Connect with us

News

OPINION: Does Sparing The Rod Spoil The Child?

Published

on

Tunde Odeslola

Parenting is a tough turf. It’s also a free-for-all terrain where everyone claims expertness. When in a free fall, parenting is like the blabber around the round leather game, with noisy fans professing possession of better tactics than the god of Tiki-Taka, Pep Guardiola, though they cannot tap the ball into a yawning net from the goal line.

Advertisement

Globally, fans are part of the ‘enu dùn ròfó’ mammoth whose mouths are their only credentials to football expertise, blaming megabucks-earning coaches, game after game, oblivious of strategic soccer details, forgetting that football is what it is; a game, after all. The phoenix must burn to emerge.

I was born at the Lagos Island Maternity Hospital but raised in Mushin. The first sod of the hospital was turned by the Duchess of Gloucester, Princess Alice, on May 13, 1959, while Lady Robertson, the wife of then-Governor General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, declared it open on July 20, 1960. This was when imperialist Britain lorded colonialism over Nigeria, years after trampling on Nigeria’s neck with slavery boots.

In barely one year, the sprawling Lagos Island Maternity Hospital, which has midwifed millions of Nigerians, was built with no National Assembly squabbling for kickbacks in the name of oversight functions or appropriation. No ethnic swords were drawn over the location of the hospital, no knives sliced throats over the religion of the hospital’s Chief Medical Director.

Advertisement

Nigeria of the ’60s and ’70s was a country, unlike today’s COWntry. Our slavish past is more glorious than our independent present. Why? Because our corruption grows yearly in sophistication while the wheel of our humanity is clogged by greed and wickedness.

About two weeks ago, I travelled online to my Mushin roots, specifically to my family church, the Araromi Baptist Church, on 42, Shokunbi Street. It was the 60th anniversary of my boyhood association in the church, the Royal Ambassadors, whose motto is parked in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “We are Ambassadors for Christ…”

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: How I Quit Smoking (2)

Advertisement

At 60 years of existence, the church’s Royal Ambassadors set out to write a book, “Raising Royal Priesthood in a Delinquent Society: History of The Layode Chapter, Royal Ambassadors, Araromi Baptist Church, Mushin,” after getting approval from the church leadership. I had the honour of editing and reviewing the informative book.

One of the highlights of the week-long programme was the awards presented to past teachers of Royal Ambassadors, in recognition of their roles in moulding the lives of yesteryear boys, some of whom have grown into fathers and grandfathers.

As one of the past teachers stepped out for his award and gifts, there were cheers from Royal Ambassadors. The name of the teacher is Mr John A. Ayanlola aka Boda Ayan. In the Araromi of the 1970s, to bump into Boda Ayan with your guards down was to embrace calamity in its splendour. In the words of Jose Mourhino, “You’re dead,” or as Oba Solomon Agbaye would say, “Iku pa e!”

Advertisement

Boda Ayan! His shadow alone was enough to cure your sickness, let alone his voice from a 100-metre distance. Before the Judgment Throne of Boda Ayan, many of us died many times before our deaths.

Boda Ayan would ask you, “What was the topic of the sermon preached last Sunday?” Before you begin to wonder, “Last Sunday ke, when I don’t even remember today’s sermon,” a cane would creep out from under Boda Ayan’s agbada, ‘chara! chara! chara’, on your head and body, exorcising the demons of forgetfulness in you. So, before you step into church, you must do some mental recollection of the teachings of the past week.

If he doesn’t see you in church, he will contact your parents or visit your home. Only boys who made top-three positions in their schools were spared when he asked for our report cards.

Advertisement

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: How I Quit Smoking (1)

One day, he invited some Royal Ambassadors to his house and made them eba. While eating, one of the boys (name withheld) took another person’s meat, and there was a murmur. He asked what was amiss, nobody was ready to divulge the misdemeanour. They all left his house crying after eating eba.

Despite his sternness, however, Boda Ayan was loved by parents and guardians, who reported their children and wards to him for discipline. No Royal Ambassador escaped the cane of Boda Ayan.

Advertisement

Watching the emotional speech of the now-aged Boda Ayan online, accompanied by his wife, I began to wonder if today’s guardians and parents would leave their children and wards to Boda Ayan’s care or cane.

In his introductory sermon in the book, Araromi’s Shepherd, Reverend Ade Subuloye (Ph.D), advocates proper discipline as a means of instilling godliness in children. Subuloye advises parents not to speak to their children harshly, not to be inconsistent while disciplining them and not to over-discipline them. He declares, “When you rarely reprove your children verbally, restrict them from rebellion, or spank them when necessary, they will wonder if you even care about what they do. (Prov. 13:24; Prov. 22:15; Prov. 29: 15)”

Two world-renowned scholars, Prof Wole Soyinka and Prof Wande Abimbola, however, do not believe that sparing the rod would spoil the child.

Advertisement

In an interview with me, Abimbola said flogging a child as a means of correction was capable of making the child lack confidence. When his mother became pregnant with him, a babalawo had told Abimbola’s parents that no one should beat him when he was growing up.

The former Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University says beating children doesn’t make them better, stressing that it ‘kills their sense of initiative, makes them fearful and unsure in making decisions, always seeking validation from a higher authority’.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: President Tinubu Exposes Nigeria’s Big Thieves

Advertisement

The daughter of Africa’s first Nobel laureate, Moremi Soyinka-Onijala, gives a glimpse into how the literary giant raised his children, “My dad was a gentle disciplinarian. He didn’t believe in using the stick but a look from his eyes is enough to tell you that you were doing something wrong. He preferred to talk to us rather than use physical punishment.” She, however, said the only time Soyinka beat her was when she followed her friends home in primary school, leaving her younger sibling behind. “He gave me three lashes of the belt,” she recalled.

Buttressing the communal nature of child-rearing among Africans, a Yoruba proverb says four eyes give birth to a child while 200 eyes train him. Throwing in a word of caution against the excessive beating of children, another Yoruba proverb, however, says, ‘the parent who says, beat my child when he’s wrong, is not truly sincere;’ ‘bami na omo mi, ko de’nu olomo’.

From a religious perspective, the Book of Proverbs 23: 13-14 recommends the cane as a tool for disciplining the child, saying: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod you will save his soul from Sheol.” Proverbs 13: 24 says, “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him,” while Proverbs 22:15 says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him.”

Advertisement

Many African parents who relocated to the West with their children have had run-ins with the law on account of how they punished their children’s wrongdoings.

Though various US state laws permit the use of spanking aka planking to correct children’s wrongdoing, there are limitations to the severity and intent of the beating. No federal law addresses the issue. When it’s proven parents hit their kids not out of discipline, but out of malice, cruelty, or anger, it becomes child abuse, a punishable crime.

The U.S. Department of Education defines corporal punishment as the spanking of a student’s buttocks with a wooden paddle. However, this is not legal in most public schools. Only four states in the US outlaw the use of corporal punishment in private schools.

Advertisement

Corporal punishment in schools has been outlawed in all of Europe, most of South America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and Israel, which makes the United States one of only two developed countries where corporal punishment in school is still allowed, the other being Singapore.

A consultant psychiatrist, cleric and columnist, Dr Adeoye Oyewole, says it’s wrong to beat children and expect them to change for the better. His words, “Three of my children are in medical school and I never beat them. African parents can’t stand deductive reasoning; that’s why we use the cane to crush the children. Many children who have suffered beatings in Africa turned out good abroad.”

Oyewole, who said it wasn’t the physical rod that was referred to in the Book of Proverbs, maintained that the Word of God was the rod referred to.

Advertisement

But does sparing the rod truly spoil the child?

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @Tunde Odesola
X: @Tunde_Odesola

Advertisement

News

NYSC Pays Arrears After Two-month Break

Published

on

The National Youth Service Corps resumed payments for arrears on Wednesday, marking the first disbursement since the last payment on June 3, following a two-month break.

This payment relates to the new N77,000 monthly allowance recently approved by the Federal Government.

Advertisement

Recall that on April 5th, the Director-General of NYSC, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, assured that corps members who recently completed their service will receive the new N77,000 monthly allowance approved by the Federal Government.

Speaking during the Batch A 2025 Pre-Mobilisation Workshop in Abuja, Nafiu said, “Once funds are released to us to offset the arrears, we will pay them. Even our corps members who passed out recently will benefit. We have their bank details.”

READ ALSO:Release Corps Member’s Discharge Certificate, Falana Tells NYSC

Advertisement

He emphasised the government’s commitment, adding, “Nigerians should not fret about that because the government is both responsible and responsive to their needs.”

This development was confirmed by PUNCH, by a previously serving corps member who chose to remain anonymous, who said, “After waiting for two months, I didn’t expect to see another payment alert. But honestly, it’s not just about the money; it’s about feeling like our efforts actually count.

The payment of arrears, covering the period from July 2024 to March 2025, follows widespread frustration over delayed implementation after the Federal Government approved the allowance increase as part of its commitment to easing economic hardship for Nigerian youth.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

News

FCTA Withdraws Park Licences, Directs Fresh Screening Of Operators

Published

on

The Federal Capital Territory Administration has withdrawn all park licences in Abuja, directing operators to resubmit their documents for a fresh screening exercise, with a possibility of reallocation.

The Director, Department of Development Control, Murktar Galadima, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen on Wednesday, while explaining the reasons for the demolition of Boulevard Park, Maitama, Abuja.

Advertisement

The FCTA carried out the demolition of Boulevard Park in Maitama on Tuesday, over violations of park policies and distortion of the Abuja Master Plan.

Assistant Director, Department of Development Control, and Sector Head for Maitama and Wuse, Sherif Razak, explained during the exercise that the park, originally designated for recreational purposes, had been overbuilt and misused.

READ ALSO:FCTA Local Contractors Protest Non-payment Of N5.2bn Bills

Advertisement

He said the park had been converted to worship centres, revival grounds, and restaurants, operating under unhygienic conditions.

Galadima explained that the decision to withdraw park licenses followed a memo jointly submitted by the Directors of Parks and Recreation and Lands to the Minister of the FCT, highlighting several inadequacies and violations associated with parks management in the FCT.

He said the new directive offers park operators the opportunity to resubmit their documents to the Department of Parks and Recreation for review.

Advertisement

If they meet the terms and conditions, they can be reallocated. Owners of parks should respond to the call, submit their documents, and if they meet the requirements, they will return to their parks,” he said.

READ ALSO:FCT Police Arrest Three Wanted Kidnappers

The Director stressed that the decision was not taken to deliberately witch-hunt park operators, but is part of efforts to restore order and compliance with existing policies.

Advertisement

There’s nothing like witch-hunting. All park allocations have been withdrawn following a series of violations, and the Minister is at liberty to do whatever he wants to do with land in the FCT, parks inclusive,” he stated.

On the recent demolition of Boulevard Park, Galadima clarified that operators were duly notified before enforcement, pointing out that the park had long violated its terms of allocation, operating in direct contravention of recreational policy.

READ ALSO:JUST IN: FCTA To Take Possession Of 4,794 Properties Revoked Over Non-payment Of Ground Rent

Advertisement

Boulevard Park was allocated for recreational purposes, but the activities taking place there are a total violation of the park policy in terms of operation. Boulevard has violated all the terms and conditions,” he said.

He noted that monitoring park operations was the primary responsibility of the Department of Parks and Recreation, adding that parks were expected to submit concept designs for approval before operations commenced. However, lapses in monitoring had led to widespread abuse.

The FCT is a creation of law, and lawlessness will not be tolerated. The development of the city is guided by law, and every operator must comply with the terms and conditions of their allocation,” Galadima said.

Advertisement

He stated that a ministerial committee had been set up to review all allocations and uses of parks, to ensure they were serving their original recreational purpose.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

Tinubu Names New VCs For Education Varsities In Zaria, Kano

Published

on

President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday named Prof. Yahaya Bunkure as the new Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Education, Zaria, Kaduna State.

The President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this in a statement he signed on Wednesday titled ‘President Tinubu appoints Nakore, Kodage into governing council of Federal University of Education Kano, Bunkure, names VC Federal University of Education Zaria.’

Advertisement

Bunkure is a renowned academic specialising in science education.

He is currently the Vice Chancellor of Saadatu Rimi University of Education in Kano.

READ ALSO:Ex-Tinubu Campaign Coordinator Resigns From APC

Advertisement

Tinubu also appointed Abdurrazaq Nakore, an engineer, as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Yusuf Maitama Sule Federal University of Education, Kano.

He named Prof. Abdullahi Kodage as Vice Chancellor of the university.

Nakore, a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, was Executive Secretary of the Rural Electricity Board in Jigawa State.

Advertisement

READ ALSO:Why I’d Choose Tinubu Over Obi – Adeyanju

The Federal University of Education, Zaria, and the Yusuf Maitama Sule Federal University of Education, Kano, were among the four Colleges of Education upgraded into full-fledged universities between 2022 and 2023.

In accordance with the institution’s governing laws, the pro-chancellor will serve a term of four years, while the Vice-Chancellors will serve for five years,” the statement added.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

Trending