This is meant to be a rhetorical and vexed question. The intention is to cause sustained introspection and profound debate. With rising wave of crime occasioned principally by fallen interest in, and peanut reward for, education, coupled with the crash of moral standards, the time has come for parents and guardians to scamper back to the drawing board. If our wards carry on the way they do now when we are still alive and watching, it is not rocket science to second-guess that we would leave behind a society in horrible trouble. Just why would an alarming majority of children of this generation turn out as bête-noire carbon copies of who and what their parents are not, have never been and openly condemn?

Since we live in a world where we almost always have to blame something or someone for our failures and failings, it makes sense at this early juncture to say that the home, school, place of worship, friends and the media (in that order) are responsible in whole for who children grow into. The five-some can make or mar any budding adult, as they wield tremendous influence on old people let alone young minds. As a parent or guardian, what kind of environment have you provided for your children? Is your home a warfront, the centre of shameful language and conduct?

What examples do you preach or show, directly and indirectly? Do you teach, like Abraham Lincoln desperately wanted his son’s teacher to note, that failing is nobler than cheating? What do you know about such eternal virtues as forgiveness, honesty, diligence, humility, respect and altruism? When it comes to friends, how am I sure that you don’t fall among the class of parents and guardians whose children must pick only from wealthy families; or concerning career choices, must aim to be like the son or daughter of A, B, C? And, media-wise, do you run your home as the headquarters of laissez-faire, where anything goes?

These are red flags in child grooming, but they pale into insignificance when taken side by side with the role of the school and the place of worship. What is really going on at these two spots where children spend a greater chunk of their ‘parentless periods of the day’? My undercover findings have left me with permanent goose pimples. If parents and the authorities are not ready to rescue our future leaders from the stranglehold of teachers who teach them arrant nonsense (apologies, Fela) during lessons and worship, then, Nollywood must take up the challenge of showing the way. The rot is frightening. The fear is real!

There’s no way we would plant grapes and hope to rake in a harvest of apples. With poor schools, half-baked teachers and low-quality priests being charged with the responsibility of panel-beating our children into models, our society would be waiting for Godot if we believe, as I know we do, that most of these youngsters are being fed with academic and spiritual nutrients that meet global best practice. Wake up, daddy, stop sleeping, mummy; we have been living a lie. This is no crying wolf. Well, no, that’s not what to say. It should have been that this is no crying wolf when and where there’s none; because indeed this is crying wolf where and when there is. Our society must rise up today and with eyes wide open to examine both under-the-table and on-the-table proceedings in our classrooms and worship places.

Perhaps, most of these centres of academic and spiritual learning would not draw blanks. That will be good news, but, trust me, you would find a few very bad ones. That indeed is where the problem is, we even have a handful of educational and religious institutions driving against the traffic of their mandate and our expectations. The danger of that scenario is that, no matter how many good children are churned out by the many good schools, churches and mosques, the few bad eggs laid by the few exact opposites of these grooming citadels would cause enough untold havoc to go round.

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Isn’t that the current reality when princes walk the streets while slaves are on horseback and Satan’s incarnates pose as God’s ministers? Who produced them? I know the answer, and I can readily share it with you. These monsters were certified by our schools and ordained by our churches or mosques after the extremely weak foundations laid in them by families, friends and the media. Suddenly, we find more brilliant persons outside the classroom, more godly people outside the church or mosque.

Parents, guardians and the authorities should stand up to their responsibility today. While parents should restore child-raising to its pride of place rather than the proxy arrangement that career and money and power have colluded to force on our society, government at every stratum should bring up policies and strict implementation strategies allowing official invasion of schools, churches and mosques. Let us check them out, unawares, and shut down those found wanting. They are too many to be ignored. By the way, this is not a call for registration of these places. Rather, this is about monitoring them 25 hours daily. God bless Nigeria!

A rascally old sheriff is in town

A few days after ex-Borno State governor, Sen. Ali Modu-Sheriff, was ‘PDPishly’ made national chairman last year, I publicly sided with him, on my Facebook page. I thought then that it was wrong for those who opposed him not to give him a chance. Again, in the middle of the ensuing crisis, I also wrote an unpublished piece entitled “does PDP not have even one good head?” Former President Goodluck Jonathan may have been in the spirit when he stood up to be counted, last week.

As the internecine quagmire approaches its final stages, willy nilly, it behoves me to have what should be my last say. By arriving late to that Jonathan peace meeting and thereafter leading a walkout by his team, Modu Sheriff has proved party faithful like Femi Fani-Kayode, who always resisted his leadership, absolutely right. It is a crying shame that a man who once held the high office of governor would carry on like a spoilt brat. Let him continue to fight the lousy fight. If the party dies in his hands, his children and children’s children shall live with the burden of history.

Go on, Your Excellency, Mr. National Chair, fight on. Destroy everything: the peace, the party, the polity. Our hearts will asterisk your face and name for posterity. Shame!