This government had every
chance, in the beginning, to
cause a permanent change in
our mentality and re-orientate
Nigerians. I think they
deliberately pissed that chance
away.
What is the world turning to?
How come we are being driven by a new strain of negative
feminism? With all the people that Boko Haram killed and
kidnapped, it was when 200 plus girls were kidnapped that the
global media descended on Nigeria in the Jonathan days. The
unspoken message was passed quite eloquently; “we care less
if boys were killed, kidnapped or drafted to the warfront as
child soldiers. Men and boys are savages anyway and deserve
whatever they get. It is even better if women and girls were
killed. What we cannot bear is if they are likely to be raped!”
It’s the world we now live in; a world where masculinity is
criminalised, where men have become mere tools in the hands
of powerful women, where the lives of men get easily
destroyed and manipulated. In the western world, it is
commonplace. Men get ruined everyday. The story was carried
by Punch newspapers just yesterday about the pitiful death of
one Mr. Ihediwa, a Nigerian in the US, whose former wife
ensured that he was totally ruined and his children turned
against him. Men are paying for past sins in the Western
world. They have no rights whatsoever and are being trampled
upon. Maybe men will get wise and speak up for themselves as
a group someday. In Africa too, it is an increasing
phenomenon, as we copy verbatim what goes on in these
countries that we admire.
The problem is that the world has deceived itself for too long;
women are actually the stronger sex. I see the weakness of men
daily and I pity us. Apart from the capacity to carry heavy
objects, I doubt if we are stronger in any other sense than
women. I fear them. You dare them at your peril. And fearing
women does not preclude one from loving them. Any man that
disrespects a woman will live a miserable life.
…what is of deeper concern to
me, is that the world did not
rage when over 20,000 other
Nigerians – and some
foreigners – were butchered by
those crazy guys. The world did
not even wince, as thousands of
boys were recruited against
their wills into war fronts.
And so it was, that delectable Isha Sesay, and a bunch of
others from global media swooped on Nigeria and made
thorough media mincemeat of us. We will probably never
recover from that episode. The girls have not been found. The
Buhari administration has ‘almost’ told the Bring Back Our
Girls (BBOG) campaigners to go to hell. But what is of deeper
concern to me, is that the world did not rage when over 20,000
other Nigerians – and some foreigners – were butchered by
those crazy guys. The world did not even wince, as thousands
of boys were recruited against their wills into war fronts. We
don’t even know yet what Boko Haram is, and how a bunch of
allegedly ragtag illiterates routinely beat our army and
sophisticated global intelligence anytime they wish to, very
easily.
This is just to provide a premise for the Ese Oruru saga.
I did not get involved early. I had other things to worry and
write about. But trust Nigerians to be very interested. There
was sex involved. The possibility of rape. And then…
ehmmm…. Islamisation! Ha! Everyone went into overdrive.
The debate raged about how old Ese was. We finally
concluded that she was 13 when abducted. And today, she is
probably 14. Newspapers went into a rage to ‘rescue’ Ese, who
was allegedly forcefully ‘married’ to one Yunusa ‘Yellow’
from Kano State, and had changed her name. She has even
learnt very fluent Hausa in a short while! Some people said the
Emir of Kano was party to the abduction. This news occupied
the media for almost two weeks.
Of course the usual recriminations increased. Many Nigerians
from the South seized the opportunity to excoriate Northerners
for their ‘backward’ culture. The religious ones amongst them
pointed out the ‘Islamisation agenda’. An old video clip from
Kenya, wherein four old people were lynched and burnt to
death was shared by an ‘Apostle’ on social media and people
were asked to pray for Christians in Nigeria who are being
persecuted. Religionists again went into overdrive. I pointed
out to the so-called ‘Apostle’ that he was sharing false
information and heating up the polity. People wanted
‘Yellow’ to be jailed. Some said ‘castrate him’. Some wanted
him killed outrightly. Anyone who offered any contrary
opinion was shot down by the Voltrons. It was bedlam in
Nigerianistan.
The Pushback
Then some smart Northern guys started sharing pictures of
baby factories from the South-East, such as to remind some of
their persecutors that whereas they have problems with these
pedophiles, the baby factory phenomenon also involved
pedophilia. Some of the girls caught in baby factories –
heavily pregnant with children whose father they know not;
children who are carried for nine months and then sold for
money – were between 12 and 16 years. Whereas these baby
factories are all over Nigeria, most seem to exist in the South-
East of Nigeria. It was a reminder of a greater evil. Before then,
I had personally stopped thinking of baby factories. But they
still exist; and many small girls are being ‘processed’ through
them.
Some South-Easterners did not
find it funny that the baby
factory pictures were being
shared. Some termed as asinine,
the attempt by some Northerner
to ask which was the lesser evil
between ‘kidnapping’ a 13
years old girl for marriage, or
doing the same – or perhaps
collecting her consent – to
become a producer of babies
for sale!
Nigerians don’t care about being ‘politically correct’. Put in
another manner, many of us – especially southerners – don’t
care about how what we say and do hurt others. No matter the
positive change we are trying to cause in society, it is
important to choose our words carefully and to know when to
cease and desist. The approach we have usually taken so far
has only hardened positions and driven a wedge between us,
turning this country more and more into a nation of enemies.
Admitted, it seems the government has no clue what to do or is
deliberately neglecting its duties in uniting the people and
fostering cooperation but more on that later.
Some South-Easterners did not find it funny that the baby
factory pictures were being shared. Some termed as asinine,
the attempt by some Northerner to ask which was the lesser
evil between ‘kidnapping’ a 13 years old girl for marriage, or
doing the same – or perhaps collecting her consent – to
become a producer of babies for sale! I shudder at the thought.
Poverty as Enabler
My position is that at the bottom of many of these problems
lies poverty. I wrote recently about slums in Abuja. I actually
visit them from time to time. When one sees the conditions in
which our people live, you would understand that their minds
are messed up and would not be surprised by some of the
things they get up to. Ese’s parents are strugglers. ‘Yellow’
was a Mai-ruwa in Yenagoa. It goes with the territory. More
often than not, it is the poor, illiterate people who suffer from
these afflictions. And so the solution is in better governance,
resulting in better education for Nigerians, lower poverty
levels through the closing of the income gap, an enabling
environment for infrastructure, and giving our people a chance
to prove themselves. Our children will then be able to think
differently and our challenge will be how they will not adopt
the oyinbo way of thinking in its entirety.
The ‘Islamisation’ agenda is the
reigning bogeyman with which
Nigerians are scaring
themselves. The government
seems disconnected from the
reality on the streets, at its own
peril.
Thu Mar 24, 2016 2:59 am
