International Day of Families is observed on May 15 every year. The Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993. It reflects the importance the international community attaches to families. The International Day provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to families and to increase knowledge of the social, economic and demographic processes affecting families.

According to Pope John the twenty-third, family is the first essential cell of human society. Family is one of the most important, if not the most important thing in our lives. In fact, the most important thing in the world is family. A happy family is but an earlier heaven. The family is the test of freedom, because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself. Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family.

Being a member of a family means you are a part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life. Having somewhere to go is home, having someone to love is family; and having both is a blessing.

There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues are created, strengthened and maintained. Families are the centre of society and provide a stable and supporting home for people of all ages. This they do by upholding and reinforcing core moral and social values necessary to nurture individuals to become useful citizens capable of contributing in building a progressive society. Unfortunately, over the years, many families are no longer living up to these important responsibilities, following near collapse of the values and bond that regulate the family.

In some cases, collective family interest is subverted because of individual aspiration and desire, while sometimes there is outright manipulation by some family members for self-advantage, which gradually eroded the structure and framework on which family roles function effectively. The sad consequences are steady increase in collapsed marriages and broken homes.

Again, unbridled quest for material wealth has completely distracted some parents from their primary rules in the family as they spend little or no time with their children, condemning them to the disposition of house-helps, who, in some cases, are in dire need of care and attention themselves. With lack of parental care and control, these children fall easy prey to physical and psychological abuse as they are exposed to social influences that negatively impact on their behaviourial pattern.

However, in a noble family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together and the music that brings harmony. In time of test, family is best. The Bible has always encouraged strong family ties. You do not choose your family; they are God’s gift to you.

Ndi Anambra are fortunate though, that they are led by an exemplary family imbued the virtues of love, tolerance, care and humane disposition. Governor Willie Obiano is a proactive, visionary and transparent leader with a knack for excellence and prudent management of human and material resources. Thus, Anambra is moving from grass to grace.

The wife of the governor, Chief Dr. Ebelechukwu Obiano, Osodieme, is not only an amazon but also a noble woman that cares. A noble woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely. Her tears flow as abundantly as her laughter. A noble woman is both soft and powerful; she is both practical and spiritual. She loves, cares, forgives, supports, walks away and perseveres.

Osodieme, like Barbara Taylor and Mother Theresa, is a noble woman who ascended to mountaintops, found the loftiest peaks, most wrapped in clouds and snow; she then found the surpassed and subdued mankind and looked down on the hate of those below.

Suffice it to say that the first family in Anambra state is an epitome of exemplary family, summed in exemplary leadership. Any family that is in comatose should look up to the first family in Anambra. Happy International Day of families.

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