NAN-H-34
Elders
By Taiye Baiyerohi
Lagos, Dec. 15, 2016 (NAN) Some elders on a visit to the National Museum, Lagos, for sightseeing have called for the restoration of Nigerian indigenous values to curb corruption.
They, speaking through their representatives to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said that Nigerians were living peacefully devoid of social vices and all manner of atrocities before the advent of the colonial masters.
These elders from The Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), Akoka in Lagos State, said that civilisation brought by the colonial masters had made contemporary Nigerians derail from the acceptable societal norms.
Mrs Cynthia Adekoya, 80, said that she was touched with the story of the slave trade, when Nigerians sold to the whites to work on their sugarcane plantation and were compelled to conform to the western dictates.
She urged Nigerians to go back to the drawing board and embrace the sound morals Africans had been known for.
“It is unfortunate for us to have embraced the Western culture, but we can still go back to the drawing board to pick those sound morals values,’’ she said.
Mr Solomon Awolesi, 64, said that Nigeria had sound moral values and cultures which the white jealously and tirelessly worked to ensure they were eroded.
He said that the culture of respect, genuflecting for elders and decent dress sense was gradually fading off as children were being carried away by Western civilisation.
“Now children find it difficult to genuflect while greeting elders while sagging has now been the order of the day for them.
“These children should be reminded that we have rich cultural practices which must not be allowed to die,’’ he said.
Mrs Caroline Ikedish,71, urged parents to stay firm in inculcating sound moral values into their children in order to prevent them from imbibing negative influences in the future.
“Whenever there is the need to chastise our children, please let us do so and not spare the rod to spoil the child at the detriment of their future.
“These children are our future, we become failures when there are not properly brought up, let us lay good examples,’’ she said. (NAN)
PTB/FF/PAD
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Edited by Fela Fashoro, Peter Dada