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| Prof. Pat Utomi |
“It takes a village to raise a child,” quotes the great Nigerian economist, politician and leadership experts, Professor Pat Utomi. In a pre-event interview for the HELP INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE coming up on the 17th and 18th October 2014 at the National Theatre, Lagos, Prof. Pat Utomi says that, that quote was true for his childhood time. But now, a lot has changed. Those days, everybody looked after a child and there was a sense of community. If a child did anything wrong, somebody from the street would scold, spank the child and report to the parent. But now, spanking someone else’s child could lead to all sort of fights and even to court cases. As a child of nine years of age going for entrance exams, he’d travelled by train through most part of the north, from Gusau (in the present day Zamfara state) to Onitsha, changing train in Kaduna. But today, parents are scared when their children travel. A child of 23 years going for youth service is been escorted by the mother. And with the advent of the internet and the social media, a lot of information and power have been put in the hands of the young ones, and they have not been trained to know the danger in it. He makes an example with the case of Cynthia, the young General’s daughter, who left Abuja to be with a friend she met on the social media in Festac, Lagos. She ended up dead in a hotel, with her valuable all gone. Security is no longer as it used to be. And most parents are also so busy to really look after their kids or wards.
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| Prof. Pat Utomi |
Speaking further on parents, fathers especially, who are rarely at home because of their kind of jobs – e.g., the politicians, mobile police, bankers, international business people, clergy, and the rest, he avers this is the reality of life, but that there has to be a balance between the home and our jobs.
He says, “It takes a personal commitment to recognize it that the realities of now challenge you more. Then you make personal effort to reduce….because in many ways, many of these people cannot avoid being a away from the home. There are certain kinds of position in which people make such demands of your time, even beyond their professional needs….that it becomes more and more difficult to actually have a life. So you have to make a deliberate effort to find certain … (balance).
For me, the biggest challenge was travelling. I keep travelling. But I still had to find a way. Four weeks ago, I had to go on tour in the US, and somewhere along the line, I had to make arrangement for my wife to join me; So one has to make this kind of effort. It’s never enough but, I had to find some way. I am lucky in some ways; …I am not a night person, that’s one advantage I have. So routinely, except I am out of town, you would expect me to be at home by 6 p.m., routinely, at most 7 p.m. but there are people who are at their offices by 9, 10 p.m., routinely. And there are people who, by their understanding of being social, they are in Ikoyi club by 10 -11 p.m. every evening. Well, some of the things I have heard, is, it starts as well intentioned…’traffic is so bad to leave Victoria Island’….so they leave the office and hang out at Ikoyi club ‘until traffic clears’. After a while, Ikoyi club becomes your second home, in the name of traffic to clear, and by the time you get home, everyone is asleep. And before they wake up, you are gone the following morning. And the original, honest reason was ‘traffic’ but now it has become your life. So one has to (be careful)".
There should be an effort to balance work and the home. You need to provide, you need to work, and yet you need to be with your family. Which is more important? The family or the job?
Prof. Pat Utomi will be speaking in details on this to group of couples at the HELP International Conference on Saturday, the 18th of October, 2014 at the National Theatre, Iganmu - Lagos. Every couple, intending couples and youths generally are encouraged to be attending. It is being organized by the KEEPING MARRIAGE ALIVE, a non-governmental Organization. Registration fee is only N1,500 per person for the two days.
Payment can be made to the following account:
Acct name: Keeping Marriage alive Initiative.
Acct Number: 1013379299. Zenith Bank.
You can also get your tickets at KMA office at 511 Road, A Close, House 2, Festac Town Lagos, and other designated places. For further information, please call: 09092153103, 08034229455.
