Urging FG To Initiate And Implement Policy Towards The Protection Of Abandoned Aged Fathers -By Isaac Asabor

There is no denying the fact that the trend of abandonment of fathers at old age by entitlement-seeking mothers and their brainwashed children is rising by each passing day.  Recent findings have shown that about 75 percent of fathers in Africa, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, are suffering a seeming notch of desertion from their wives and children they once looked forward to, especially during their productive age, to depend on at retirement or old age. In fact, not a few social connoisseurs have revealed that the behavioral subtle ties triggering fathers’ abandonment and utter misery at their old age are ingrained in African culture itself.

For instance, some of these behavioural factors are linked to children’s predilection to love their mothers more than their fathers, as not a few of them have been blindfolded to erroneously think that every efforts made to nurture, train and educate them was singularly made by their mothers; even when the fathers were the proverbial “Bread Winners”.  Giving the foregoing erroneous belief, not a few elderly fathers are today suffering for being fathers. However, it is the opposite in virtually all communities in the European and American continents where policy-driven Special Care for the elderly at old age exists.

Against the foregoing backdrop, it is crystal clear that people in developed world do not in any way share an iota of cultural affinity or commonality as each family in Africa provide for their own aged people in their space. Thus, it is the governments in Europe and America that take full responsibilities of providing for the welfare of the old people through Home Care Policy. Contrariwise, in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, such responsibilities are placed in the hands of the children and extended families, as it is a norm to not a few African parents to struggle in their productive days in ensuring that the welfares of their children are well taken care of. Such areas of responsibility cut across education, physical, moral, and mental developments and even empowering them in small businesses so that the children can reciprocate their kind gesture at old age when they grow up. It is ostensibly in the spirit of the practice that people are named “Nwawene”, “Nwapali”,  “Nwakama”, and “Nwakamada” in the Eastern part of Nigeria, dominated by the Igbo, Ika and Aniocha speaking people.

Given the monetary, material and emotional expectations from children when they grow up, there is no doubt the prevalence of subtle battles as fathers and mothers. In fact, in the course of training their children, both parents struggle to have firm control of the children so that they would not be forgotten by the them in their old age, and even before then, particularly when the they are well-to-do. From findings, mothers usually outwit the fathers in the game of wooing the children’s favour. This is as mothers take undue advantages of fathers’ high handedness and bullying tendencies by becoming more caring and sympathetic to the children, and thereby portraying the fathers to be wicked and uncaring. This trend that can in this context be called “Parental politics” exists in many families.

The subtle line of attack against fathers is one of the stratagems commonly employed by not a few mothers to win the love and favors of their children to the detriment of the fathers so much so that only women visit their children, particularly during “Omuguo”, even if it is in overseas, where they can stay up to a duration of a year, thereby abandoning the aged and helpless fathers in Nigeria. So sad!  Without any iota of hyperbole, most aged fathers have suffered from loneliness, and even dying as a result of being deserted by their wives and children.

At the moment. there is a trending post on social media platforms that reveals that the late Mohbad’s mother abandoned him and his siblings when they were teens, and left them in the care of their father who struggled alone to raise them, adding that his dad sponsored his tertiary education at a polytechnic but he dropped out to pursue a career in music, and that the mother only got back into his life when he became famous.

Ostensibly buttressing the post, which was virally copied and reposted by social media buffs, it was said that Mohbad corroborated the story in his lyrics.

Not only that, the post has it that “The mom is said to be living in an apartment rented for her by Mohbad but his father who single handedly raised as a single father still lives in a shack, hence the man’s indignation. She is getting all the sympathy, condolence visits by high profile individuals, donations and her popularity is growing but his father is getting lampooned for expressing his disappointment with Mohbad”.

The Post reads further, “I do not support entitlement mentality by parents but I want to ask a question; why is society silent on bad mothers but quite harsh on irresponsible fathers?”

“Women are good at manipulating and blackmailing kids into doing whatever they want. They can make them hate or love their father, regardless of his behavior.

“Most of the times, mothers get the best of their kids regardless of how irresponsible they were. Some people are justifying her terrible act of abandoning her kids on the grounds that she may have been “abused” by her husband. This is not only senseless but infuriating. Bad women get away with this type of behavior too often.”

It is germane to recall that before the foregoing narrative about Mohbad began to trend on social media platforms that a similar narratives, titled “LIFE LESSONS” was reposted by not a few social media buffs, and commented on. The story is about a 72 years old pensioner, who had all his life worked to train and educate his children.  He was said to have deprived himself of life’s pleasures to pay expensive school fees and rather expensively spending for his children; both at home in abroad.

The story added that given that the man’s children are now well-off across the world that his wife, 65, has relocated to live with her kids abroad, on the excuse of taking care of their grandchildren.

As gathered from the post, the aged father is lonely back home, while his children merely call him on phone to say hello and send money for his upkeep.

Worse still, the aged father has to start life all over as a bachelor, not minding his state of health, battling with high blood pressure and other old age ailments.

At this juncture, it is expedient to urge the federal government, and some states if they would be able to fund the policy, to domesticate the recommendations made by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the UN towards Government policies to address population ageing.

The recommendation made in its publication titled, Population Fact in November 2020 edition, advocated for a well-designed policies on population ageing that can help to achieve the SDGs, particularly as population ageing is a major policy concern for the next 20 to 30 years, and called on all members of the UN to adopt a common policy measures to promote active ageing, lifelong learning and retirement savings.

Unarguably urging countries that are yet to initiate and implements policies that can help the elderlies to age gracefully, the supranational body recalled that countries with older populations have adopted more policy measures on population ageing.

While it will tantamount to inequity and unfairness to implement a policy for aged fathers alone,  it is expedient to urge the federal government of Nigeria to initiate and implement the policy, or activate an already existing policy, if there is any, in such a way that it would prioritize care and living arrangements for old people across the country. It is germane in this context to say that the policy is urgent as not a few old people are today sorrowing away in various homes, while some of them can be found on the streets and in public places coming across as those facing mental challenge while there is the likelihood that some of their children live in luxuries.