WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MORALS?

The Newspaper is awash with several stories about failing moral standards in the society. If it is not a 70 years old grandpa, sexually molesting a twelve year old, it is a son killing the father for one form of inheritance or the other.

The other day I saw a headline on Vanguard Newspaper, ‘Imo police smash baby factory, nab impregnator, rescue 17 pregnant teenagers’. It sounded bizarre to hear that someone was running a baby factory. The details of the story however became more disgusting.

“According to the Imo police boss, one of the illegal homes, Ahamefula Motherless Babies Home, located in Umuaka, Njaba local council area is allegedly owned by a middle aged woman simply identified as “Madam One Thousand”.

Mr. Katsina equally disclosed that during the police raid, no fewer than 11 minors, who were possibly waiting to be sold to prospective buyers, were rescued by the Command.

The bizarre aspect of the police finding was that a 23-year old boy, simply identified as Oyibo, was fingered as being responsible for impregnating the expectant girls, whose ages ranged between 14 and 17.

Apart from being in varying stages of pregnancy, the girls who equally looked malnourished and not properly catered for wept uncontrollably as they were paraded by the police in Owerri”.

After reading the story, I began to ask myself the question, What has happened to morals?.

Morals have to do with established acceptable standard of behavior in a society. It is in recognition of morals that values are set aside to guide choices that lead to behaviours.  Certainly there would not be a thriving baby factory if there were no baby clients. There would not be seventeen pregnant teenagers, if there were no ready mid-wives to deliver the babies safely for sale. What has happened to people waiting for their own child at God’s time or taking legitimate steps to sort issues that may be hindering child bearing?

It is sad enough that those seventeen teenagers are pregnant, then to learn that a 23 year old man is responsible for all the pregnancies is hurting to the ear. Is this young man educated or drop out? Is that the job he does for a living? Does he understand the implication of having to impregnate teenagers, either with their consent or not? Shouldn’t he be charged for rape and be labeled a rapist?

The owner of the factory, who is said to be at large; what could be going on  her mind, whenever she thought about assembling young girls to produce babies for sale. The story further shows that she uses a packaged water factory as a cover for what she did within the premises. What a contradiction: Production of Water known to be a source of life and healthiness is being used as cover up for dirty deals. What if any of the teenagers died during delivery, did the woman think of the implication, knowing the possibility? Where are the children of this woman? Are they aware that their mother was doing that type of business or she began the trade by selling them?

We must wake up to the realities that our moral fabrics are torn and there is need for stitches or entire replacement if we must wear them again.

The question is, where did we get it wrong? I have heard some people posit that there is need to bring back moral instruction classes in schools, while others call for the reactivation of youth organizations like: Boys Brigade, Girls Guide, Boys Scout and the likes. While these are true, what I believe we must not do is abdicating the responsibility of running a morally fruitful society in the hands of outsiders, because it begins from the home.