Analysts have emphasised the need for Nigerian parents and other senior citizens to teach their children, wards and the younger generation Nigerian cultures and traditions.
The discussion, on a radio programme, Let’s Talk Nigeria on Sparkling FM in Calabar, is part of activities to mark the 2026 Children’s Day, and to remind parents and guardians of the imperatives of encouraging their children to know more about their roots and practices.
The discussants cautioned against allowing modern technological influences to completely overwhelm the younger generation, to guard against erasing ancestral practices handed down to succeeding generations.
The lead discussant, Dr MacFarlane Ejah, executive director of the International Training, Research and Advocacy Project (ITRAP), and other contributors insisted that Nigerian children should be linked back to nativity, traditions and cultures in order not to allow such to go extinct.
Ejah said, “Nigerian children should be taught the values of local cultures. They should be made to understand the disadvantages of allowing foreign cultures and influences to replace long-held and cherished local cultures”.
Other phone-in callers, including Mrs Virginia Akpan, a housewife, and Esu Abraham, a lawyer, decried poor parenting as noticed in many families.
Virginia lamented how children are not closer to their parents nowadays because they are harsh to them.
“Children are not able, therefore, to open up their emotional pains and difficulties to their parents because not only that, some parents are not friendly with their children, modern devices like computers and Android phones have taken away precious time they ought to share with their children”, she said.
She advised that parents should teach their children how to cook native foods and delicacies.
“They should inculcate our traditional values and cultures into their children; speak with them in Nigerian languages, take them to their villages from time to time to enable them know their roots”.
In his contribution, Abraham spoke on the need to impart moral values to the children.
He warned against the growing influence of the so-called Gen-Z culture, a term used to describe children of the last generation.
“The Gen-Z children are given to immoral tendencies due to many influences of today’s technology. We as parents should closely monitor and advise our children so that they don’t go out of control”, Abraham said.
