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In those days, parents went out of their way to make enquiries before accepting any girl brought to them by their son for marriage. Girls had so much respect for themselves that men went through hell just to get them. But as Chinua Achebe succinctly put it, things have really fallen apart.
Today, before a man asks that first question, “will you marry me,” the girl has already moved in and become acting wife. They first get pregnant before taking the man to their parents. In my own culture, it is a taboo for a girl to get pregnant outside marriage. I feel ashamed as an Igbo girl when I see parents accept dowry from a man with their daughter heavily pregnant. Our parents have now lost their conscience and trampled on the values handed down to us by our forefathers all because of greed.
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A man meets a woman in Lagos and instantly gets so blinded by her beauty that he starts professing love without trying to know anything about her. Some of these girls act so nicely just to get the man to propose before they show their true colour.
You dated a man, saw all that you are seeing now and never bothered checking out his background, but decided to marry him because your biological clock was ticking. Now you are living in regrets. When I hear people talk about how much of a failure their partners are, I always let them know that those character flaws were there during their dating period, but they were too blind and lost in infatuation.
Back to the issue at hand; it is a pity that the elders in our society who should be guiding us and helping to put us back on track are actually the ones destroying us. This is the problem we have in Nigeria. We are a people without elders. The young ones are dancing naked in the market place and the elders are there enjoying the dance of shame while some of them have actually joined in the dance. We have no elder in our dear nation as everyone is after his pocket. Our politicians have no ideologies as they are nothing but political harlots.
Nobody cares about his name and reputation any longer. Everyone wants to make it the fastest way.
The women are also not helping our men. Every woman wants to be identified with a man of means. We all want to get married to multi-millionaires. We don’t care how the wealth was acquired. Our women are no longer ready to start life from the scratch with a man. I don’t mean a lazy man; a man with a vision.
The men are now being forced to get into many evil things just to get wealthy and be accepted by the society. Chieftaincy titles are now being given to criminals and ritual killers all because they have some dirty money to throw around. Thieves and people without values are now occupying our political offices. This is why we have governors flog people on the road and do so many evils through their office. It wasn’t surprising seeing our legislators fight and others arraigned for bribery scandal because that is what we bargain for when we fail to elect responsible and cultured people into offices but chose to have rascals in there.
Our religious leaders are not helping matters either, as they choose fame in place of integrity. In the churches and mosques, we see thieves, drug barons, 419 kingpins, corrupt politicians and ritual killers being given the front seats. They are the elders, knights, deacons and deaconesses in our churches. We see people who have sacrificed years in the service of God and done wonderful things for their faith, but no one recognizes them because they don’t have much to spend. A pastor of a particular church in Agidingbi area of Lagos anoints computers for his members who are fraudsters to enable them have more “mugun.” They all know what their members do and are afraid to talk to avoid losing them because that would mean a drop in the amount realized as tithes and pledges.
Our leaders are in their different offices stealing as if there is no tomorrow. The masses are dying daily due to bad roads and hunger while our leaders, the people we elected into political offices, are enriching themselves. What has happened to the dreams of our fathers—the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa? I am sure their hearts are bleeding in their graves because what we have now is not the Nigeria they dreamt of and fought for.
Young men and, sadly, women, have gone into drugs. They sacrifice their lives and name at the altar of mammon. What could make a woman, a mother to the nation, decide to swallow drugs even with pregnancy? Do we now have our conscience completely sealed up that we don’t even bother about our unborn child? I know of one who did this and ended up having her baby, an imbecile in jail over there in the UK. It was so bad that the mother who was in support of her daughter’s involvement in drugs went all over the place visiting native doctors to secure her release.
I know times are hard and our so-called leaders have lost their conscience, but like Daniel, we shouldn’t defile ourselves with the king’s meat no matter what comes our way.
This is what our society has suddenly become. What do we expect from the younger generation when our mothers and fathers are the ones behind the evil? A fan recently told me a story about his first time in one of the nude clubs in Lagos. He said he couldn’t help shouting when he saw a man in his seventies brought to the nude club by his son. This shameless old man was laughing so loud that people looked at him as a very stupid old man.
A friend called me some time ago after his cousin’s traditional marriage and told me how happy the parents of the girl were as they gave their daughter out in marriage to a popular 419 kingpin. He later asked to be sure they knew what they were doing and that was when he found out that the father of the bride never knew anything about the man he gave his daughter to. Few months later, the man was arrested in connection with a kidnap case and has since been in police custody. What then becomes the fate of the girl if eventually the husband is jailed?
I employed a cousin of mine after so much pleading from her mum. Just three months of her coming into my business, her parents started making so many demands from her. The father sent her texts asking for money for a chieftaincy title while the mother continued asking for money for clothes and other items. This made her steal about half a million from us and borrowed so much from my clients. We got to the office one morning to realize she had gone and now she is back to the village doing nothing.
Our traditional rulers were known for uprightness and truth. But what do we have in our society today? Fraudsters, drug barons, kidnappers and robbers as our community leaders! They come out and speak against kidnapping when in reality they are the ones behind the killings and robberies.
2015 is coming. Unless God intervenes, we will have bloodshed on daily basis because our politicians are so devilish that some of them have to kill to get into that position. What do we expect when we have people visit the popular Okija Shrine for power? I recently heard of a governor who had to bury a hundred cows alive in the middle of the night just to get to where he is today. People are killed once they declare their interest to run for political offices. I just pity girls who are so gullible that they need money for lace wigs and blackberry at all cost. Many of them die after sleeping with these monsters we call leaders.
Recently, a young man came to me with so much heaviness in his heart. In his thirties, he has a job and doesn’t want to stain his hands for wealth, he said, but his parents would not even regard him as a son because his younger brother made so much money through 419. He had made up his mind to go into drugs and fraud because he wanted to make it like his brother so as to regain his place in the family. I thank God that after a very long discussion with him, he promised never to soil his hands.
Guys, you can make all that money today and by tomorrow you are no more. One thing is, no matter how much you make through any wrong means, you will still die an unhappy person. There is nothing like one having a peaceful exit from this life; there is nothing like your children being honoured years to come because of your good deeds while alive.
The greatest legacy you can leave for generations after you is that of truth and integrity. A good name, they say, is better than all the riches in this world!
-Amara (08033832503, Email: amara@amarablessing.com)
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