Do family values still matter?

In the last one month, the rate of anti-societal ills the main stream media and social media have been daunted with is surprisingly alarming.  Recently, a father was said to have been having sex with all of his four daughters, while the supposed mum of these girls kept mute and remained silent, all in the name of protecting the integrity of her home. Somewhere in the north, a sister stabbed her elder brother to death because he tried to turn down the volume of music playing during her wedding.

This story is all over the news; a wife claimed that her husband was always beating her and she stabbed him in self-defense. Well, the story has changed as the husband has come out with his own version. He said his wife, who was in the habit of sending nude pictures of herself to her ex-boyfriends, lied. For how long were they married? Six months. There are several stories of husbands killing wives and wives killing husbands, Maryam Sanda’s case is still fresh in our minds and still in court.

The new twist of recent happenings is the disheartening adventure of children kidnapping their parents as a source of revenue.  The most recent is the story of a daughter who staged the kidnap of her father with the help of her would-be-husband so that they can use the ransom to foot their wedding bills. What a world!

With all these strange happenings, one question that comes to mind is, do family values still exist, and if they do, do they still matter?

Binta Aminu, 40-year-old accountant, says “To be honest with you, this trend is worrisome. I am more concerned about how most of these killings among couples are happening in the northern part of the country. This kind of thing was never heard of before now but almost on a daily basis you hear of one partner killing the other. More worrisome now is the trend of siblings killing other siblings. If you ask me, these all boil down to the failure of family structure and lack of family values.”

Amina Shuaibu, 40-year-old lawyer, agonizes, “It’s indeed an abomination to know that fathers who are supposed to protect their daughters are now the ones defiling them. How do such men even sleep at night? What would they tell their creator on the Day of Judgment? I sit and wonder what kind of future we are setting for our children. Anytime I think about the atrocities happening in our society, I shudder at the thought of what the future holds for the coming generations. I read somewhere on social media how a father told his daughter that unless he sleeps with her, they will never be rich in their family. Ironically, the poor girl, who wants her family to be rich, gave her virginity to her dad. It’s unfortunate how family values have been destroyed.”

One of the things that make a family and society great is having a set of values in place. Values are important, and while everyone will have different sets of values due to culture and religion, we all can agree that certain values are sacrosanct and cannot be changed. Family and societal values seem to be under siege and except we, as parents, leaders in the society, retrace our steps, we may be having a big issue facing us in the near future.

The family and societal values must be protected at all cost. God help us!