ANYONE looking for an indication of the depths of depravity to which a cross section of Nigerians has sunk on the back of constant economic pummeling should look no further than the travails of the average Nigerian family. Once famed for its resilience and moral sturdiness, the Nigerian family has since become a pale shadow of itself. Ripped apart by a combination of social forces, it is the seat of so much ugliness and perverse experimentation. As the hold of parents over their children and wards has slipped, parents have resorted to various desperate measures in order to keep the wolf from the door. Family vacation packages

The case of Emmanuella Monday, a 15-year-old student of Triumphant School, Effurun, in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State, perfectly captures this malaise. According to media reports, Miss. Monday decided to cry out for help after her fortunate escape from an unknown man to whom her mother had, without her consent, allegedly handed her over. From Miss. Monday’s account, this wasn’t the first time that this kind of ‘handover’ had happened: “My mother has been taking me to men. And last Sunday, after church, she took me to meet a man in a hotel. She left and said that she was coming back. She did not come back till evening, and left me there.” One does not need any special powers to conclude that Emmanuella’s biological mother was trying to force her into child prostitution, and that in all likelihood money had changed hands between her and the retinue of “Aboki men” to whom she had callously contracted her poor daughter.

It Is reassuring that the Delta State Police Command has started a criminal investigation, and that Miss Monday has been kept in protective custody. We are also heartened by the interest that various activists, particularly the human rights activist, Comrade Aghogho Ighorhiohwunu, who reported the case as the complainant, have taken in the case. It is important that they follow it closely and see it to its final resolution.

While the legal case must be pursued to its logical conclusion, the truth of the matter is that the problem here – tragedy, really-transcends the law and goes to the very heart of the Nigerian condition. The questions to ask are as follows: how and when did Nigeria become a society in which a mother sees nothing wrong in prostituting her own child? What happened to the moral fiber? What happened to the sense of shame? And pride? How is it that, these days, a mother can casually say that “My pickin don go road,” meaning that she has left the home and has been swallowed up by the streets? When did Nigerian men start preferring “having a good time” to nurturing and taking care of their families?

We ask these questions not as a matter of rhetoric, but to call attention to the ugliness that we see all around us, in all parts of the country, and at every level of the social hierarchy. We also ask because we realise that only by taking these questions head on does the country stand a chance of beginning to generate solutions to them.

Until then, sadly, Nigeria is destined to remain a futureless nation that foolishly trades its tomorrow for its today. (Nigerian Tribune Editorial)