Mailumo (Self-Centeredness) The Emerging Socio-Cultural Philosophy and Its Impact on Traditional Tiv Values

Abstract

Societies across the world keep evolving and new values and ideals are imbibed. This makes the assertion that change is the only permanent thing undeniable. The above claim is also true of the contemporary Tiv society which has imbibed foreign values and ideals which are antithetical to values and ideals of the traditional Tiv society. A glaring value which has emerged in contemporary Tiv society is the mailumo (self-centeredness) socio-cultural philosophy which is being firmly entrenched as a Tiv value. The research is qualitative and adopts a multi-disciplinary approach for method. Thus, the historical, descriptive and analytic methods are employed. For data collection, the primary and secondary methods are adopted. In the primary method, oral interviews and observation procedures are used; whereas in the secondary method, information is obtained from books, journals and other published materials. The data that is collated is presented using the analytic method. The research has established that mailumo (self-centeredness) as an emerging socio-cultural and socio-political philosophy in Tiv society is diametrically opposed to the Tiv socio-cultural philosophies of ya na angbian and ayatutu (“weism”-group solidarity). The research further established that mailumo has brought about greed, hatred, disunity, self-centredness, the promotion of mediocrity and Pull-Down syndrome. These ideals have negatively affected Tiv society and retarded its development. The paper calls on the Tiv to return to the drawing board and re-entrenched the traditional Tiv socio-cultural philosophies of ya na angbian and ayatutu of being one’s brother’s keeper. These ideals would ensure social cohesion among the Tiv and bring about love, peace, stability and development of Tiv society.