By Comrade Ogbu A, Ameh
The Ostrich mentality depicts a high level of animal mentality as lacking intelligence and incapable of rationalization. In human society, it is culture and religion that creates such mentality reducing the capacity of the human mind to think intelligently and rationalize logically.
Hence, culture and religion are core factors in the causes of poverty among others. The tendencies of indoctrination inherent in culture and religion trap human minds in deficits that impede on their capacity to think outside the box.
Trapped in this cycle of deficit, people are being exploited, seduced and controlled by the elites to achieve their selfish ends. The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamide Sanusi in his intellectual sound mind devoid of culture and religious parochialism saw through these follies. He has appealed to northerners to change their attitude to marriage and child bearing. He urged then to marry only the numbers of wives and produce the number of children they can adequately cater for in the interest of themselves, the nation and the entire nation.
He reiterated that he had no quarrel with anyone who undertook a family he had capacity for. He explained that if you can maintain and educate as many as you can, else marry and produce the number of children you can maintain and take care of.
He noted that only children brought up with close parental love and care could have value to themselves and the larger society. He stressed, “We are obsessed by number as anything produced en masse is cheap. We have produced all these children like commodities; they are there on the street and that is why they die and people do not care.” He called on northern leaders to seriously look at the failure of social policy in the region, including altitude to marriage, early marriage, family planning, polygamy, and divorce, rights of a child over the parents and the responsibilities of fathers.
He averred that, many northerners feel that a father is anyone who is able to produce a child and parenting is all about biological reproduction and not about proper upbringing. From the viewpoint of a seasoned Banker, policy maker, scholar and leader, the Emir has been able to break the barrier of culture and religion to expose the half buried ostrich head in the sand.
His advocacy is a mere re-echoing of past and continuing concerted efforts by Non-governmental organizations, private sector, scholars and foundations to refocus attention of northern state governments to social policy, schools, teachers, equipment and scholarship.
The wind has been blowing to expose the fowl’s anus like the folly of the giant ostrich bird. It exerts energy on hiding it head that perches on a very long neck and always exposed to the full glare of the people. What a folly though, that a society would trap its people in the vicious cycle of poverty in the name of culture and religion. Who then is to blame for the abject poverty ravaging the northern part of Nigeria? We are living in a Judgment Day as we witness the dire consequence of a people forced to live in the past even when the world changes at the speed of sound. It is a clear case of Clash of Culture as they tried to recreate old identities that are fast fading into oblivion.
Must the world stand still or maul culture and religion on its way as change remains the only constant phenomenon in life? It is a herculean struggle between conservatism and liberalism and the land and its inhabitants live to bear the brunt.
Comrade Ameh writes from Owukpa Akatekwe Kingdom of Ogbadibo LGA of Benue State. He can be reached via onwaters2011@gmail.com
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