What role do you think parents should play to bring their children up in the fear of God?
If you want to pass values to your own children, then you have to redefine your values, what really do I want in life? Parents should look at, the values they want to pass unto their children even to the last generation. So, I have to redefine my value that is asking what I stand for. What do I want to gain, what do I pass on? Not only the buildings because the buildings you put up, you won’t see them again in 100 years, if the Lord tarries. So, what is it? You have to pass on something positive along the bloodline. So, I advise parents to first of all think about the future, be God fearing, itemise their values, and see how they can pursue them with the fear of God.
What is your advice to couples in maintaining healthy unions?
I am from a polygamous home. I never saw love between my dad and my mum. I never saw them hug or kiss. But, I made up my mind that my marriage is going to be different. I am going to love my wife as the Bible said I should. So, as a Christian, the Bible is what I try to keep faith with, and that is what made lots of members of our church to have some respect for me. They know I will not bend the rules even if I face my child. So, as a couple, they should first of all be friends. I and my wife, we can go on holidays for two weeks alone in the same room, nobody else there, and we are enjoying ourselves, I am 66 and she is 64, we kiss, we hug, we are romantic. But, I was not like that, I never saw it happen with my parents, but I said I am going to make it happen. How? By practising it, doing it deliberately, I forced myself to say ‘I love you’. I forced myself to do all those things and then it became part of me.Today, my children say I am romantic. That is what they say. So, while we were younger, I could carry her, dance with her, kiss her, lift her up. That is why all my children want to marry early. My first daughter married at age 21, and they all want me to join them. That is why I conducted today’s (November 20) wedding. They know me from home, all my children, I join them in marriage.
They know we disagree, but my children know how I manage crises in between. They know I love their mum and she loves me too. They know that I believe in love growing, any living thing grows. So, now my love for my wife is more than it has ever been. If it is stagnant something is wrong with me, a living thing should not be stagnant; it should keep growing. So, my love for her grows by doing things including, taking her out at least once a week or twice a week, to eat outside, we have caterers, we eat out, chat out, chill out, at least once in a week. We hold, we kiss, we hug and then we say we love each other. Then we put fire in our love, when you don’t put fire in the wood, the fire would go down, so that is how marriages are.
What are the implications of successful marriage on nation building?
I and my wife hosted the first marriage and family TV programme in this country in 1995 in Benin. People in South- South, they watched it, governors watched it, they came to our home for one thing or the other over this. So, speaking from the angle of marriage and family counsellor, you won’t see the bad boys and bad girls emerge where people are well brought up, but once the home is in disorder, the nation is in total disorder.
There are seven institutions that define culture, how people behave. Number one is the family; that is where a child is born into. Two; the spiritual, the child is either going to church or going to the mosque. So, you see culture being formed. Number three is education. When the family is shaky, education not being okay in the country, then you see where the aspect of spirituality not taken serious, you see people doing anyhow. Then you see people incorporating ‘alert prayers’, you know. You begin to hear ‘drop N1,000, God will give you N1 million’. This is a sign of a country going into decay. So, you see the spiritual aspect seriously being tampered with in Nigeria.
We now go to entertainment which also defines culture. When those in the entertainment industry are those that have no values for women, then the children imitate them. Then the media, the media shape how people behave in their country. The media is so powerful like the Novelist and Playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote in 1839, in his famous historical play Cardinal Richelieu, he said it that the pen is mightier than the sword.
So, the media is so powerful, that is why you see politicians wanting to have media houses, because the media want people to think how the owner wants them to think, so they build the culture. You also see politics and government, so those in government; they determine so many things, so they contribute to how people behave. Then, business and commerce, those in that area, that is why somebody like Dangote, Femi Otedola, can define how people behave. These are the seven main areas that shape culture.
Now the family is seriously faulty, where parents will give money to teachers for their children to pass school certificate, then the family is gone. So, that is why people like us from next year, I am going to take it so serious to mount a campaign in this family area, a campaign the whole nation will hear of, as a solution to family problems
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