Three videos that have gone viral on social media hit me badly this week. One was of a teenage boy who lured a friend of his, of the same age, to a place where he would be sacrificed for money. The second video was of the alleged murder of a Nollywood actor (names withheld) by a young man who he was said to have employed and housed as a personal assistant. The guy was said to have axed the actor to death and carted away all his household property, leaving only a ceiling fan. The car security, however, frustrated the alleged plot by the said assistant to drive the late man’s car. The third video was of two boys, aged between 19 and 22, who were videoed in leg chains and were being interrogated. The older one confessed to being a member of a secret cult. He also admitted having lured his fiend into cultism and also of having personally killed three persons before luck ran out on him.
These summaries sound like movie scripts but they are not. In the first video, the two kids were shown in the home of someone who obviously had presented himself as capable of some powers that would transform a human being into money. The boy who lured his friend there was asked the sort of car he would like to drive once the ritual was performed. He was bold enough to say “GLK”. That’s a Mercedes Benz GLK. It is actually a sleek car. His friend who was lured out cried out that he was the “only son” of his parents and that his friend had actually asked him to escort him to buy some clothes. They ended up at the ‘shrine’. The ritual performer could be seen expressing surprise that a boy of that age could express such courage to lure his friend to be used for money ritual. Besides, the little boy’s taste for a “GLK” was benumbing. This is a kid who ought to be in junior or senior secondary school. He already knew of something termed money ritual.
The second video of the alleged murder of a moviemaker also looked like a nasty script. Where on earth, you would ask, did a teen develop the courage to axe his boss to death and move away his household property? Where did he drop the household items? In his private home or with his parents? What exactly did he need the household items for? According to the narration of the video, the guy allegedly failed to move his boss’s car because of the car security. Ask what he would need a car for when he barely has a job that can sustain him. He was housed and fed by his boss who he allegedly axed to death –the corpse was already rotten by the time it was discovered inside his room. Well, he is now on the run, but for how long?
In the third video, you saw two youngsters being interrogated while in leg chains. The background was obviously a police environment. The older of the two confessed to luring his friend into a cult group. He also confessed to personally killing three persons. At under 22 years of age, he has already, and willfully, shed the blood of three humans. H would have shed more had law enforcement not caught up with him. Pray he is not released on fraternal considerations and inducement.
But the issue here, for me, is the question these three scenes ask on the decay of morals in our society. Those three videos have backgrounds set in the southeast of Nigeria. This is a region that once took pride in the dexterity of its people. It was a region that once celebrated the agricultural prowess of its people, leading to such titles as Ezeji (king of yam), etcetera, which were deservedly won and conferred. This is a region that celebrated the versatility of its people in trade and commerce and the educational attainments of its sons and daughters. I grew up as a child hearing moonlight tales about how the gods of the land punished anyone who engaged in such evil deeds as shedding the blood of the innocent or even stealing. My father (of blessed memory), a policeman, was feared by many children in our village because he would not spare the rod and allow a child “spoil” even when you were not his biological child. He would ask questions. He would flog. My twin brother had to answer questions to explain where, and how, he learned how to drive a car when he did not have one. He answered more questions when we managed to drive home, for the first time, with one rickety Peugeot 505, which left Lagos at 5am and got to Dikenafai about 7am the following day, not on account of bad roads. Yes, Inspector asked questions. And, he inspected his children too.
Then, children were owned by the community. Everyone cared for children and somehow monitored their movements. Parents did not mind being tagged wicked in so far as they instilled discipline. Catechism and Bible classes were strictly observed. Church times were respected the same way you respected the commandment ‘thou shall not kill’. Moral lessons in school were not treated like electives. They were mandatory classes. But, sadly, old things have passed away, and regrettably too. Society is now paying for it. It is the sorry story of the dearth of morals in the upbringing of our children.
It is the dearth of morals, propagated by the prosperity gospel of the new era of religiosity, which rarely sees evil beyond ‘village people’ and ‘ancestral spirits’ that are after ones successful ‘blowing’, accentuated by the thinking that hard work is useless and wasteful, that society must hold responsible for the development of the foolish belief that somehow, someone, somewhere can transform a human being, created in the image and likeness of God, into physical cash. It is a mindset problem that has found expression in the gradual failure of parental responsibility. Face the fact: many parents have spared the rod to the detriment of their children. Many children have also been misled by parents who have abdicated their responsibilities, which I believe are divine, to domestic aides. Many kids are also victims of parental pressure to “be like others.” Some parents reading this are guilty of pressuring their kids to also ‘make it’ and begin to shower them with goodies.
I do not hold the keys of hell to determine who will enjoy the heat and who will not. But my instincts tell me that many parents, like those of the kids in the videos I talked about above, may not escape hell for abdicating their responsibilities to those kids, the responsibility dictated in the Holy Book at Proverbs 22.6, “Train a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The amplified Bible says this means “teaching a child to seek God’s wisdom and will for his abilities and talents.”
This also means that parents should lead by example, expose their kids to critical thinking skills, teach them how to love by loving them unconditionally, help them to serve others and humanity, share your faith with them through the scriptures, pray with them, and help them to develop their skills, talents, and faith in God; but, above all, don’t spare the rod when the need arises.