Ajimobi: Dear Nigerians, “respect for the elders” is killing you softly
Opinion by Caleb Somtochukwu Okereke…
Respect. If nothing kills us in this country, Respect will. Or at least what they think is respect. Argue with Governor Ajimobi.
I was in a government office a few years ago to do something, and the woman there boldly said she will not attend to me because I did not say good morning when I entered as though the government paid her every month to receive good morning.
I have many examples of this.
My sister and I were at the bus stop trying to get a cab sometime last year. There was an older man with us. A vehicle comes that’s almost full and we go to sit in the front. The man starts “can’t you let me sit at the front? Am I not an elder?” Dafuq. Elder what exactly? I can’t even tell you what I did that day. That’s a different story.
A friend was narrating his experience of walking into a bar to buy beer last week and the men drinking there waylaid him for being disrespectful because he did not greet them when he came in. Note, they were customers like him.
So what now, I should greet every elder when next I enter a banking hall? Kai ??
Respect.
The actual snag with what we label to be respect is that it is not, it is merely a show of respect and we are a country too taken to eye service. What happened to teaching kids actual values?
Do this because of what people will say, respect so they will not say you don’t have respect. Greet Mama John so she will not say I did not train you well.
This is where we learned though early to tie our actions to people’s perception of us. And so many years down the line, we find ourselves still pondering about getting a tattoo because of what Mama John will think. Many years down we realize that we cannot do things for us, that what we say is “being me” is “being me…so long as people are okay with it”.
Most importantly we have grown so comfortable with eye service.
Why was that girl in the choir punctual only one Sunday this year? Because the pastor was around.
Why did Nkem not leave her abusive marriage until last week? Because her in laws had not decided it was right.
Why must you have a wedding party? So they will not say a man took me for free from my parents.
Why must you have sons? So my in-laws will not say I am possessed.
Whatever happened to doing things for you? Having a wedding party for you? Having sons for you?
We discover that we do not have any worth, any true values except when connected with what people think.
So we are fine with eye service. Deranged people like Ajimobi are bestowed with “Good Morning Sah”, “Yes Sah” to the point where they suddenly feel like it’s their right.
2017 and Africans are still puzzled by kids who call their parents by their first name. People look at me strangely when they see my mother’s number on my phone saved as “Miss Jane”.
I cannot count the number of people who have said “you don’t have respect” or “why remove the Mrs there?” on top my own mother o. *sigh*
When she first moved away from Nigeria, one thing she told me was how beautiful it was when kids said “hi”.
Let your regular 2-year-old child who doesn’t go to a school in Lekki seasoned by white teachers tell his teacher hi and see what happens.
That 2-year-old after being scolded by his teachers will become another Governor Ajimobi in a few years, become one taught that respect has to be visible in things as trivial as “Good Morning”.
Maybe this is just me. But would it be respect if the gateman who calls you “Sah!” “Oga” and worships the ground you walk on still sleeps with your wife moaning “madam, shay I sweet pass oga?” when you’re away?
Why are we so eager to tie respect to what people do for us than what they think of us?
Perhaps because we were taught “show respect to elders” and not actually “have respect for elders”.
Yes, there is a need for the showing, but isn’t the having part a lot more pivotal? It’s impossible to not show when you actually have.
I respect Grace Vandeerwaal, the 12-year-old who won AGT last year. Not because I was taught to, or because she’s my elder but because I respect her as a person. As a human being.
Oxford defines respect as “a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements”.
Why should I or anyone with a right thinking feel any of these things for Governor Ajimobi? More importantly, a Governor wasn’t elected to receive respect.
The video of the Governor addressing the students makes me cry. That’s all. Not because of what he actually said, but because he is a representation of a bigger problem with our society.
If in 2017, a Governor can ask students to show him some respect, to come begging for their right to education and his daughter calls them manner-less children on IG, then I don’t know what to say.
One thing is certain though, many people still do not have sense. Many people still do not have sense at all.
PS: Largely unedited. No strength ??
