By Tilly Barrie
Please help out in accessing the strength of the present day society as compared to those of yesteryears. What is it like today would you say? More or less trustworthy, helpful, punctual or responsible? Is it more reliable or better organised? I think things are getting worse.
I sometimes wonder what is responsible for the eyesore attitude and behaviour of our present day society especially the younger folks. I believe that in large part the parents are responsible. Most parents are not role models to their children because of the sheer manner in which they behave to the seeing of their kids. Our attitude and behaviour at home, in offices and in public is deplorable and does not reflect our status.
The life style of some parents in front of their children, such as our pornographic and sex life acts, the use of indecent and abusive language, vulgar expressions and dress code, lie-telling and cheating leaves a lot to be desired. How can one curb teenage pregnancy, under the prevailing circumstance when uncensored licentious movies are accessible to our children even to our knowledge? We keep pampering our children just to show off, until unfortunately they spin out of control.
Parents have turned school sports and recreational activities into picnics, even asking friends to join them. Parents accompany their children to public examination centres, to the point of even interfering with the conduct of the exams. They make lavish parties for the children, take them to picnics, beaches and conclaves; dress them unnecessarily gorgeously and teach them to live like the Joneses, incurring huge debts in the process.
Such a lifestyle once embedded in a child, grows up in them as they grow up with them and they tend to want to continue to live it by hook or by crook. You can guess where such people end up in.
Some people turn a blind eye to the behaviour of some children for fear that if they dare make a corrective comment the parents of such children go up in arms against them saying: “nor to you born am for me, na for im are dae wok’’. Loosely translated to mean “I gave birth to them and can care for them, which is why I work”.
I recall that Nathaniel A.P. Buck, the then Minister of Education was summarily sacked by President Siaka Stevens for causing the detention by police of a teacher who asked the class to shame his grown up child for habitually urinating on herself in class.
The freedom of this, the freedom of that, is being abused day in and day out, thereby creating headache for the law enforcement officers and sleepless nights for responsible citizens.
FREEDOM! FREEDOM! YES FREEDOM!!!
Yes we all want it, but at what cost and what level.
Child rights come with child responsibilities. But they seem to be paying more attention to the former and completely ignore the latter.
Does freedom give the right to a driver to be talking on their phone while driving, or disrupting the smooth flow of traffic, or driving heedlessly especially along the roads linking Brook Fields Bus Stop to Lumley Police Station.
Does this freedom allow taxi and ‘poda poda’ drivers to add extra cushions on the driver’s seat, dress scantily and filthily, play loud music and tolerate or even encourage their apprentices to behave rudely to passengers?
It seems the doubling of taxi fares, and ‘poda poda’ drivers cutting short their destination has become the order of the day with nothing being done about it.
This also goes for vehicles and boats plying the provincial routes where human beings are herded together with goats, sheep, chickens and all sorts of foodstuff.
In all of these, the passengers’ rights are limited to only when being coaxed to board the vehicle.
Oh, lest I should forget, the bike ‘’okada’’ riders are the worst offenders of the traffic rules. They ignore traffic signals, ride against the traffic, on pavements, dribbling dangerously between vehicles in motion to the extent that they are now nicknamed ‘enemies of the state.’
They overtake left and right of stationary and moving vehicles.
All of this is done in the presence of, sometimes with the approval, of the police. No wonder there are allegations of police connivance with these drivers and that most of these bikes are owned by police officers.
Riding on the tail board? Oh yes, a common practice now by the physically challenged, roller skaters, rallies and promotional parades.
I believe the bye laws passed by the last city council administration to control the operations of all entertainment centres are still in place. Among other things they regulate their operations as to the volume of the music they play, their hours of operation and the behaviour of their customers. There is so much criminality in and around some of these so-called entertainment centres. Their owners, traders and the police know the criminals and their hideouts.
An expensive chain was snatched from the neck of a Lebanese lady at night along Sani Abacha Street. Her husband assured that he would get it back for her. The taxi driver and I accompanied him down to one of the dungeons at Big Wharf. After going through some go-betweens he gave them some money, and to our surprise, the exact chain was handed over to him.
The laptop of one NGO worker was snatched whilst driving along the Lumley roundabout. He reported the theft to the police, sweet talked them, and his laptop was recovered within an hour.
Are we turning a blind eye to these happenings? This is the society we live in now where money, power and connection are the order of the day.
© Politico 22/08/13
