Robbers as ‘Role Model’ of tomorrow’s leaders, by Abdullahi Salihu
Throughout Nigeria’s 67 years of existence , never had it become crystal clear to me that the present and future generation of citizens are living on a borrowed time, a time-bomb, until a resident of a settlement in one of the North-East states narrated to me, an incident that scared me to the marrow.
I had decided to take a walk to the settlement early morning on Saturday, May 11,2024, as part of my routine physical exercise, and, while returning, an elderly member of the community, Malam Musa, offered to escort me back through a foot path. As we trekked, we were discussing the fast-declining moral standard among our youths and the supersonic speed with which the situation continues to degenerate.
As I preoccupied myself, narrating examples of bizarre incidents involving teenage youths, Musa suddenly interrupted me when we got to a spot where some stones were neatly arranged in a straight line across the footpath.
“Take a good look at these stones. I was trekking yesterday Friday, (May 10,2024) around 6am when I saw a small boy of not more than six years, arranging and rearranging the stones. The boy’s parents reside in our settlement and I know his father. Initially, I thought he was just playing but the age of the boy and the inappropriate timing for such play, arose my curiosity to interrogate him. Upon my asking, the boy, probably unaware of the implication of his answer to my question, responded point-black by saying he had blocked the road to rob people”, Musa narrated. According to him, the boy went further to demand for N20 from him.
“I told him I did not have money, just as I sent him away from the spot and reported the matter to his father the following day. Whether his dad acted on my report or not, is what I cannot confirm”, he concluded.
This particular incident reminds me of a notorious robber, called Yemo-Yemo (alias flog-them-all), interviewed by NTA national station in 1980s. When asked how long he had been robbing innocent people, he raised his head, trying to recollect the year he started, and his response was as follows:- “Dis THIEF WORK; make I think di time I start dis THIEF WORK; na wen I start dis WORK sef,” he responded in pidgin English, just as he cracked his brain for an answer.
Precisely 40 years after bandit Yemo-Yemo had described robbing people as WORK, this child had decided to specialise in this THIEF WORK as a future career.
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Another shocking incident involving an adolescent, was the stabbing of a girl by a nine year-old boy. Elder sister to the boy had gotten entangled in a brawl with another girl of her age. Upon getting to the scene, the boy dashed to their house nearby, rushed out with a sharp knife, and stabbed the opponent of his sister. Mercifully, the knife landed on the victim’s hand instead of her targeted ribs. To everybody’s shock and disbelief, mother of the culprit then came out, boasting that nothing would happen to her child.
Although these incidents are true life happenings.I deliberately concealed names of the State and town where they occurred because minors were involved. I also felt that in fairness, the State and its other indigenes do not deserve a share of this bad image. However, I still felt the need to bring to the fore, examples of such bizarre incidents involving adolescents, if only to awaken all and sundry on the dangers ahead.
With passage of time, incidents of such miniature brigandage and terrorism involving minors have become common in most states of the Federation, but because minors were involved, such cases had gone unreported.Most times, culprits are spared because of their ages, and even when victims tried to press for a case, they are always reminded that there was age barrier.
There was never a time, since the creation of man, when, a ‘utopian’ situation was attained with regards ensuring the security of lives and property, but at that time, certain criminal acts used to have a ‘naturally delineated age entry requirement’.
In the distant past, an entire community would have been shocked to the marrow upon hearing that a nine year-old boy had the liver to stab a human-being with a sharp knife. Also, it would have been a similar shock for a six year-old to appreciate, even in the wildest of all dreams, criminal activities of robbers, not to talk of mimicking same by a child that had just graduated from sucking his mother’s breast.
The red light had been flicking for long but the society had remained complacent over the warning light. For a toddler to elevate robbers to the status of ‘role models’, is like crossing the ‘red line’.
When the late literary icon, Prof. Chinua Achebe, published his classical novel, Things Fall Apart, drawing the topic from W.B Yeat’s poem, little did the then generation know that the depicted decline in socio-cultural and moral ethics as captured in the novel, would be an understatement, with the passage of time. So fast is the decline, that most parents, hitherto regarded years bygone as the custodians of moral standards, have continuously abdicated this delicate responsibility. One remembers with nostalgia when as kids, everybody’s father is your father and your father is everybody’s father. But when things started falling apart with aggressive speed, parents started shirking in their responsibilities. Now that the needed salvation is not forthcoming because of the heap of mess that got piled up as a result of the failure of the society, the blame is surreptitiously being heaped on government and law enforcement agents.
Years bygone, people collectively reported cases of deviant characters to the authorities after all internal remedies had been exhausted. With time, nonchalance stepped in, and as the decadence deteriorated, culprits started getting shielded by the society itself, or parents in particular. As a journalist who worked for 35 years, crisscrossing many states of the Federation, I had come across many instances of criminals being shielded by either their parents or neighbours. Under such situation, whoever did the needful by exposing the criminal, stood the risk of jeopardising his or her personal safety.
Therefore, while not exonerating leadership of the society, a bulk of the challenge has its root from the nonchalant attitude of parents towards the moral upbringing of their wards, right from adolescence.
But hope is not yet completely lost as there is still a sign of light deep beneath the tunnel.
Last month, Kaduna Police Command announced the arrest of a youth who allegedly stole motorcycle and brought same to his father. The father, who was aware of the financial capacity of his son, became suspicious and alerted the Police. Upon interrogation, it was discovered that the motorcycle was stolen from another town by his son and brought to Kaduna. Sadly, this shinning example of ‘close-circuit’ parenting did not receive the desired attention as not even the name of the father was divulged.
Attempts by yours sincerely to secure the name of this man of principle, continued to hit the rock, until I gave up. Eulogising this man publicly and rewarding his exemplary behaviour, would have provided the impetus that would drive a repeat of similar behaviour from others. Most parents would have acquiesced to this illegality for fear of the shame that will follow the raising of an alarm, or for the benefit of the largesse. Unfortunately, our model father hardly received the necessary publicity boom that would transform him to a “national role model”, thereby leaving the space for “roll-model bandits” to continue stealing the show, albeit informally, as seen in the case of the six year-old adolescent. (ENDS)
Abdullahi Salihu, a veteran journalist, is based in Damaturu, Yobe State.
