
devaluation of our traditional moral values reached a new high when some new
generation founders of places of worship of some of the foreign organized
religions have converted their positions as means to amass material wealth even
when most of their followers are deprived of essential services necessary
for decent lives. Some of these organized religious groups that set up
higher educational institutions using donations raised from their members have
made access to such institutions almost impossible for children of most of
their members who are so economically deprived that they cannot afford the
exorbitant tuition fees charged by some of these religious run private
secular universities. It is a fact that some modern day religious leaders in
Nigeria who hide under the cover of religion to raise substantial and stupendous
wealth through donations from dubious sources have bought for themselves
different choice jets and automobiles to a point that a famous religious leader
in Nigeria has more than half a dozen choice jets that he is contemplating
starting a commercial airline registered in his family name. Such is the high
level of criminality and devaluation of our value system in Nigeria.
On Friday 27th April 2012, the
online version of Daily Trust carried a story that an Upper Area Court in
Gwagwalada, Abuja, remanded a 40 year old man Mr. Charles Ikeji in prison
custody for allegedly defiling his teenage daughter and the house maid. This
type of abominable sexual depravity which offends our African traditional value
that completely rejects incest and rape has become common place in our
contemporary time in Nigeria so much so that more than five teenage girls
are raped across the country in every one hour.
Most Nigerians have also lost touch
with the sacredness we traditionally attached to life so much so that people
engage in inter-ethnic and inter-religious violent killings which
has become a bigger challenge with the emergence of a deadly armed Islamic
religious insurgents in parts of the North that is responsible for the mass
killings of thousands of Nigerians through bomb explosions and targeted attacks
of government institutions, places of Christian worship and other public
institutions including media houses.
Worried by these crises that have
enveloped the Nigerian society caused largely by the apparent collapse of
family and traditional Nigerian value system, the Wife of President Good Luck
Jonathan Mrs. Patience has used her privileged position to hold several
enlightenment advocacy programs to educate Nigerians on value re-orientation
and the need for Nigerians to avoid creating violence.
Incidentally, the problems of lost
value system had occupied the intellectual attention of some egg- heads and
scholarly minds who took time to extensively research and write rich
educational books on the qualities of good family values. The fast eroding
value system is not only a problem afflicting the Nigerian society but is also
a big challenge in the developed western society that has lost touch with its
proud Christian tradition and the people in the Western Countries are so
individualistic now that the pursuit of material things or consumerism has
replaced their ancient traditional value system.
The writers of the widely
circulated, highly scholarly and widely acclaimed Book, ‘the World Book
Encyclopedia’ wrote that; ‘family’ is the oldest human institution. These
authors also said that in many ways the family is the most important of all
human institutions. The family according to these distinguished authors, is the
most basic and strategic unit or component of the larger society.
The above factual points find
support in the tripartite roles which the family plays in the civilization
episodes which the human race has passed and which humanity will inevitably
evolve. These three roles pointed out by these scholars are as
follows: firstly, the family is the means for producing children and continuing
the human race; secondly, the family provides for the protection and early
training of infants who are the most helpless of all creatures and thirdly,
family sets up a division of labour so that each member contributes something.
The strategic roles which the family
plays in the general affairs of humanity were also expounded explicitly by most
leading philosophers and the theologians.
Aristotle (384-322, B.C.) who is regarded
as one of the most wisest men the World has ever seen said that; "Between
man and wife friendship seems to exist by nature; for man is naturally inclined
to form couples even more than to form cities, in as much as the household is
earlier and more necessary than the city, and reproduction is more common to
man with the animals".
Aristotle proceeded further to state
other salient qualities that members of the human race enjoy far above the
irrational animals. He wrote thus; "with the other animals the union
extends only to this point of reproduction, but human beings live together not
only for the sake of reproduction but also for the various purposes of life;
from the start, the functions are divided, and those of man and woman are
different so they help each other by throwing their peculiar gifts into the
common stock".
He was of the considered view that
It is for these reasons that both utility and pleasure seem to be found in this
kind of friendship.
But Aristotle was quick to add that
this friendship may be based also on virtue, because in his profound
estimation, if the parties are good; for each has its own virtue and they
will delight in the fact.
He then proceeded to add that
children seem to be a bond of union (which is the reason why childless people
part more easily); for children are common good to both and what is common
holds them together.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-74 AD) who took
special interest in the scholarly works of Aristotle and who perhaps ranks
as one of the greatest medieval thinkers wrote thus; “that is said to be
natural to which nature inclines, although it comes to pass through the
intervention of the free will; thus acts of virtue and the virtues themselves
are called natural; and in this way matrimony is natural, because natural
reason inclines then in two ways. First in relation to the principal end of
matrimony, namely the good of the offering; for nature intends not only the
begetting of offspring but also its education and development until it reaches
the perfect state of man as man..."
Like other distinguished Scholars,
Thomas Aquinas who built upon the intellectual foundation established by
Aristotle stated that members of the human race derive three things
from our parents namely existence, nourishment, and education.
Arguing further he wrote that;
"Now a child cannot be brought up and instructed unless it has certain and
definite parents, and this would not be the case unless there were a tie between
the man and a definite woman, and it is in this way that matrimony
consists".
He stated further; "Secondly,
in relation to the secondary end of matrimony, which is the natural service
which married persons render one another in Household matters for just as
natural reasons dictates that men should live together, since one is not
self-sufficient in all things concerning life, for which reason man is
described as being naturally inclined to political society, so too among those
works that are necessary for human life some are becoming to men, others to
women....”
Milton A. Gonsalves observed that
family functions traditionally as an institution to control sexual activity and
relations; to provide a stable setting for the reproduction of offspring and so
for the continuation of society, to nurture and integrate the children into
society; to nourish and develop the adults emotionally; to furnish a setting
for economic activity; and to assign social status.
Gonsalve authoritatively asserted
that these noble roles are been challenged and subjected to changes as a result
of the impact of society’s high mobility, questioning of sex roles, the move to
cities, industrialization and technological developments that provide reliable
contraceptives and promote increased longevity.
As pointed out by Milton Gonsalve, I
too believe strongly that these contemporary deviations from the long
established traditional roles of the family are the remote causes of the
on-going socio-political upheavals everywhere in the world and in Nigeria to be
most specific. The ease with which persons in top government offices amass
wealth and deploy their privileged offices to subvert and undermine the rule of
law so they could escape justice and go home in peace to enjoy their wealth,
became more pronounced when fifty years ago, Nigeria discovered crude oil in
commercial quantity and successive Federal administrations have
institutionalized corruption in the extractive and crude oil industry so much
so that the huge foreign revenue derived from the export of these massive crude
oil resources are not properly accounted for. Corruption and lack of good
governance which has afflicted Nigeria in the last five decades that crude oil
was discovered in commercial quantity, further eroded the family value system
that traditional Nigerians held so dear to their hearts.
In Africa for instance, the
traditional background of the family encouraged all members of the respective
family units to respect the basic African cultural values like respect for
elders; community fellow feeling as reflected in communal land tenure and
ownership; live-and-let-live philosophy; altruism (including economic and
medical variants of it); and hospitality. Instead of all these noble
traditional African values, most Nigerians are in the blind pursuit for
inordinate wealth and the large scale regime of impunity has allowed too many
crooks to get away with serious economic crimes against the Nigerian state and
the Nigerian people. The judiciary harbor a lot of corrupt minded judges that
collect bribes from corrupt government officials and compromise the hearing and
determination of several high profile cases of financial indiscretion.
I strongly argue that since the
family builds the World, all African families and families everywhere in the
World, should promote those attitudes which project the common good of humanity
such attributes includes peace, unity, love social justice and truth. People
who work in all the arms of government and the private sector have no choice
but to rebuild our crumbling moral value system.
This is the only way to build a
peaceful world and a peaceful Nigeria. The philosophy behind the introduction
of the widely cherished pro-people and pro-peace advocacy campaign by the
wife of the current President like the other humanitarian projects introduced
by the previous wives of past Presidents are commendable and must be
institutionalized so that the members of the Nigerian family units would
embrace value re-orientation and experience renewal of our moral value system.
I sincerely appeal to the wife Of President Jonathan to extend the existential
impact of this excellent programme to all the rural and urban families in
Nigeria, and especially to the unemployed family members because most times unemployment
leads to restiveness among the younger members of our community in Nigeria.
This is the common man’s aspiration. The justice system must be strengthened to
provide for harsher punishments for abominable offences like incest and rape.
30/4/2012
