THE NEED TO REVIVE OUR CORE SOCIETAL VALUES
The loss of our hitherto cherished core societal values through modernization has been a great concern Nigerians. There has been a great increase in moral decadence in our society as many young people no longer believe in hard work, honesty, diligence, dedication, selflessness and other values that made our society of old habitable and meaningful. Nowadays, people are insatiable in their desire to get rich quick which makes them to exhibit a lot of greed and love for excessive materialism.
What should be our core societal values are primarily honesty, selflessness in the service to our country humanity, dedication and truthfulness. Unfortunately, all these values have been lost to modernization and the realization of this fact is taring us in the face. This development has become a matter of constant discussion on radio, or television and newspapers. The consequences of the loss of these values have dangerously threatened the very existence of our society.
What we have now are twisted social values. Honesty and selflessness in service which are major values that should have been cherished by our society have long since vanished with modernization. As a result of this, hard work and diligence, which should have been engendered by honesty and selflessness are no longer cherished by our youths. Those who acquire material wealth by dishonest and crooked means are praised and honoured while the hardworking but poor people are not respected simply because they don't have money. Therefore, as a result of this, many people don't believe in hard work. perseverance and selfless service. An average Nigerian is greedy and everybody wants to own and ride exotic and flashy cars and live in affluence at all cost. This has led to a lot of social vices like armed robbery, bribery and corruption. embezzlement and other social malaise bedevilling our society. All what most Nigerians want is to acquire wealth means since material acquisition speaks louder than such respected values like hard work, honesty, dedication and selflessness.
Homes and families are not an exception as most parents are not honest. They encourage their children to acquire wealth by all means, no matter how crooked such means are. This is why public funds often convert to personal use and many Nigerians are dishonest. Honesty is no longer the best policy. The honest man now finds out to his utter dismay and disappointment that he is misfit in the society.
It is, therefore, imperative that these core social values be revived for our society to be saved from drifting towards extinction. Honesty, hard work, selflessness, perseverance and other exemplary core societal values of those old days should be celebrated and be put above any other things. We should start to reward these values and punish social vices that tend to diminish these social values.

Ade-Olufadeju Mofe