By Barrister Monkey Jacket

Hardly a week goes by that we are not met with unfortunate stories on the social media about Nigerians losing their lives to the hands of other Nigerians who are on a quest to get rich by all means, from the recent BRT abduction and killing of Bamise in Lagos, to the discovery of the decomposing body of five year old Hanifa Abubakar who was kidnapped and killed by her principal in Kano, to a seventeen year old boy caught burning the head of his girlfriend for alleged money ritual, to the boy who tried to kill his mother, to Yahoo boys performing ritualistic ceremonies in a bid to get rich and impress/oppress other members of the society.

Which begs the question, what is the reason for the steady decline of moral values in our today’s world? I concur with Anwar Syed, who in his article ‘Decline of moral values’ said “…one reason for the decline of moral values may be the monetization of cultures. There is a greater inclination now to measure a man’s worth proportionately to his material possessions. He will be well received if he owns a fleet of cars and lives in a mansion, even if he was once a high school dropout and has remained essentially unlettered”

If you ask my mum, she will say it is because there is no longer home training from the family that’s why a child would go outside and feel intimidated with the show of wealth from his peers and want to do everything possible to belong, because the family whose primary responsibility is molding the ethics, morals and values of a child have also abandoned their duties for search of money. While I agree that the family has a role in the decline of moral values in the society, I disagree that they are the only cause of it

If you ask me, the school, religious center, peer groups, media, and our leaders all have an equal and important role to play in determining if a society has respect for moral values or not. When preferential treatment is given to those with materialistic possession then apparently, you encourage other members of the society to go on a quest for material possession and not moral values like a name, integrity, patriotism, justice, never hurting anyone and the likes. “That is why we are where we are”

In today’s world, known criminals with wealth are being ordained with chieftaincy title, parents buy grades for children at school, or harass a teacher or principal for disciplining their children because of the parent’s status in the society, some even go as far as to dress their female kids with revealing dresses. There are only a handful of ladies who would date a guy for who he is and not for his material possession, the majority of them prefer to chill with the big boys, who have cars, houses and a wallet filled with money to take care of their needs as dey no come this world to suffer, this in turn puts pressure on the male, even to the growing teenager who now feels he has to be financially buoyant to get the woman of his dreams or to be truly respected in the society, all this has led to the death of respect for moral values amongst our youths of today.

In my humble opinion, to avoid the further moral decay in our society, the Government must come up with a National Philosophy that would be embedded in our educational system which would be taught from toddler stage to the highest level of learning in our country in a bid to get our young ones re-oriented in the right values. Parents have to pay more attention to what goes into the mind and learning faculty of a child, they must be cautious about the things they do or say in the presence of their children, for you cannot continually lie and pretend to your spouse to the seeing eye of a child and expect a different result from that child when he/she grows up. Our Religious centers must play their role in instilling moral values in their members through their preaching and doctrines, and reduce focus on prosperity.

Nigerians who through hard work, commitment and integrity have accomplished something in their little area of expertise should be celebrated more in the media, and not stories of an awaiting inmate for murder who won a beauty pageant in a correctional facility, even our so called video skit that finishes our data nowadays should pass messages of ethics and morality and not sexual proclivities.

When the moral values of a society declines, the level of crime increases, as such, we as a people must collectively decide the kind of society we want our unborn children to meet, and do something deliberate to avoid the consequences of a society with moral decadence.

Godspeed!

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