Once again, another round of insensate indefinite strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has paralysed academic activities in federal and state universities nationwide.

At the official commencement of the national Christian campaign on social transformation tagged: “Be the change you want to see”, put together by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), President Goodluck Jonathan claimed that a lot had gone wrong in the family, schools, churches, and the society generally, and that there is need to bring about transformation.

One fundamental point that emerges from our discourse on criticism and the growth of democracy in Nigeria is that the ruling class does not really care about the wellbeing of ordinary Nigerians who have been enduring manmade hardships occasioned by mediocre leadership especially since the reestablishment of civilian rule in 1999.

Corruption in Nigeria is not restricted to the executive branch alone; its destructive tentacles reach all institutions of government. For instance, the legislature is a very important arm of democratic governance saddled with the responsibilities of making good laws for national development and oversight on the executive.

Moreover, October 1 is more appropriate for marking Democracy Day, assuming there is need to celebrate democracy, taking into consideration the landmark national events that took place on that day. The most significant dates in Nigeria’s political history are 1914, 1960 and 1967. Of the three, October 1, 1960 is the most relevant to our discussion for two reasons.

Wednesday last week was a public holiday because, according to the federal government, 29the May is “Democracy Day”. The choice of that date and the political significance it has acquired are due to Olusegun Obasanjo whose inauguration as a civilian President took place on May 29, 1999. Since Obasanjo left office in 2007, his successors, namely, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, have retained the public holiday he introduced fourteen years ago.

Indigenous Nigerian cultures, Christianity, and Islam recommend marriage for everyone. For instance, Christianity teaches that he who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour from God (assuming that such a being exists). Because The Holy Bible appears to have been written from a fundamentally masculine perspective, there is no mention of a wife finding a good thing if she gets a husband. Islam also encourages marriage, while according to native customs and traditions, an unmarried state for both men and women is an abomination.

All this indicates that those who look up to religion for guidance on the issue of marriage are liable to make serious mistakes. There is strong evidence from psychology most especially psychoanalysis that obsessive and irrational condemnation of sexual freedom by most founders of religion is due to a combination of superstitious beliefs about sex and thwarting of natural sexual impulse in early life.

Moreover, religious stipulations on marriage reflect the culture, worldview and experiences of the society from which the religion in question originated. As a result, although there are commonalities across cultures that legitimise generalisation of few particularities of each culture, it is definitely wrong to believe that the nuances of Jewish-Greco-Roman and Arabic cultures in the Holy Bible and Holy Quran must command complete or universal assent from everyone.

It is virtually impossible to know exactly the number of marriages that take place all over the world daily or weekly. What is certain is that an overwhelming majority of men and women still consider it appropriate to formalise their close relationships one way or another through wedlock.