Poverty of the mind

Sir: A young man just returned from Ukraine with a graduate degree having submitted efforts for the first degree in the same country, told me that what comes to him naturally is to make love and desires to feature in a pornographic movie.

This discussion came about because he met me writing furiously in a garden and he sat near me, kibitzed from time to time, wanting to know what I do and I told him but I noticed that he had a penchant for saying nothing good can come from Nigeria, tearing the country to shreds for lack of job openings and I asked him to find his passion, talents that come to him naturally, so he could turn that into a vocation and possibly make money.

I thought I was helping a youngster that I just met in a public place. I was shocked, embarrassed by his response and felt sorry for his parents for the money they spent on his education overseas.

I am no moral guardian. But what positive impact would starring in pornographic movies have on Nigerian society? Is this part of the Nigerian culture where anything is possible?

I brought this matter up in a strategic human resource management course that I facilitated and some participants advised that the world is moving on and we need to move with it and people shouldn’t be judged for their beliefs, passion and orientation. But don’t liberalists know that there is cause, effects and consequences for actions and that what is learnt can be unlearned? See how drugs have ruined our youths. When a police patrol van stops by to buy petrol from a woman selling petrol (black marketer), ask for two liters which she emptied into their tank and they zoomed off without paying the woman, leading to tears, telling her that they are on police duty, then you wonder the negative effect of that type of established culture to our national life.

An onlooker had to empathise and paid her. I am mindful that the police from time hold the short end of the fiscal stick, but they are very poor people and need help. The lack of great men in politics in our day, in the military in years gone by, the police and many other namby-pamby people have led and left Nigerians broken.
Simon Abah wrote from Abuja.