Teens Meet Outreach

I recently saw a disheartening report: “In Lagos: Teenagers Hack Boy To Death”. This is not the first and from the look of things, isn’t going to be the last; Its just one of “several” of such male teenager(s) related violence stories. Okay, this one had something to do with a football match played between 1:00Am and 4:00Am, and some drinks. The oldest of these teenage boys happened to be 17years old.

In reading this sour tale, the overwhelming truth expressed in the famous quote by Dr Myles Munroe of blessed memory is so vivid: “when the PURPOSE of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable”.
Its not enough to tell your male son to go to school. To what purpose? Its not enough to tell the young male not to drink, smoke or get involved with gangs. To what purpose?

Now by purpose I don’t mean the scare tactics parents employ like if you do this and that, you’ll go to jail, you’ll run mad and all manner of what’s not. All that doesn’t work. If it does, you wouldn’t find communities with generations of convicts and criminals. In such communities you don’t have to say much, as the males already see the implications of certain behaviours.

From their formation years, males should be taught and imbued with a sense of purpose (The why and what of life) and responsibility (the how of life)
[…the psychology behind this is simply amazing].

By teaching and imbuing purpose, I mean evoking a positive sense of expectation, one that assumes responsibility to contribute to the human race, while constantly seeking to be a better person.

Most certainly if those teenagers had the slightest sense of purpose and responsibility, they wouldn’t abuse the life of another teenager, not to the extent of hacking him to death. A sense of purpose and responsibility would have kept a teenager at home by 1:00Am. And don’t tell me they all don’t have homes.

The male speaks of gender, the man in the male speaks of purpose.
A REAL MAN IS A MAN OF PURPOSE.

Nature abhors vacuum. If we do not deliberately build real men, trust me we do not need to do any thing more to build ‘wrong men’.

About the Writer: Anointing Ogie is a graduate from the famous Uniben and holds an MSc in Economics from Unilorin. He works as a research associate with a Policy Think Tank Organization in a part of West Africa, Nigeria. He writes only on the basis of the vision he has, and that’s to see young guys transition to being real men.