THE Sylvester tragedy reveals a compelling story that showcases how irresponsible and shoddy parenting has become in Nigeria and possibly the globe at large. The incident that led to poor Sylvester’s death has left those of with conscience agonising and tramautised. It has actually created a sore on our national psyche and conscience if we still have one as a nation. As a father, the anguish and pains I have passed through for the past few days has left me wondering, what if it were you? Frankly speaking, I still cannot envisage what my actions\reactions would have produced; but what I am certain of is that, by now I would have been cooling off in police net and would have definitely breached my Christian creed and code. I pray that such temptation will never come upon me in my sojourn on this dark odiferous terra-firma! As the story behind Oromoni Jnr’s death continue to unravel, there are few salient takeaways that I want to bring to the fore especially as they border on effective and responsible parenting. This is so because any child that is out there today, one way or the other is a product of a home, assumingly with a parenting culture even if such a child is a born by mistake\bastard. Whatever the situation, one form of parenting would have rubbed off on the child. My pet theory is that at the core of all this current tragedy is the crisis of parenting and dubious acculturation.
First, is very alarming and discombobulating that we now have children within the age bracket of 13-16 years who only do not belong to a clandestine hogwash but have the effrontery and impudence to bully, intimidate and initiate others to fraternise with them at whatever cost. This is troubling and distressing. What topic\business do such minors have to discuss or carry out in a confraternity? So I ask, how does a 14-16-year-old child get initiated into a cult group without his\her parent’s knowledge? For children of such age bracket to be emboldened to the extent that they now even murder to achieve their sinister plan is baffling. This clearly indicates that these “boys” have been in the system for a while and should be taken seriously. Again, I wonder, how did this escape their parent’s knowledge? The answer is simple: negligence and irresponsible parenting. A 16 or even 18- year-old child is still malleable even if such is possessed with an “evil spirit” because that is what every parent today attribute their failure of parenting to.
Secondly, what passes as parenting today is an eyesore. Most parents now allow their childrento have access to whatever they want; wherever they want to go; whoever they want to see and whichever friends they want to keep. Gone are the days when parents censure the type of companies their children keep and which programmes they should watch or get exposed to. Before, in so many homes, parents have established rules and code of conduct that regulate the actions and inactions of their wards but today that is no longer tenable. Some refer to it as freedom and child’s rights; but see where all this is leading us to. Again, parents today have out sourced parenting to all sort of third parties ranging from nannies, house-helps, teachers, home lesson teacher, security guards, and rogue guardians and trustees. They shy away from parental responsibilities by hiding under the cloak of hustling to give the children a decent living and because these caretakers are not real owners they cannot be clinicaland rigorous with the training of these pica ninnies. No wonder, they grow up becoming beasts, brutesand monsters who have no business existing in the same spheres with humans.
I do not know the ages of those social misfits (and many of their ilk out there) who bullied Sylvester to death, but I definitely know, none of them are more than sixteen. So, just imagine what would become of a sixteen year’s old boy that murders in the name of snitching or someone refusing to be like him when such is 30\40\50. Clearly, such is a product of faulty and questionable parenting. Such also is encultured with a worldview and value systems that is grossly derelict and flawed. So many parents today are infatuated and preoccupied with the pursuit of materialism and vanities under the guise of affording a comfortable life for lasses and lads that they hardly know the psyche and mental wellbeing of. As I have already mentioned, they outsource and mortgage the upbringing and training of these children to counterfeits and scoundrels who end up breeding animals. Pathetic! Look at the routine of an average Nigerian parent, you will discover that s\he hardly have no time for the children at all. Children leave for school by 7:00am, by most time when the parents have already left to hustle.
By the time the child closes by 2 or 3 pm another round of lesson begins either by the school or a private teacher and such lessons most times persist even by weekends. Thereafter, the child is left in the care of all sorts of rogues and hirelings because both parent are hustlers and on and on the cycle continues. The result is what we are seeing playing out as the social malaise we find ourselves today. Could it be that these hirelings are getting back at the society? Today, due to lack of quality parenting, children are exposed to all sort social media platforms which have become increasingly notorious for the display and promotion of affluence, power, wealth, sex, materialism, greed, occultism, and all such vanities and inanities. The children loop on these things and then want to be it. So it is not surprising that we are breeding children that are becoming more monstrous and beastly than humans. Thus, we have a generation that strive to be rich in materiality and mundanity but suffers acute poverty in moral and ethical code. When parents strive to enrich their children with material comfort without a commiserate currency, the parent, children and society becomes shortchanged for it. Why are parents so nonchalant and lackadaisical in their approach to children upbringing today?
Again, the premium parents place on certain value systems today is completely un-called for and misleading. Emphasis is laid so much on vanities and thrash that end up entrenching these children with values and ethos that diminishes our humanity, negates the philosophy of collective existence and social contract. I supposed the rule is live and lets live. The Sylvester tragedy tends to draw attention to the place of effective and responsible parenting to the law of social contract societal well-being; this is because the family is actually the foundation upon which the moral beam of any society is erected.
As the bible puts it; children are gifts from the lord. What this means is that when as a parent you are blest with a child, the onus lies on you to be responsible for their up-bringing and nurturing properly in way that they will end up making the world a better and attractive place to live in. No wonder, the wisest man of all times have admonished that we should train up a child in the way to go and when s\he is old s\he will not depart from it. Clearly from this too, whatever the child ends up becoming is an effort and making of the parents (Prov.22:6).
The way the whole story is unravelling tends to justify the theory of yours sincerely that the blame of all the social quagmire that ills us today should be largely attributed to parental negligence and abdication. For instance, it is now alleged that some of the children involved in this bestial act have been flown out of the country by their parents. They want them to escape justice! This is not only preposterous, it is unimaginable. How can a remorseful, responsible and right thinking parent with a human make up ever contemplate such a line of action? This still baffles me to the marrow. Are they shielding their children from the course of justice out of love? Really! This is not love; it is simply Insanity. Why collude with justice because of a socially malevolent child that you should actually be held responsible for hislunacy? What if such a parent was at the receiving end? This also leads me to ask, who owns the child\individual? Society or family? In the past children were seen as the products of the society but today, because of individualistic and imperialistic hoax, children are conceived as individual property. No responsible parent with a conscience should tuck his\her child away from the arm of the law for murder in the name of love. Shame to such parents. Yours truly is of the opinion that any parent trying to play games in this whole tragedy by trying to obstruct justice or otherwise should be apprehended and punitively dealt with too. In fact, all the parents whose wards are involved in this bestial act should be prosecuted for producing beasts in human forms. If the leopard will always birth a leopard, then we should not look too far. We should have no place for the tribes of murderers amongst us.
A few suggestions for the police: the house master of Sylvester should be thoroughly investigated for his complicity in the whole issue. His role in the whole incidence is suspicious. I say this because some schools actually have tutors that are the really bad guys who use senior students to front for them in their nefarious and clandestine adventure.
Also, Dowen college for rushing to say Sylvester fell sick as result of injuries sustained from playing football is culpable and is part of the conspiracy. Not only that, judging by the testimony of Sylvester’s sister at the course of that Arise TV interview,the school was not only derelict in duty but displayed high sense of negligence. The school should be permanently closed down. By now the proprietor I guess would be blaming his enemies and village people, all such stories belong to the gods!
- Ade, a lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, University of Jos, writes in via [email protected]
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