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I just don’t understand why a son would kill his parents. It is like a passenger who do not know how to drive a car and has not learnt to do so but, while in wilderness, kills their driver for insulting them. This world, in which we owe our existence to our parents, is like a stopover in the wilderness. To survive in this wilderness, a reliable driver who can brave the challenges is utmostly needed. The world is just a beginning of another long journey. Our parents are our drivers to this world of trial and uncertainty. We owe our existence to God, then to them. We need them more than they need us. While we must not always agree with them since they could be wrong, being fallible, we must always respect and adore them even when we disagree with them. They are next to God in the sense that we owe our existence to them. It is, thus, unnatural and an aberration for anyone to deliberately put an end to the life of their parents.
I was distressed when I read the news of a young man, age 23, who allegedly killed his father in Share, a town which is the Headquarter of Ifelodun Local Government Council in Kwara State where I am a native. This young man killed his father, of course, as reported, not for ritual. I have written several articles on this page on the menace of ritual killings by young lads who should not only be in school but should also be under the mercy of their teachers’ disciplinary cane. But here is where we find ourselves, young lads are the ones disciplining their teachers and even killing their parents when the need arises for rituals. It has become so rampant that when a news brakes out that a son kills his father or mother, what comes to mind—by default—is that it is for ritual.
Cases of patricide (murder of one’s father) and matricide (murder of one’s mother) for ritual and fetish belief abound due to the crazy appetite of our youths for sudden super material ‘breakthrough’ and ignorance. I will limit myself to citing examples from this year alone. In January this year, a 25-year-old son killed his father in Akwa Ibom State for hypnotising him and appearing to him in dream. On the 2nd of May, a son, age 16, murder his father in Abuja during a fight between the deceased and his wife (the boy’s mother). In the same month, a teenager stabbed his mother to death in Kano over an argument. A week after in Rivers State, a son killed his mother after using machete on his father over 20, 000 pocket money.
In July, this year, a 32-year-old drug addict killed his mother in Ogun State by strangulation. By September, it was a 20-year-old son who killed his father for money ritual in Ogun State. Last month, a 20-year-old son killed his father in Kaduna also for appearing to him in dream. The most recent one happened in Kwara State. While many of these killings were for rituals or disagreement over money, the case at hand isn’t. The young man allegedly macheted his father who was before his death, a traditional leader in the town. How would anyone in his sense do that? How did it happen? The father, it is alleged, talked to him anyhow. When does it become a crime for a father to talk to his child anyhow?
The son reportedly got annoyed as a result of his father’s unpleasant words. In reaction, he attacked his father with cutlass and hit him severally on his head till he gave up the ghost. A source from the neighbourhood confirmed to me that the boy has mental problem which isn’t new. According to the source, he did not realize he was hitting his father until the deed was done. He thought he was hitting a cow when he was actually hitting his father. This is terrible! Even if that was true, how would a sane man continue to hit a cow till it died? Many question marks!
It is an established fact that children in this generation now kill parents for money ritual. I have addressed this and suggested some solutions. But there is also a dire need to address drug addiction among the youths. It, no doubt, contributes majorly to this strange behaviour—murdering one’s parents. The bond between a son/daughter to their parents is too powerful. The blood is too thick and the love, in the real sense, is unexplainable. A son, no matter how naughty, should not have the temerity to eliminate his parents because they rain abusive words on him. This is not ordinary. If not spiritual, it has to be mental instability. This is majorly due to drug abuse. I join others to condemn the killing of this traditional chief. May God grant the family the strength to bear the loss.
On curtailing drug abuse, it is very obvious that the government has done well by establishing the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). I have seen NDLEA staff in uniform times without numbers on our highways stopping travellers and trying to identify drug addicts for arrest. They, in some cases, caused traffic and delayed travellers unnecessarily in search for addicts. What I don’t understand is why the focus is always on travellers when drug addicts freely smoke their Indian hemp, ‘grass’, ‘pot’, ‘igbo’, ‘wiwi’, weeds etc. on our streets and motor parks unmolested. Community leaders, clerics, and responsible patriots should come together to tackle this menace of drug addiction among our youths. No one is safe in communities where drug addicts abuse drugs freely and openly. Many killed their parents and loved ones for the fun of it under the influence of drug.
Therefore, it is very wrong, unsafe, and dangerous to allow those who are mentally unstable to live with sane people. We ask the Almighty to protect us from such ailment. Of course, drug addiction is not the only cause of mental problem. There are many causes. The cause isn’t the point here. The point is that such people need medical attention and, under critical conditions, should be housed in psychiatric hospitals. This will help in damage control. But how many family can afford the cost and foot the bill? What about the availability of competent medical experts in the field. Even our public hospitals that are meant for sane people are experiencing serious shortage of health workers. Medical doctors and nurses are japaing on daily basis out of the country due to the unsmiling economy and terrible working condition.
Finally, many Nigerians are mentally unstable. No thanks to government stifling policies which do not leave a breathing space for common masses. I have personally adjusted the way I relate with people, especially civil servants. I have observed that many of them are not mentally stable. I don’t think I am stable too. Can anyone calculate the mental damage caused by the stoppage of the promised salary award by our ruling President Tinubu? Federal Workers Forum (FWF) call it betrayal. In their words; “We the federal government workers feel betrayed by the federal government. Our employer has been very unfair and unfaithful to us.”
My advice to government workers in Nigeria is always this: “when the government promises to slash your salary or stop it, believe it. When it promises to pay your salary, increase it, or award it, never believe it.” Listening to this advice can help maintain our mental health. May we not kill our loved ones under whatever influence.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
