Taming the irresponibility of men in contemporary times – Dr. Muiz Banire

Today, I am addressing an unusual issue that is merely tangential to leadership. By this I mean, while the issue does not directly centre on the core value of leadership, it is incidental to leadership delivery. In actual fact, it is the origin and training school for leadership which is unofficial and may require no formal rules, regulations but rather conventions and customs which have ripened into rigid rules as a result of their usage over time and benefit to society. If we agree that the essence of leadership is to shape society, then any act or omission that threatens the fabric of society must be tamed.

Thus, this column today is looking at failure of parenting more especially from the angle of men and their parental responsibilities. It is in this connection that I am addressing the irresponsibility of some of our men as husbands and fathers in the society. The issue originated from the keynote address delivered by the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Kadiri Hamzat, at the 30th pre-Ramadan lecture of the University of Lagos Muslim Alumni on Sunday, the 23rd day of February, 2025. In his presentation, he alluded to a study carried out in the State which revealed the existence of the staggering figure of 159,000 ‘widows’ in Lagos State. As we all know, the word “widow” is meant to describe a woman that has lost her husband.
According to Definitions from Oxford Dictionary, a widow is “a woman who has lost her spouse by death and has not married again.” The implication of this ordinarily therefore connotes a woman whose husband is clinically dead. However, in the present-day scenario, the term substantially may refer to a woman whose husband is alive but is rather a living dead, having abandoned his responsibilities at home, with the women taking charge of responsibilities, or no one assuming responsibility for the children.
The import of this is that being a husband is not an end in itself but rather with a goal of siring offspring thereby making the person bringing forth another to this world a parent. According Mirriam Webster Dictionary, a parent is one that begets or brings forth offspring just became parents of twins; b: a person who brings up and cares for another foster parents. The implication of the foregoing is that a parent that has brought forth a soul, has responsibility towards seeing to the child’s welfare until the age of maturity. It is the failure, refusal and/or neglect of this obligation that keeps producing the miscreants threatening the society today. Many men in our society today do not realise that getting married to a woman is not enough, it is a concomitant responsibility that one must be ready to take care of the woman and the offspring.
A Yoruba saying goes thus: a ti gbe’yawo ko te’jo, t’owo obe lo soro. Getting married to a woman is not an achievement on its own, much less fathering a child; providing sustenance is the most important. Rather than observing the responsibility of being the breadwinner, many men have abandoned home in irresponsible pursuit of reckless enjoyment resulting in casual relationships outside and thereby producing several other children outside wedlock whose upbringing is fostered by single parenthood. It is circumstances of this nature that have led our society into a major crisis of poor upbringing and has turned many women into objects of mere pleasure in the hands of exploiting men who find the needs of such women a means of taking advantage of them. The consequence is a society without morals, as most of these women do not have a choice than to permit any entrants into their privacy for immediate needs rather than long time sake.
It is also the case that many women have indoctrinated their girl children into the business of ‘hook-up’ which is a result of the need to make ends meet. They do not see any need to enforce morals on their children more so that the mother too is in the habit of bringing home different kinds of men.
The origin of this licensed madness of immorality is the absence of a father figure who has absconded from home either physically or in terms of being responsible. In addition are also retinue of ‘unclaimed’ children whose paternity are in jeopardy. The man has seen no connection between his male organ and the need to be responsible for the upbringing of such offspring that are sired by his loins.
This has also led to many boys raised in such environments being irresponsible for all he has seen as a pattern of growth is irresponsibility. He is a victim of peer pressure by which he embraces all manner of anti-social behaviour and thinks that being a thug, for instance, is more profitable than being educated.

He quickly parrots the street slangs, ‘who book epp’ or ‘school na scam’ which means that being educated profits no one and schooling is mere indoctrination. Having abandoned society’s moral compass together with its means of instilling it, he takes to smoking and drinking which could have been counselled against or corrected were the father to have been a responsible man who sees his future in the future of his children.
Rather than the youth produced in these circumstances becoming assets to the society, they are now the liability to the country. The northern part of the country has these miscreants in abundance who have become the recruitment ground for boko haram and other terrorist groups. They are the bandits terrorizing the north and giving everyone a hell to live in at all costs. We have them as out-of-school children whose futures are already thrashed to ignorance and abject poverty.

In the southern parts of Nigeria, we have many of them who have grown up in the motor parks and have become useful tools in the hands of politicians who employ them to rig elections, unleash violence on the opposition and create a sense of fear in the masses. We have them in abundance with many as armed robbers, kidnappers and urchins whose lifestyles constitute a menace to society. A man cannot father a child without fathering the child. Being a father by sleeping with and impregnating a woman is not a proof of manhood or manliness. It is an act that any animal can do and hence lower animals also enjoy sex without the necessary fatherly responsibilities of education or instilling morality in their offspring. Thus, a man who impregnates a woman without being ready to bear the responsibility of a father is nothing but a lower animal whose sense of fatherhood is limited to sex.
Where there is failure of fatherly responsibility, leadership from the home setting has failed. There is no governance that can effectively complement the role of the mother whose ability in many cases to instill discipline may be challenged. Men must realise the need to do the needful in sparing society of horrors of their uncontrolled sexual libido. My sense of it, by way of leadership, is that there is urgent need to start regulating this misbehavior by some irresponsible men who are often regarded as husbands. There must be a legislation against this sort of irresponsibility.
If a man deems it right to father a child, then he must be prepared to take responsibility for the full upbringing of the child. This does not imply that a man cannot divorce his wife where the situation arises but demands that he must take responsibility for the upbringing of the children whether there is marriage or not. In many cases, I have been approached by many women whose husbands have abandoned them seeking one form of financial intervention or another, or in scanty situations, seeking moral guidance for those neglected children by their fathers.
To many I have provided such help but at other times, probably when I am broke, I feel indignant and unable to help as the responsibility of the irresponsible man cannot be transferred unto me who also have my own wife and children to take care of. If all men were to abandon their responsibilities in the same fashion as the husbands of these women do, there would be no one to take care of another. My very strong view is that God, in His infinite wisdom in bringing men and women for the enterprise of producing children, certainly expects joint responsibility in the development of the children.
The roles assigned to women and men are quite distinct but complimentary. Therefore, where one is lacking, having a developed balanced child becomes a challenge and impaired. The message is therefore that each of them has distinct roles to play in the development and growth of a child. None of the two except by natural occurrence must abdicate his or her responsibility towards the child.
And this is one reason stringent measures must be put in place to deter this attitude of men abandoning their domestic responsibilities to society that has more than enough challenges to take care of. While I am cognizant of the Child Rights Law of the various States and the Child Rights Act with the various provisions designed to ensure that parental responsibility is not abandoned, it is clear that mere legislation is not enough to address the situation. No law is capable of self-execution and it is important that the various agencies saddled with children rights and protection step their game.

Cases of parental responsibility should be prosecuted with such men being effectively tamed. There must be appropriate punishment for deterring such acts which may not pertain to imprisonment as many of such irresponsible fathers feel more comfortable in prisons than being left free to shoulder their duties and responsibilities. Non-governmental organisations and civil society groups need to step up advocacy in this regard without projecting the image of being unduly against men. The least the Government and other relevant stakeholders can embark upon in this regard is naming and shaming these irresponsible men. It is also important to note that all religions recognize the parental responsibilities imposed or bestowed on the parties. Both the Quran and the Bible essentially demand of our men to be responsible , and it goes beyond admonition into stating the sanction receivable on the day of judgment. Each of the parents will, in the hereafter, account for the role he/she played in the lives of these neglected children. Indeed, the words of God are ever true. It is important to note that in some cases, many men abandon their homes and appear irresponsible due to some women who rather see marriage as a gender competition and a battleground for self-assertion, than a partnership. Inordinate ambition of some women can equally not be disassociated from this at times, coupled with undue pressure. Both men and women need counselling so that marriage as an institution is seen as a place to foster love and care for each other and for the children of the relationship. There is no purpose engaging in a relationship only to abandon its resultant demands. May be the time is ripe for castrating such errant men.