corruption is a result of bad up bringing

                There is a popular saying, “charity begins at home,” a child who has being taught good moral values, will always abide by those values. As a parent it is your duty to correct and scold your child “if” and “when” necessary, overlooking your child’s flaws won’t help in anyway at all. For a child who steals and bully other children at a very young age, what will become of that child when he or she gets older? Even the bible says “spare the rod and spoil the child,” no child is too little or too big to be corrected, continuous displays of such bad character will turn into a habit. When I hear people say “the government system is corrupt,” the question here is, what kind of values were they taught as a child? Whatever you teach your child, that is exactly what he or she will exhibit in any area of life they find themselves in, no matter the level or position, because the seed of corruption is a part of them already. Corruption is not as a result of a failed government system, but as a result of failed parenting, obviously you can’t give what you don’t have.

            For a practical illustration, sometime last year when I visited my uncle, his child who is my nephew really pissed me off so I flogged him, he started crying so I gave him fifty naira, his father came out almost immediately and asked why he was crying, and the small boy replied him saying sand entered into his eyes, can you imagine!! The small boy lied after being bribed, and he is just six years old and has fully understood the concept of bribery and corruption. After a while I told my uncle what happened and all he could say was “he is a smart boy,” now tell me what do you think will become of that young man when he becomes older. The least my uncle could have done was to scold his child, instead he praised him for his behavior, which the young man will grow up thinking that bribery is a way of life, which is very wrong and not a good habit to teach a child. Cases just like this one occurs every day and parents refuse to see the danger their negligence is causing to the society, a child fails an exam and is being asked to repeat the class, the parent goes over to bribe the teacher to grant their child promotion, now the same child gets into the university and continue that same trend of bribery, and it goes on and on like that.

Children must be taught good moral values such as; honesty, respect, hard work, and so on, so as to be useful to yourself and the society at large. Ridding the world of corruption won’t start from the top; instead it will start from me and you, from our home, from our society, from our community, and from our individual self.