Premature Adults…

It has really been a while I put pen to paper, not because I have lost my writing skills but because the reality of life has shown itself very visible now.

A few years ago, my twin and I went visiting one of our rich uncles, as we took our leave, he shook our hands and waved us bye, before now he would have given us money for coming to see him, so it dawned on us that we are now adults, it was so painful because we didn’t bargain for this. The things enjoyed as kids for free now cost us a fortune to get as adults, love and care have turned out to be luxury such that the higher the money you can spend determines the value that will be placed on you.

Maybe if we had prior information about this, most of us would have shut down our wish to become adults. As teenagers, I remember how we wanted to grow up so fast, for the boys, it meant having beards qualifies you as an adult, while for the girls you need the breasts and hips to pop out quickly to be counted worthy as an adult. Life would be sweeter as an adult or so we thought.

We heard our elders\’ outcry of how adulthood constantly drains them, we paid no attention to their wailings, we believed they were hiding the sweet part from us, we thought they enjoyed everything life was all about and never wanted us to be part of it.

Over the past few weeks, news of kidnapping and killing of innocent people for the ritual purpose has been the order of the day to the extent that on the 9th of February, 2022, the Nigeria House of Assembly, prayed the Federal Government of Nigeria to declare a state of Emergency on ritual killings in Nigeria.

Now to the ugly part of this story which is the fact that most of the perpetrators of this barbaric act are Teenagers, the one that caught my attention out of the so many I have read or heard, was that of the three boys in Ogun state who allegedly beheaded the girlfriend of one of them just for ritual purpose, these boys were 18, 19 and 20years old respectively, Oh God!!!

How did we get to this point?

Who and what took away our childhood INNOCENCENCEand forced premature adulthood on us?

What turned our innocent children into blood-sucking demons?

I know everybody will want to start allotting blames, but I put it to us that we all have a hand in this, from the parents who have refused to pay attention to their children, to the kind of movies we expose them to and of course the king of them all the social media, the holy book says “train up a child in a way that he should grow, so that when he grows he will not depart from it”.

The rat race and pressure on young people to make money and be valued in society is quite alarming. I just hope and pray we will all put on our thinking cap and do the right thing before the lion we fed as a child devours us when he becomes an adult.

?? OBASI VICTOR