The headline derives from a passage in this column two weeks ago, “Olabode Ibiyinka Judged”. The relevant paragraph read: “It works like this. A man (almost always, a man!) corruptly enriches himself. The law catches up with him and when he eventually manipulates his way through the system, his handlers organise a massive rally to welcome home their “illustrious son” – in a show of ‘People Power’”.
Who is chiselling at the foundations of our nation through all kinds of malfeasance? Who has warped up our democratic aspirations? Who is at the forefront of the desecration of our social values? Who are the serial violators of corporate governance ethics in banking, finance and other sectors of our economy? Who is responsible for most of the breakdown in marriages? A man, almost always a man! Or, a group of men.
It is unfortunate, but true, isn’t it, that wherever and whenever something has gone, or is going wrong, there’s a man - oftener than not. Contemporary Nigerian history bears this out with such blinding glaringness. Episode after episode of the Nigerian story reveals the sad and saddening condition of the male species in our land.
Who is chiselling at the foundations of our nation through all kinds of malfeasance? Who has warped up our democratic aspirations? Who is at the forefront of the desecration of our social values? Who are the serial violators of corporate governance ethics in banking, finance and other sectors of our economy? Who is responsible for most of the breakdown in marriages? A man, almost always a man! Or, a group of men.
Ah, yes, you might counter that at the forefront of resisting many of these ills is also more oftener than not, another man. Or, that wherever these ills rear their ugly heads, there’s also always a woman somewhere in the chain. And you would be correct, on the surface of it. But this issue is more than skin-deep.
Let’s begin with a basic understanding of the role of the man in God’s master plan, as revealed in the Bible, the life manual of this columnist, the column, and hopefully a preponderance of its readers. God’s first being was a man He named Adam. It was from one of his ribs that He chose to make the woman, describing her as a “help meet for him.” It was to the man that he gave the assignment to tend the expansive Garden of Eden (see Genesis 2: 8, 18, 21-23). To be sure who was in charge, God gave Adam the right to name His wonderful new creation, the same way he named other creatures. This explains why the Almighty directed his query to the man after he had joined his wife to eat the infamous forbidden fruit.
The point here is that God expected and still expects a lot more from the man than He does from the woman. Examples abound. Whenever God had a major assignment, He almost always looked for a man. There is a famous verse of Scripture in the book of Ezekiel: “And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none (22:30). The word “man” here derived from the Hebrew root word “Iysh” which is man as male, a carrier of the “Y” chromosome; not man as in mankind. Of course, most of the greatest people in the service of God in the Bible were men. In God’s sovereign wisdom, Jesus also had to come as a man. In short, man is God’s gender of choice for manifesting His will on earth.
Flowing from these truths, therefore, is that the extent to which the men in a community or nation recognize the responsibility God Has trusted into their hands, and fulfill it His way, is the extent to which that community or nation will grow, develop and prosper.
Unfortunately, scant attention is paid to issues affecting men specifically. You have people and institutions concerned with women, children and youth issues, the disabled, widows etc. But who looks out for the men? Who teaches the man how to be a man or, more correctly, who teaches the male to become a man? Any wonder that things are the way they are?
Dr Patrick Morley, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Man in the Mirror, a men’s ministry based in Orlando, Florida in the USA told a story that illustrates the absurdity of the situation in his best selling book after which his ministry is named. One of the donors to the ministry one day called to inform him he was going to stop supporting, Man in the Mirror. Asked why, the donor told him he had decided to channel his giving to two other causes. One was a prisons ministry, while the other was a group dealing with teenage pregnancies. Morley was shocked at the shallowness of the thinking. But he politely pointed out to his caller that he was abandoning the cause to deal with the effects.
Think about that. Who dominates the prison population? Isn’t it men who have personally failed in their manhood and/or have been misled or lured into crime by this category of men? Who is responsible for teenage pregnancies? It’s mostly men! It’s men, who lured young girls to bed; men who failed in their duties as father either to the girls or to boys who end up in premarital sex.
That same scenario is playing out here in Nigeria. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) exist for many critical socio-political, economic and even cultural issues – which is a truly welcome development. But if men don’t come to the fullness of who they are created to be, they would continue to serve as production lines for the problems these NGOs are tackling.
The churches aren’t doing much better. They all have children and youth ministers. Many have women ministries, courtesy of the pastor’s wives. Very few have men’s ministry worth the name. Where men are encouraged to gather, they soon become welfare fellowships and business clubs with little or no manhood development content. I know there a number of exceptions to this general rule. I have been involved with one such ministry, Christian Men’s Network Nigeria in the last ten years. But this nation needs hundreds of well organised ministries like CMN - if we are going to even begin to confront the challenges. And dear reader, you have a role to play. (Continues Next Week)
PIX: Dr Patrick Morley, Chairman/CEO, Main in the M1rror
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