It wasn’t me, then who?

Sadly, the title of my piece this week is  the only semtence I remember from this childhood game we played years ago. To play the game, you clapped your own hands and then smack them on those of your play mates. You all end up in a frozen position when the song ends with this sentence.

I’m not sure the song and game were peculiar to those of us who grew up on Abeokuta street, D line Port Harcourt. There must be many other children who played it around the world.

There are some who made it a way of life, while some others left it behind as part of their childhood. The latter are the ones who interest me today, I mean the ones who no longer take responsibility for anything.  My kid brother says to me that I’m often quick to say all the problems the world faces emanate from his generation, not mine or the generation preceding.  I often argue to say maybe it isn’t all from his generation, it is however prevalent in his generation.

In his generation, something is always someone’s fault, never yours. Someone is always responsible for an incident that happened to you, everyone is responsible save you.

I remember laughing so hard and walking into a shop in the States in 2005. I had been engaged animatedly with a friend,  unconscious of my environment. I then stumbled on a table top glass decor. At the sound of the shattering glass, I immediately began a mental calculation of how much I had on me to organise a repayment,  if possible. It was a mystified me that stared at the shop owners and attendants who ran all round me checking to see if I was fine, comfortable, required anything. The fussing was so much that my apologies were glossed over, clearly my welfare was priority. My friend who was a resident  saw how surprised I was, informed me that the shop owner was probably keen to avoid any potential law suits from me. Flimsy law suits are common place in the States. And so the more a person takes responsibility for himself and others, the more peace there is.

I couldn’t imagine the charges I was advised to press. It could be anything from negligence on their part on how the decor was placed to  me claiming to have a disability that wasn’t obvious to them but still should have been catered for.

Fast forward to today and there has been an increase in the silliest of cases from persons who abhor the word responsibility.

Some were too funny and others just too wrong. Man drinks or  gets drunk, drives into a truck on his way home. He doesn’t die by some stroke of luck. Man then returns to sue the bartender for not knowing when to stop serving him alcohol. I suppose it is inappropriate to ask Man to take responsibility and know when he has had enough alcohol. There were the ones who had binged on fast foods for years and the sued the fast food chain for letting them grow so fat.

The ones that amuse me the most are the ‘he made me dos’. You can find these types  on DSTV’s Crime  and Investigation channels or the channels that shows cheaters- typically a man will tell the police he killed his wife or girlfriend as she ‘made him feel inadequate’. It wasn’t his fault (killer reporting). She made him do it.

People just aren’t being responsible and  no one is holding anyone accountable, should these types of persons be blessed with the gift of the garb, then there is even more trouble as they can talk their way out of anything. I do think it starts from early, when we don’t teach and enforce responsibility taking, its human to want to someone else to pay your bills, to make your bed for you, wash your plate for you-I particularly remember a niece of mine, who when asked to wash her plates-wondered genuinely ‘why she should when her older sister loves house chores and she doesn’t. My Cousin emphasized that each person should be responsible for keeping clean their own utensils.

If little miss grew up without responsibilities then she’d be tough to manage at work, at home and in the world, everything will be someone else’s fault not hers.

I do believe it is only fair that people don’t aid this ailment, by self consciously allowing adults to take responsibility for their actions- so when next you meet an ‘it’s not me’- I’d suggest you ask the following questions: Am I really serving this person by suffering the consequences of their actions for them? How will this person benefit if I refuse to suffer the consequences for his actions? How am I sabotaging myself and other concerned parties by taking too much responsibility?

Stop taking on unnecessary responsibility for other adults and require them to deal with their own actions. Only then can they learn from their mistakes, and be motivated to avoid making them again.

Nkiru Olumide-Ojo