Kyke Davies engaged me on phone yesterday for more than 20 minutes on the need to speak out more about our society. It is pathetic that parents have abdicated their responsibilities of raising children right. Since some of us have significant following, we can use the platform to teach and educate. I agree with her. I have been doing that for a decade now and I will not stop.

I know most of us and those before us, were taught and raised right. Somehow, most of us did not pass it on to our children. Now, we have Ajantalas (petulant Veruca Salt Children) all over the place. The issue of Tacha on Big Brother Nigeria (BBN) is a case study. I do not watch BBN. Outside CNN, History Chanel and the likes, I don’t venture. I am actually poor at watching TV. My TV is on, only to catch breaking news. So, I had no idea who Tacha is until a few days ago when I read she was DISQUALIFIED. Even DSTV understood the damage her win could have done to their brand.

I understand, that my morality is not your morality. I also appreciate that we cannot legislate morality or behavior but we also know that social cohesion is based on certain norms of acceptable behavior. There is order even in the jungle. There is something systemically wrong, if someone like Tacha is hailed in a society. There is something wrong when the youth segment sees rudeness, being totally uncouth, disagreeable and brash as attributes to celebrate.

We know survival is the hidden code in generational poverty. We know that fights is the way scores gets settled in poverty. With limited possessions, and with survival in mind, people is the only thing that can be possessed. That is why fights are so intense in generational poverty. I understand that. If you must aspire to free yourself and rise above your beginnings, you must learn the rules of the game and tame your emotions.

That people hail Tacha, raises a lot of concern over our systemic loss of values. Most importantly, it tells me how poverty has become weaponized and democratized in a conservative society. Do you want a wife, sister, aunt, daughter, niece like Tacha? Novelist Paulo Coelho wrote: “How people treat other people is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves.”

READ MORE: https://thebelltimesng.com/2019/09/30/is-rudeness-now-acceptable-by-bamidele-ademola-olateju/

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