Nathaniel Jonah
1 November 2009
analysis
Abuja — The family structure as we know it in Africa has been distorted as a result of a storm of economic and social factors. People today are becoming more individualistic, and the old sense of brotherhood which held society together is vanishing.
If the emerging trend in the contemporary Nigerian society is anything to go by, then the good old extended family system might as well be falling into the dust bin of history. As a result of urbanization and migration and associated economic factors, however, the nuclear family is gradually becoming the dominant family type. It functions slightly differently from the typical nuclear family in Western countries. This may be the result of traces of the extended family system of being "our brothers' keepers." For instance, Bernard Ndubuisi, a middle aged business man resident in Abuja, told this medium that "these days, it is difficult for you to see a family where most of their relatives live together with them. Everybody is trying to mind his or her own business, or what I will call me and my wife syndrome."
A typical family in Abuja consists of the husband, wife and the children, with the extended ones like cousins, uncles and aunties in far away villages or living elsewhere. Afolabi Soyemi, a civil servant with the ministry of defence, told Daily Trust "I live here with my wife and three children. Gone are those days when you have all kinds of family relations living with you in the same house. Things are gradually changing, and more and more Nigerians are beginning to adopt the nuclear family system." While sharing a similar view with Afolabi, Patrick Adeyemi, who lives in Jabi with his wife, explained; "it is a sign of the times. Things can no longer remain the same again, where you have all manner of relatives living together with you. Even if you want to continue that kind of system, the prevailing socio economic system will not allow you. Imagine, I live in a one bedroom flat in Utako with my wife. The only space I have left after accommodating my wife, is for my children which might not exceed two or three in my own economic interest."
For others like Dominic Unegbu, Abuja is a city meant strictly for him and many others to work, while he waits till the end of the year when he travels to his home town to enjoy the warmth and comfort of his folks. According to him, "with my present level of income, it will be unthinkable for me to live here with all my family members. This city is meant for making money, and then at the end of the year, you will go and enjoy whatever you have made with your people. That is why you discover that Abuja is always empty during public holidays and festive periods, because everybody would have traveled out to be with their families."
While citing the skyrocketing rates of accommodation in Abuja, and the generally expensive standard of living as an excuse, Ayodele Fayokun, a banker, explained "I can't afford to have all my relatives live here with me, because my salary cannot take care of the huge expenses. So while I am based here with my wife and children, I try to send whatever form of financial assistance I can to my relatives in the village. I have friends who will never go to their villages for any reason. Urbanization has compounded the problem. Several people working in big cities hardly find time to visit their parents, let alone their village folks. When our old parents are sick in the villages, we hardly arrange to give them urgent medical attention. But the moment they die we start organizing parties to mark their departure," he said.
While residents of Abuja make conscious efforts to keep the extended families at bay, others deliberately try to prune down the number of children they bear as a result of the economic implications of raising them. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to see couples having just two or three children. Francis Okorie, a journalist in Abuja explained that "unlike those days when people can afford to give birth to as many children as they wish, nowadays, one has to cut his coat according to his size and be prudent."
Investigations by Daily Trust also reveal that apart from the prevailing socio economic circumstances, other reasons such as superstitious beliefs, form the reasons why some Nigerians have decided to abandon their relatives. Musa Ahmed, a final year student of sociology at the University of Abuja, opines "Unfortunately we now live in a new world of unbridled individualism and crass materialism, where old age is no longer respected. The intrinsic worth of old men and women is now measured by what they have, not what they are. We now despise the elderly. We wish they were dead. We call them grandpa and grandma as if they are useless. Some superstitious human beings even say that their parents are witches.
It is strange that many elders have become street beggars in Nigeria. You may ask: where are the children of these elderly beggars? Obviously,the extended family system is fast disappearing leaving selfishness as a virtue. In other words, without the extended family tree, your elderly parents are left at the mercy of what anthropologists call the "other others". All things being equal, part of the institutionalized functions of the extended family system, has always been to help in blending the basic elementary-cum-nuclear family, joint family, compound family, and the maximal family or quarters. It helps to promote the spirit of sharing, communalism and proper bonding. It guides against selfishness, "ego- massaging", and excessive individualism, and above all, imposes social sanctions on those who go contrary to cultural norms, mores and values."
However, in the extended family system some of us must have read and heard comments like: "my parents were so poor that it was my mum's brother or father's sister, that helped towards my education." Or, that "it was my father's brother that trained me to read medicine, law or pharmacy, or it that it was my in-law, that gave me money to go into business or that arranged for a visa to enable me travel to either the UK or the USA to seek greener pastures" etc. In the modern practice of the system, we have seen where an elder brother trained a younger brother and sister .Those trained in turn helped to train the older brother's children, and so the circle continues. It never ends
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