THE SEASON OF INIQUITY (BBN) - Fr. Emmanuel Ojeifo

Are there Nigerians watching the reality TV show called ‘Big Brother Naija’ (BBN)? Just as I was preparing to address a summit of Catholic youths in Abuja last week, a colleague sent me snippets of hard truths, which were largely his conclusions on the iniquitous show and the harm it does to our collective social morality. The snippets provided me with ample raw material to speak about the moral and spiritual foundation of good leadership to the audience of over 200 young people. This is what he wrote: “The winner of the notorious Big Brother Naija is expected to walk away with N25 million and a car. All it requires is: live with a set of fellow crazy people, do all sorts of immoral things and win! If only there could be an educating version of such. If only they could house intelligent scholars like this and make them compete for similar prizes. But No! Our people do not encourage sanity. The best in Mathematics competitions walk home with ridiculous stipends; laughable prizes while these morons in BBN earn millions for coming to suck breasts on international TV.”



He continued: “How do we nurture and produce the next Chike Obis, the next Chinua Achebes and the next Wole Soyinkas? What foundation are we laying for the coming generations? What messages of hope and legacies are we leaving behind?” When I finished reading this soul-stirring piece to the youths, I noticed that it imposed a chilling feeling on everyone. It got them thinking. I could see it on their faces. Sadly, this is what our Nigerian society has become today. We are living in an age without values, without morals and without principles.


Ours can rightly be described as a country that very well typifies the Seven Deadly Social Sins spelt out by the Indian sage Mahatma Gandhi: “Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Knowledge without Character, Commerce without Morality, Science without Humanity, Religion without Sacrifice, Politics without Principle.” And for as long as we continue on these paths, our march towards greatness as a nation will remain crippled.



I am really concerned about the future of our young people. What values are we transmitting to them today, in a society where immorality and stupidity are rewarded with big prizes? Are today’s parents concerned about what their children are doing on their iPads, iPhones and computers? Do they censor what they watch on TV? What are our religious and educational institutions doing to stem the tide of iniquity that has become the order of the day in our society? Yesterday’s children grew up, lived and died within a small community. Today’s children, on the other hand, face a kaleidoscope of choices, and tomorrow’s children will enter an even more diverse world. Are we doing enough to help our children navigate the great moral complexities of the new world they are entering into?
Many of today’s young people are eager to settle for a life of comfort. They often speak glibly about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg who turned their backs on university education to pioneer breakthroughs in the world of ICT. Yet they forget that success did not come to these billionaires on a platter of gold.


Hard work, discipline, commitment and determination were the hidden secrets. Many young people of today do not want to work. They lack the discipline to organise their lives around priorities. They revel in half-baked ideas and waste a lot of time doing frivolous things on social media, when they should constructively and positively engage in enriching human, social, intellectual, and spiritual activities.



As a result of the warped values that we have come to imbibe as a society, many young people no longer cherish the value of deferred gratification. They just want to enjoy all the pleasures and luxuries of life at the instance, without the patient effort of hard work, sacrifice and discipline. We are living with a new generation of young people who display character traits that expose them as seekers of shortcuts to a life of comfort. Values such as integrity, honesty and truth, which used to hold the pillars of family, communal and social life, have all fizzled away. A man’s respect is gauged by how much money he has in his pocket and young people are no longer perturbed about bringing shame, odium, ridicule and disgrace to their family name. That is why thieves and rogues are celebrated today with all manner of chieftaincy titles and honorary doctorate degrees today.



We cannot continue to nurture a society that places a high premium on iniquitous shows such as BBN and expect to groom a generation of cultured, disciplined and morally upright leaders. We need a revolutionary change of mindset to break out of a despondent youth culture of mediocrity and immorality. Parents need to know that they are the architects of their children’s future. The values that they uphold and espouse have a great effect on their children. Values are very important. They are the ideas we have about what is important and what is not; what is good and what is bad; what is right and what is wrong. Values stand behind our beliefs, attitudes, interests and goals. They affect what we do with out free time, how we spend our money, what friends we choose, how we dress and what we eat. In other words, values give meaning and direction to every aspect of our lives. Without good moral values, we are sure to miss our way on the great pilgrimage of life.



The promoters of this immoral BBN show must ask now themselves what they intend to make out of it. They must ask themselves what values and morals they are projecting to the larger Nigerian society. They must honestly answer if they’d be proud to gather their children in their living rooms at home and make them watch such a distasteful show.