The rampant cases of family neglect or abandonment by most men today is a disturbing phenomenon. The agonizing voices of women and children crying for love and support leaves much to be desired. Complaints that are emanating from many homes today are overwhelming and worrisome. JENNIFER YARIMA writes.
It is necessary to remind ourselves on what the Holy Scripture says about fatherly role in the family. In the book of 1Timothy 5:8, “If anyone fails to provide for his relatives, and especially for those of his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worst than an unbeliever”.
There is a story of a man, names is withheld, whose children have been abandoned in Bauchi and he has tactically relocated to Jos and started a new life. The children, as we have been reliably informed regularly go to refuse dumps to pick up things they can sell to put food on their table. Not only that, they also visit students’ hostels to do laundries and other menial jobs for them to get paid. Unfortunately, these five children were left in the care of a very elderly woman, who can even barely feed herself. After every day’s hustle, they use the little they gather to feed. Meanwhile, the oldest is a 15 year old girl, who is left with the responsibility of coordinating her younger ones. This is indeed a heavy task for a young girl of her age.
One may ask where the mother of these children has gone. She allegedly left the marriage and fled to a destination which no one knows, neglecting these little children and leaving them vulnerable in the hands of just everyone. The father on the other hand also left them and came into Jos, posing to be a pastor of a Pentecostal church. Note that this man has never had any record of being a clergy in his entire life. On coming to Jos, he met a young lady whom he fell in love with and had started planning marriage with her. During the period of the introduction ceremony, unfortunately for him some of the people were invited for the ceremony knew him during his stay in Bauchi. They then made investigations and confrontations the man, who later accepted that he was indeed married and had children.
During his dating period with the young lady, he never mentioned that he was married nor had children. One of the lady’s relatives who got wind of his true story intimated her about the issue, but unfortunately, she could not say anything reasonable about the man or his family. She is now in a fixed and confused whether to go ahead with the marriage plans since they had already gone far, or to just quit every tie with him. Reliably, it was discovered that the mother of the children too is also making preparations of getting married to her new found lover also in Jos the Plateau State capital.
This has left many thoughts in the minds of people around. How can a right thinking person abandon his/her family completely, without any form of assistance? These are very young children, who barely know their left from their right. Minors as these have been left in the hands of both the good and wicked people in the society to survive. Going out daily has made them prone to dangers of rape, kidnapping and sometimes death. This is very pathetic and disturbing.
The yet to be answered question is why has he left a family and would want to start off another? This is the height of irresponsibility. Will these children ever forgive their parents particularly the father? This is so because our culture here in Africa recognizes patriarchy where the father has sole right over the children than the mother as everyone bears his name. In a situation where the mother quits the marriage, she is not by any means allowed to go with the children except when she leaves while pregnant. Even at that, there is a way the family would arrange to claim the child to make sure he is reunited to his legitimate family.
Some men get over burdened with family responsibilities and feel the best way to ease off is to abandon their responsibilities to their wives and abscond. Others want to be respected as heads of household but when it comes to handling fatherly roles, they are just men by name who would want the women to be visible in handling the most difficult task.
Sadly, the pathetic narration of a police officer’s wife left one wondering whether some men are beasts with human face. She is a mother of four children whose husband was transferred from Jos to one of the southern states of the country on special duty. His posting one is tempted to say brought great relieve to him as he never comes back home for quite a while. This lady was left at the mercy of some of the police officers’ wives in one of their barracks in Jos as she could barely feed herself and her children as he sends nothing to her. The children were driven from school as the mother has no financial strength to handle the fees.
In a chat with this lady, she opened up to explain that she scouts for plaiting for little children and gets as low as hundred to two hundred naira to afford them what to eat each day. If there is no business, kind hearted neighbours offer the children little to eat. The house where she stays terribly leaks at rainy season. If it rains heavily at night, there wouldn’t be sleep for anyone as everywhere will be soaked except for a little corner in the par lour where the valuables would be kept while they wait for the rain to stop before they mop up where to lay their heads again.
When contacted according to her, he insulted her and threatened to end their marriage contract if she is not interested. At the end, he sent fifteen thousand naira for their upkeep and told her to look for carpenter to buy the needed number of zinc sheets to address the problem. This amount was coming months after he sent six thousand naira in December, a festive period for that matter . What on earth will such a woman do? She is deeply pained that the education of her children is truncated.
Lately, he called to notify her that he has married another woman who is about to deliver. In view of that, she should create space for his wife to come over and settle. What do you think is the fate of this poor woman? I have no problem with any man who feels he can marry twenty wives so long as he would meet his obligated responsibilities of adequately caring for his family. For some men it’s a ploy that allows unhealthy competition among women because each of them would want to offer her best to keep the man. This has given room for the women to go at any length to take care of the man instead of the opposite.
This practice is unacceptable and should be disapproved by all. Every man should take up his God given responsibility to breed healthy relationship among family members.
