ANIKE DIARY
With Oludolapo Okunniga
Hard-working Nigerians and the Hushpuppi challenge
It used to take a community to raise a child. That was then. Now it takes the global community to raise a child. The internet. Social media. Online Educational and Research sites. Porn sites. Everything you need to know at the tip of your thumbs.
With these huge foray into bottomless opportunities also comes with it, crimes. Cyber crimes. Internet fraud. Yahoo Yahoo and now Yahoo plus.
We know the players. And they are not Robin Hood and his band of outlaws who robbed the rich to help the poor. Not even close to Pablo Escobar, the late Columbian drug lord. The mission is to steal and steal and rub it in people’s faces.
Let’s face it. Parenting is complex. Even more complex now. More so because each child has an individual personality. Because it is now possible for our children to be a step ahead of us.
The child of today is bolder and not afraid of asking questions and where the child is even taciturn and unwilling to dare, he has his peers who are willing to introduce him or her to the world at the click of a key.
The idea of training a child is to raise decent human beings who can stand up for themselves in the future. To continue in building a better future for themselves. Building takes time.
So the idea to build is to last. To educate the children on core values and how to work and earn legitimate income. So they go to school for formal education and or learn a vocation. Therein, they endure training and perseverance. But education continues throughout life.
But, somehow, the easier route and short cut to getting rich quickly crept into our social economic life. Charity began at home and affected our leadership and followership. People began to get away with crimes, especially the rich and the connected. Our justice system became riddled with holes, while big criminals gleefully escaped the dragnet of justice.
Money became the Mammon…The behemoth that we all worship.
In Nigeria, I know of the Yoruba people. In the days of yore, people moved away from and admonished their children from going to homes of people whose source of riches cannot be traced. A person who moves into a community and flaunts a loud lifestyle without traceable or known source of income is immediately ostracised.
A prospective in-law is usually grilled with question. And the main question is what he does for a living? It is the most important question…for you cannot build something on nothing.
Just having and flaunting money is not enough. Now this should not be misunderstood. Some people are wealthy, either by inheritance, or by painstakingly building their wealth or by sheer luck. Not everyone who comes to limelight or financial breakthrough does so through ill-gotten wealth. Many came by it through honest means.
However, while legitimate wealth attracts fine things of life, it also attracts some modesty with it. That is because when you work hard for your money, you don’t throw it away recklessly. You know the cost.
Ramoni Igbalode, popularly called Hushpuppi, and his ilk flaunted their ‘wealth’ recklessly on the social media. Cars, clothes, shoes, houses and food. It is done deliberately to draw attention of the whole world.
Filthy lucre does that. It always draws attention. It doesn’t listen to reason, but has a false sense of security…of arrogance, called illusions of grandeur.
He thinks that he is invincible. And that, with money, he can control all things and everything.
It is interesting to note that internet fraud is quite complex and it takes an intelligent and patient mind to hack into complex firewalls and break codes and replicate fake accounts that looks exactly like the original. But that intelligent is rather deployed wrongly to defraud people in order to get rich quick or die trying.
Ramoni got extremely wealthy, but he wanted more. And he went down with his team. Eager followers are now unfollowing by day. Why? Because deep down, we all know what is right from wrong.
Thankfully, for every Ramoni Igbalode and friends who tried to rubbish the legitimate hustle and hard work of Nigerians throughout the world, there are so many Nigerians l, like Temie Giwa-Tunbosun and thousands of Nigerians, doing us proud.
That people are adopting the short cut route is no excuse…that there is so much failure of leadership is no excuse not to teach our children the core values and principles. It would shape their minds as they navigate their paths in life.
No matter what, Nigerians are great people. Resilient. Tough. Hardworking. Everywhere in the world. The number of those spoilers are still small compared to millions making their mark around the world.
For everyone seeking a get-rich quick scheme, there are thousands of youths also working their legal hustle.
But one does not end up having to look over his shoulders and having sleepless nights. A good name matters. It does in the end.
Time will even it out. Everyone pays his dues eventually. Whatever we sow, we reap. We should teach that.
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