Follow Us on Google
Michael happened to be the last child of a close family friend, who we all knew struggled so much in secondary school because we all belonged to the same Parents Teachers Association (PTA). His widowed mother fought hard and paid for extra classes for him to meet up academically. With time, they all graduated from school and went their separate ways.
When Mrs. Baruwa and I met years ago, and I asked after Michael, his mother told me he had travelled to Canada. It was a good one. Though not sounding jealous, I simply asked her, ‘Who is he keeping up with, how is he coping in the new environment? With so many what, why and how to be answered, she ended the discussion and we parted ways.
Without seeming to castigate the issue of travelling outside the country to study, most parents need to look before they leap. At times, my personal view about the whole idea of studying outside the country looks like that of the Sower in the bible. Some of the seeds fell on good soil, some fell among the thorns, some by the wayside and eaten by birds and some on stony ground. I related to parable to the practice of sending a multitude of youths in their teens to live alone and study in a foreign country.
No one would blame any parent who can afford to send his or her child out of the country for further studies. The situation at home is not encouraging at all. We have a situation where the government pays little or no attention to the nation’s future leaders. The same youths are slaughtered daily through insecurity in the land; a country where students would be at home for several months because of strikes by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the authorities remain indifferent. When two elephants (Federal Government and ASUU) fight, the students and their parents become the grass that suffers. In some of the so-called federal universities, the libraries have no books, thereby hindering, literature research by both students and lecturers and impeding the ability to engage in global intellectual competitions.
The country’s health sector is itself sick and practically comatose as the elite engage in medical tourism, while the poor pray and look up to God for divine healing. With every sector of the economy collapsing and the free fall of the naira inflicting increasing hardship on the citizenry, hundreds of thousands of them are in a mad rush to leave the country for greener pastures, including African countries.
This has created what is known in local parlance as japa syndrome, which has been trending among the country’s youths and even adults. In the face of the worsening situation and uncertainties, many parents are scrambling to send their young children abroad, and nobody has the moral fibre to blame them. How dare you try it?
That said, there is a germane question: how often do the parents check on the child? Who looks after that child in a foreign land? Who constantly reminds the youngster to get back to his roots at the end of his studies? With how well-organized foreign country and their society are, with a responsible system that does not eat her own, the ‘deja-vous’ and the free-handed lifestyle associated with the foreign land, how many of these parents can beat their chest and say their children would return and be part of this society again? Some might find it so difficult to adapt, while some who have experienced this gruesome pain might throw in the towel and say good riddance to bad rubbish! To some, it might be an escape route and final goodbye to the land of birth, at least to be alive instead of experiencing untimely death. Though some in all honesty would have sent their children to get the best opportunity life could offer, not knowing that their case would be that of a complete lost generation. To prove this fact, one of the most accomplished men we knew while growing up sent some of his beautiful daughters to the United States for further studies. But regretted the decision until he died. Dr. Ericson and his wife, Martha, were more than an average family, blessed with six girls and a boy. His two daughters Edith (named after his mother) and Mercy were the foremost set that travelled to the US in the early 80s after secondary school from Unity colleges in the Southeast. After 40 years in the US, all Edith did was give birth to children with six different men, put the children up for adoption and live as a ‘Yankee’. She has never visited Nigeria since she left the country. Has her family not lost her? Is she not part of the people that are classified as lost generation? Assuming she was in Nigeria, attended one of the universities, secured a job either in a private or public establishment, probably married and raised her children, would she be described as part of the lost generation? Again, apart from their half-baked foreign imbibed culture and lifestyle, most parents who trod this route years back are in utter regret to date. This is the kind of story one hears during the programmes of Zion Ministry in Okota, Lagos. A good number of the attendees happen to be Nigerians from the diaspora, especially America and Europe. With what they have seen in their children who were raised in foreign countries, they are not happy parents at all. This realisation drives them to seek divine solutions at the Pentecostal ministry. They are beginning to trace their routes home, especially to see how their grown children could be delivered from all manner of irresponsible conduct and acts of hooliganism.
At such opportunities, the Spiritual Director of Zion Ministry, Evangelist Ebuka Obi, would applaud parents who are in total control of their homes and chide those who are in charge of their homes and children in foreign countries. Some of the children, even under the supervision of their parents grow bigger than them and live their lives the way they want. Dr. Johnson cried out from a foreign country and said “I would have ended my life in prison if my daughter had not run away immediately. Ella is a final-year student of Mechatronics Engineering. We were all proud of her academic feat; while also waiting for the D-day because she had introduced a young man sometime ago. I got a call from her that she would bring a fiance for me to give final consent. As an Igbo man, I was filled with joy and was preparing myself, looking out for a worthy gift, contemplating what would be a suitable wedding gift for a worthy daughter. On a certain Saturday morning, my own Ella appeared with a fellow lady and introduced her as her husband-to-be. I quickly went into my room and pulled out my long knife to end her life give myself up to the police and then rot in jail. So, I would be counted as one of the lost generations of this world. How many young Africans especially Nigerian boys are cooling off in various prisons in foreign countries and might never even come out again?
Today there is concern about the growing of autism in foreign countries. From the grapevine, it got so bad that Africans began investigating the medications given to pregnant women in foreign countries because out of every 10 newborns, four would turn out to be autistic and become a source of worry for most newly married Africans whose culture means, marry and procreate.
So many have been left with heart-breaking stories of poor conduct of children raised in foreign lands. A father would work so hard and send his child to have better life opportunities, only to receive a snake instead of fish when the time comes. Some do not even attend their father’s funeral for whatever reason. The Okagbare sons refused to come home for their father’s funeral because of insecurity which became an opportunity for Mr. Bonny, their father’s secretary who was the arbiter between his boss’ children and the council of elders, to build a mansion for himself from the money the boys send for their father’s funeral.
Nigerian parents who desire to send their teenage children overseas, where they will reside without supervision, should think twice. Sending your children abroad is a good idea, but look before you leap. Ask yourselves many questions because the Igbo say that one gives birth for his name to stand. Sons are given the name, Ahamefula, which means, my name will not be erased (lost) from the lineage of my community or kindred.
