The 'Africanness' in us is dying, and
we're not doing anything about it. It's
like a war we're fighting in our
subconscious minds but inadvertently,
we are losing. The multiplier effect of
the loss is gradually shaping up and
wont to consume us all. Are we not
afraid of an era when respect will be
erased from our societal values? Or
where responsibilities will be left to the
individual to bear? Well, it's already
happening and we have ourselves to
blame.
I think it’s a ploy, neatly carved by the
influence of globalization and hurriedly
gulped, first by our elite, and then
anyone who wants to join them. Who
doesn’t? The need to make a mark in
the family, struggle to make some
money, build mansions, buy flashy cars,
send our wards to the best schools
around and prepare a befitting burial
for ourselves even while we are alive
have always been in the minds of most
of us, not all of us. The latter group of
persons who champion the common
good of the people and whose lives are
dedicated towards solving problems and
fixing things in the society is getting less
and less popular.
One particular area I wish to point out
is in the way we build houses these days
and partly also, how we raise our
children. The normal African setting is
the extended family, not the nuclear
one. As a scholar had argued that the
basic difference in the societal set up in
Africa and the Western World is that
the basic unit of the former is the
Extended Family, while the latter has
the 'individual' as its basic unit, some
have argued further that it is also the
nuclear family in the West. Well, I don’t
intend to join in the debate. One
criticism for sure is that whether
Christian or Muslim or those without
faith in any of the religions, Africans
are only, and I mean, only known for
the extended family life, not the nuclear
one.
Perhaps you might be wondering where
I am going with this. It's pretty simple.
The houses we build these days are
mainly for our nuclear family and each
nuclear family branches out from the
extended one. It has now become
normal for a member of the family to
disintegrate from the extended family
once he's established. He takes his wife
and children out of the 'family house'
and goes out either renting an
apartment or building his own. This
automatically lead to a disintegration in
the family structure and before you
know it, my cousins and I are like
strangers at a bus stop, or better still,
we fight over a queue in bank before
remembering our roots. Some cant even
remember their family history… I could
go on.
Now it has to be said, there may be
practical reasons why the need to move
out of the family compound may be
necessary. Things do not go as we plan
always and moving out may become
inevitable, at least for survival
purposes. This is not however to give
justification to every reason at all,
because in all, we should at least think
of the negative impacts. I'll like to go
religion for starters. When Churches or
Mosques break up into other units, side
by side or within the same vicinity, it
causes a sort of complexity even for the
members who offer prayers in them.
The idea with both religion is to have a
common place, say one in a particular
area where everyone converge, meet,
exchange ideas, assist one another in
their affairs etc. But once we break it
up, and in the alarming rate with which
churches and mosques are springing up,
we may not only have nuclear families
all abound, but nuclear places of
worship as well. I will like to paint a
picture of every household having its
own mosque or church and those
worshipping in it are only the parents
and children, maybe with the security
guard. God forbid.
The dangers we felt we were 'running'
from when we chose to cut our ties with
the extended family are issues our
predecessors faced and they survived.
Surviving in a similar situation could
call for some adaptations, yes I agree,
but we should make it work. Agreed that
our population is exploding and there is
the need to move, but we can still make
it work. I don’t have to build a mansion
that could accommodate a hundred and
live in it alone where there are family
members in tens sharing hallowed
rooms. Don’t get me wrong, we
necessarily need some space sometimes.
But if at all the four R's (Respect,
Reciprocity, Restraint and
Responsibility) which have given our
societal values an edge over the
individualistic stance of the Western
world can be understood as our
stronghold to our values, then a rethink
needs to be done before we find
ourselves living on the streets of New
York.

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