By Oshiomhole Inumah
A natural part of the environment of all pre -human and early-human species, it is a piece of creative art of leisure that possesses invincible powers capable of taking captive of our emotions and thoughts.
Its ability to directly or indirectly convey unsolicited messages soul-to-soul to us is unimaginable. It is an embodiment of the good, the bad and the ugly, whose cunning influence on us unconsciously becomes social life and value.
Its influence on humans and nature is powerful and charming enough to heal the most painful memory, soften the hardest heart and bring tears to our eyes.
It speaks the universal language of mankind that breaks barriers of culture, space and time, with capabilities to activate several parts of the brain while helping to absorb very complex messages through melody, pitch and rhythm.
The significant role it plays in preschools’ grooming of pupils in letters, numbers and diction mastering for excellent speech and communication skills cannot be over-emphasized.
Music is as soothing as a balm of sweet-smelling oil.
Regrettably, this excellent piece of creative art of communication, cultural bond, education, leisure and research has largely been abused and manipulated towards immorality, indiscipline and all forms of social vices that have greatly undermined collective positive efforts of responsible governments, individuals and organizations at raising total child as a viable human capital for healthy growth and development.
Children, being smart learners, carefree communicators and vulnerable, have regrettably been hard-hit in an environment where uncensored adult audio, texts and visual contents are carelessly proliferated for everyone’s consumption, through all available means especially, internet enabled mobile devices and satellite TV channels.
Failed by governments’ weak regulatory policies, agencies like the National Films and Video Censors Board, NFVC saddled with responsibilities of checkmating excesses of the creative industry, governments’ lack of substantial investment in education, and lack of reward mechanism for moral and academic excellence, children’s rights to positive social life and upbringing is under immense threat.
Poor input produces faulty output, a clear case of garbage-in, garbage-out. Uncensored expletive-filled creative contents – in lyrics, texts and visuals accessible to everyone is an act of child abuse, and a deliberate psychological defilement of budding stars’ innocence who gets psychologically derailed and struggle to discern between the value of uprightness being taught at homes and schools and the junk they constantly get force-fed with through uncensored music, books and visual contents leading to divided minds which ultimately culminate into teenage rebellion.
To prioritize revenue generation over entrenchment of value system, while desperate entertainers, producers and authors get away with propagation of nudity, vulgarity and violence that disorientate the vulnerable is tantamount to abdication of official responsibilities, violation of oath of office, and of children’s rights to proper upbringing.
Governments at all levels, as custodians and guardians of the law and citizens respectively must ensure proper legislation and strict enforcement of relevant creative arts laws to protect children from all forms of substandard contents that negate value of hard-work, honesty and dignity in labour dished out by desperate unregulated, narrow-minded corporate entities and individuals, whose sole motivation is financial gratification which further pushes up the bar of moral decadence and crime.
It is agonizingly depressing and worrisome to see so-called citadels of learning throw in the towel and join the bandwagon, rather than strive to arrest the scourge of moral decay and erosion of family values.
Schools deliberately or ignorantly de-educate children by entertaining them with toxic and expletive laden music during their annual awards for academic and moral excellence and other social events. It is ironical to employ advocates of decadence for celebration of excellence.
We owe the children cum future leaders and the society at large, moral and spiritual obligations of synergy and support in building and entrenching cultural and family values that promote practical education, hinged on character, discipline and dignity for sustainable economy, peace and security.
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