RonkePosh Adeniyi Le Poshe, my dearly beloved sister called me out to be part of this conversation happening on another platform and I thank her and also feel compelled to share on my page what I shared there and add a little more.

Here are my thoughts on the subject matter:

Well dearly beloved sister, the issue is not whether to sing or not to sing. The issue is what does singing represent for our precious children?

The one who instructs the precious children to sing, does he/she understand the meaning enough to live up to it by example and explain the contradictions presented by the deeds or misdeeds of those we elected into office or those who claim to decide the affairs of this nation…

I think the issue is deeper than singing or not singing. It is about whether our precious children will ever feel a sense of duty or patriotism towards a nation that makes no tangible contribution to their personal, social and educational development…Or show me what accrues to a Nigerian child by virtue of the fact that he/she is a Nigeria. The poor but precious children feel neither the presence of their parents, community nor the state in the provision of basic needs of life. The precious children, whose parents are well to do, feel only the presence of their parents, who meet their educational, medical, shelter, nutritional and security needs as if they are local government chairman. These precious children are more citizens of their parents than being citizens of Nigeria. The way it looks is that they are ‘grand citizens.’

Yet there is no nation on earth worth its name, where the responsibilities of parenting rests solely on the shoulders of the parents, without clearly defined support from the state.

It is my well considered opinion that the potentials deposited in our precious children are too enormous and multifaceted that it will take systems, actively built and supported by the community, state and International community to bring into excellent fruition.

I make bold to say that no parents, not matter how endowed and prepared they think they are are designed by God to solely raise their precious children and bring the best out of them. I guess that is why the popular saying, ‘it takes a village to raise a child,’ makes so much sense to me today.

Social Protection is missing, so the hopes, yearning and aspirations of our precious children hang in the balance.

It is important to note that most of the precious children in the estate where I live(and the likes) carry dual citizenship from birth. They are here but they are not of here.

I guess most of their parents, reading the state of the nation, decided that one of the greatest gifts they can give to their precious children was to win for them by birth dual citizenship as a security of an unpredictable Third World future.

We have done this so much that the nations we run to are now changing their policies as it relates to same. I guess, telling us, go and built your own nation and make it suitable for your precious children to be born.

To sing national anthem is to pledge allegiance to a nation, but does that happen by mere signing or by seen and feeling the allegiance of a nation towards them first.

God loved us first before demanding love from us…I think God’s eternal principle is, if love is a possibility, I will demonstrate it first as an example. The lesser is first blessed by the greater to show the lesser the possibility of same.

So also for a nation to demand allegiance from her citizens, children or adults, it must love them first and demonstrably so…

For those of us who say but John F. Kennedy said, ‘think not what your country can do for you. But think what you can do for your country.’ Let me say that it is more a statement of assurance and not a call to duty. This statement that JFK made during his swearing in as the 35th President of the United States of America was to say that since you can see what America has done and can do for you by her character, lose yourselves to the service of the nation. No nation places a demand where she has not invested.

When Jesus says take no thought of what you shall eat or drink, it is a call to depend on a God, who meets all your needs and has demonstrated through the ages long the unbroken capacity to do so…

So singing of national anthem must be preceded by teaching our precious children what it means…

But I guess the more we teach them what it means, the more their response will be, ‘how shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land’?

It is time to rise and build our nation in the BEST INTEREST OF OUR PRECIOUS AFRICAN CHILDREN.

Do have an INSPIRED weekend.

I am Taiwo AKINLAMI, The Preacher, I SPEAK FOR THE BEST INTEREST OF THE PRECIOUS AFRICAN CHILD.