A video has gone viral of the Imo State Commissioner for Education, Professor Bernard Ikegwuoha, rebuking a Catholic priest for making children kneel for coming late. According to the professor, he has banned ‘corporate’ punishment.
Was the Catholic priest in the wrong to ask pupils to kneel as some form of corrective punishment for late coming, or was an overzealous government busybody out to make his mark at the wrong time and at the wrong place with the 2027 election painfully close?
The moral decadence of this generation has coincided with the gradual relaxation of rules at home and in school. It appears that these days children can do anything and get away with anything. While it is critically important that child abuse should not be tolerated in any form, it is imperative that a balance is struck between discipline and indulgence. Why is this?
Nigeria faces a reckoning. All over the country, from one state to another, insecurity has become an almost insoluble problem. With insecurity proving such a waking nightmare for everyday Nigerians, other crimes have benefitted from finding space in public space. A lot of these crimes are being committed by young people.
Take internet fraud, for instance. With many young Nigerians becoming increasingly computer savvy, internet fraud has gained notoriety as an increasingly attractive outlet for their highly technical computer skills. The appurtenant crimes and the damage done to Nigeria’s image abroad are taking an incalculable toll on the country.
Again, Nigeria’s worst-kept secret is the fact that many of the bandits terrorizing Nigerians today are conscripted from the almost limitless pool of Nigeria’s out-of-school children who flock to the North. These children come from homes where all the parents know how to do is copulate, conceive, and give birth without as much as lifting a finger in training.
Again, those fueling Nigeria’s leadership problems are Nigerians themselves. They are not aliens who have come from some distant planet. They are older Nigerians who were once young and now have many young Nigerians supporting them.
Everything going wrong in Nigeria today points to a collapse of discipline among children and young adults at home and in school. The failure largely begins at home, where parents who lack discipline themselves cannot logically give what they do not have. Their failure to summon the courage to instruct and correct their children ends up unleashing beasts on helpless and hapless school teachers who can only do their bit before the children find their way into the society where there are all sorts of venomous roles reserved for all sorts of villains.
Today, many of the bandits roaming Nigeria’s forests doing unspeakable things to their victims are children and young people. Internet fraud has also recruited many young people who are gradually learning the ropes before graduating full-time into a lifetime of defrauding people and painting Nigeria black as a crime-ridden country of criminals. All these point to a disconcerting disconnect between children, young people, and those who must discipline them. The link is broken, and that rupture is costing Nigeria dearly.It will be ugly and uncomfortable, but Nigeria must return to teaching its children and young people non-negotiable discipline no matter the cost and sacrifice. It is the only way to preclude an impending national disaster.
Ike Willie-Nwobu is a policy practitioner and social thinker. He can be reached at Ikewilly9@gmail.com.
