Wrong Love, the Breaking-up of the Family System in Liberia

A moving cab run into a pot-hole on the road and splashed a mixture of dirt and water on a lady of about eighteen years old pushing a wheelbarrow selling cucumber with her newly born baby strapped behind her. Don’t be surprised this is a usual scene on the streets of Monrovia in the Montserrado County and Ganta in the Nimba County – two of the hard hit counties during the fourteen (14) year civil war of the nation.

When you sample a population of one hundred (100) women, chances are that, about ninety-eight (80) of these women will be single mothers. These are women with babies without fathers. This point to a situation fast taking place in the country that is sending the already poor people into abject poverty.

A single Mother with her baby behind her

The aftermath of the war has seen morality of the people sank down and thrown to the dogs. Marriage women keep boyfriends to the chagrin of the leaders of the society. This attitude of the many women has created a situation where many of them have suffered casualties in one way or the other from their husbands and boyfriends. It is reported that, many of the women have had acid poured (in Liberia they call it “wasted”) on them by their husbands and boyfriends for keeping another lovers.

Female high students too, spend their classes’ hours in the rooms of their many boyfriends causing many of them to fail their examinations on a regular basis. They keep not only their mates but always men who could double as their fathers in what is termed, “sugar daddy” in Africa – being in a romantic relationship with a man who could be your father.

It’s of little wonder that, the students who sat for the 2013 University of Liberia (LU) entrance examination all failed with no exception in a moment of national mourning. This caused uproar and incited national debate on the nature of education pertaining in the country.

The family system has proven to be the root of morality and discipline in Africa and any nation with a weak family system suffers the ramification thereof.  This means that, morality would be thrown to the dogs, many children and single mothers would be sent into poverty and street children and orphans would swell on our streets making way for increase in social vices such as armed robbery, shop-lifting, kidnapping, and murdering.

Like other nations in the continent, the leadership of Liberia needs to pay a critical attention to issues of morality if not of their generation, of the generations now growing up because they form the group that will compete with the citizens of other nations in Africa and the world at large. Education of the mind should be given priority over un-education of the mind. The men and women in front of the classroom should be taught to exhibit good attitudes and high sense of morality in the delivery of quality teaching to the children under their tutelage.

Great societies of the world are built by the citizens keeping faith with time, system and using their talent to push their nations forward in terms of development. Liberians are no exception to this. We can do same if only we love the country as much as we love ourselves. This demands conscious effort from both the national leadership and the people of the Republic to work towards a common end result. Our march to a developed Republic can be daunting but have we thought of the consequences of not trying at all?