Sex… And How Our Parents Lied To Us
Black Couple at the beach. Image: Pinterest Do you remember that conversation you had with your parents about sex? It was probably on that day when you had your very first menstruation. Or maybe, that day when your neighbor’s daughter came home pregnant and the entire street got a free show. Either way, something must have triggered the talk. Now, it didn’t matter if you were as close to your parents as peas in a pod or had a run-away-to-my-room-as-soon-as-daddy-shows-up attitude. What mattered was that, if you had a conversation about sex with your parents, it most definitely must have been AWKWARD! Thing is, as awkward as it must have been for you, it must have been ten times worse for your parents (okay…a little exaggeration. Maybe, two times more). Imagine the horror they must have felt trying to explain sex to you; a child they brought into the world. Multiply that horror by two if you were a very inquisitive child. If it wasn’t so serious, it could actually be very funny. In retrospect, you knew you couldn’t dare laugh. What was worse, parents knew that too. They also knew they could not laugh either. With that much pressure, it is no wonder that they sometimes resort to flat out lies in order to keep us in check. Done out of love as they would say, these lies have shaped how we view sex today. Here is a list of some of the lies our parents told us about sex. Lie #1: Your virginity is your most valuable asset and the best gift you can give a man. Image: Discover ideas about African American Tattoos Some might be nodding their heads in remembrance of this one. Is this statement even sensible? How can virginity be ranked as a woman’s most precious asset?! What happened to her brain? What happened to the influence with which she was created with? When you take a look at this statement, you see the hand of some very misogynistic group of people who do not think that there is more to a woman than her ‘honey pot’. These ideas formed the core of society’s norms and were further translated to kids from their parents. So, the question that begs to be asked is: when the virginity goes, does her value go with it too? Is her virginity supposed to help her husband be the man he ought to be? Is her virginity going to help her manage a home, and if she works, still keep a balance between home and career and all other things she does? How come the one thing that is taken in a jiffy is deemed the most important asset she could bring to the table? What is worse, there are men who have married virgins and who are totally disgusted with their character flaws, personal hygiene or general persona. He will not care if she was a virgin if she falls short in other areas that are necessary for the partnership. It then goes to show that the hymen CANNOT possibly the most valuable thing that you can give a man. Lie #2: If you do not have sex before your wedding night, your husband will love and value you more. You all know that couple who start the day with a brawl, a loud shout or the sound of the wife used as a punching bag. The presence or absence of the hymen doesn’t make a wife beater hang his gloves, nor does it make an emotionally empty man show love and affection to his wife. There are men who have married virgins yet have gone on to disrespect them in public. Some have gone as far as withdrawing their affection and cheating on them, even to the tune of dating their very best friends, and in some cases, their sisters. Virginity is no guarantee that a man will treat a woman right when she becomes his wife. Also, the fact that your husband was your first doesn’t mean he will be so enamored of your vagina that he won’t stray to some other woman. If you are in doubt, go ask all the virgins-before-marriage who are dealing with straying husbands. Lie #3: If you have sex before marriage, your husband will lose his savor for you. Truth is, whether you have sex before or after marriage, your husband will eventually lose his savor for you…as you will lose yours for him. Keeping desire afire in a marriage is a full time responsibility required by both husband and wife. That is why you might start your marriage hitting it five times a day and then slow down to once a day, once a week, once in three months and in some instances, never at all. It is a natural phenomenon. Laws of diminishing return always sets in and sex is no exception. Your precious ‘virginity gift’ wouldn’t make your husband bury himself in you for the rest of his life. He will get up; even it is just to pee. Lie #4: Sex is disgusting. Image: Discover ideas about Black Couple Art This line is usually towed by religious fanatics. They hammer on how disgusting the sexual act is, going as far as saying it is sin, even in the confines of marriage. There are stories of people who get up from having sex with their spouse to bent-knees in prayer to ‘cleanse themselves’. You begin to wonder how they can take that stand when God created coitus, not just for procreation but for communion and fun. Well…if that is your belief anyway. There is absolutely nothing disgusting about sex. Lie #5: A woman who wants to know about sex is a ‘whore’. Many women get engaged to men and the issue of sex never comes up. When they eventually get married, they suffer through their husbands sexual overtures without saying anything. Many of these women don’t even know that sex can (and should) be pleasurable for them. They lie
Skill Versus Innovation
The Nigerian system requires that a person be ‘skillful’ in whatever field they choose so that they can excel in the job market. Everyone seems to be talking about garnering skills that will make the average Nigerian standout. Job seekers are told to write skills they have to give themselves an edge over thousands of competitors. Everywhere you go, someone seems to be pushing the ‘skill’ agenda into the mind of Nigerians.When young graduates report to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) camp, one of the first things they are introduced to is skill acquisition. Lecture after lecture on skill acquisition is done. Skills like bead making, cake making, make-up artistry, and other things like these are taught to graduates, who in turn feel empowered to go into the world and conquer it. This skill acquisition is presented as a way to become young entrepreneurs.In most cases where these graduates are not interested in learning such skills, they are constantly reminded that there are no jobs available, implying that additional skills would help one fare better in an already trying economy. At this grim reminder, even doctors gradually get cajoled into learning a skill. It then becomes no surprise when doctors and lawyers are seen learning to make beads.Now, being skillful is not bad in itself. Every nation needs skillful individuals to improve it and Nigeria is not an exception. Also, learning new skills is good. Where there is a problem is when skills are the only things that Nigerians are urged to learn, especially as these ‘skills’ are as rudimentary as making a cake, giving someone a make over or making Ankara-based accessories and shoes. What then begs to be asked is, ‘What happened to innovation?’ While skill (chiefly) requires the use of hands, innovation requires the use of one’s brains. Innovation requires focusing on a problem and looking at how that problem can be solved. The word in context here is ‘how’. When an innovative person latches unto an idea, creating a solution is all he can think of. And in most cases, it is never about making money, but about solving a problem that plagues society. Does this mean that learning and applying skills doesn’t require brains? Of course not! Skills require brains, but not as much as the innovative process.Man is in existence to solve problems. Imagine the man who invented the modern-day oven, making baking easier than it must have been in the past. Imagine him watching the hairs of bakers getting singed while trying to get dough into a makeshift oven and bread out of it. With careful research, he was able to invent something that was easier to handle, with outputs which were much more efficient and effective. With aptly applied timers, baked goods could come out as close to perfect as possible.Someone saw that the one-horse carriages were too cumbersome and thought of how they could make traveling less stressful…on man and on his beast. Whether it was Pierre Lallement, Marius Olivier, Kirkpatrick Macmillan or Pierre Michaux, the main thing was that bicycles were created and they were far more effective than the horse-drawn carriages. Horses are definitely thankful that they do not have to pull man and his carriage across vast swathes of land.Even though the bicycles were widely accepted, yet another person wanted something better. From the bicycles, society moved to motor cycles, cars and finally, the big one! The Wright brothers broke all sort of rules by inventing the first plane and today, planes after planes are seen, and heard, flying overhead. Imagine the amount of thought that had to go into putting all the parts of the plan before they finally flew their plane. The plane the Wright brothers invented is not the plane flown today. Great improvements have been made on their invention and one can fly in the utmost comfort whilst traveling.This has not stopped more innovators from thinking of how to make the plane (or even the cars and bicycles) better and more efficient. Today, there are Boeing planes, super jets and even drones. Just when you think cars couldn’t get any flashier, something out of this world is designed by someone and you just wonder how they do it! From Ferraris to Bentleys, the design of cars tells us just how innovative people can be.Do you want to talk medicine? The leaps and bounds doctors were (and are continually) able to achieve in curbing diseases, vaccinating against illnesses and in some cases, totally eradicating them from the face of the earth, is due to the innovative ideas of people. Research in biotechnology, biology, microbiology, pathology and other related fields, have helped in creating drugs that can cure many diseases. Even when they cannot create drugs that can cure diseases, they try to create ones that can manage disease. One of the greatest achievements of research in medicine is the scientific leap called cloning. All of this is as a result of building on innovative ideas and not on building skills.Unlike most other people, Nigerians are urged to develop skills like cake making, make-up application, tailoring, shoe making and whatnot. They are urged to let their most important asset – their brains – go to waste. The skills they learn are never new. They never think up something fresh and unseen before. All they are taught is how to effectively replicate something that they have seen. Even the best of cake makers go online to see what someone else has done. What is the innovation in that? Another big question follows. Where did this problem start from?It couldn’t have been before the advent of colonialism, because our forefathers had beautifully designed clothes. So someone must have thought about covering people. The elaborate machines our forefathers used to even make these clothes, tell a lot about their wisdom and innovative skills.Their farming tools were rudimentary but showed that they even used their grey matter. What would you say about them making clay jars as a
The North Is Not Hausa
Image: Home Town Nigeria is at a very bad place now, with hatred sown deep into the very core of society. No one can tell just how long that hatred has been going on, but one thing most are sure of is that, any attempt at forcibly removing it will further widen the gaping wound which is Nigeria today; and probably destroy the last vestiges which we are holding on to. This hatred is beyond religious: in fact, religious issues are not as deeply seated as those related to ethnicity and tribalism. The Northern part of the country seems to bear the brunt of this hatred, with the Southern, Eastern and Western parts showing their distaste of the ‘Hausa-North’. Is this too broad (and maybe too bold) a statement? Well…it gets worse.When I was in the university, just a few months before graduation, my sister came to me and asked that I hang out with her and some friends. They were both from one of the South-Southern states of Nigeria; though one of them had lived in Kaduna State until he gained admission to the university. The other was visiting the North for the very first time.We primped and went out to hang out with the guys. While talking, I noticed that the new guy was staring at my sister and I in a very unsettling manner. After enduring the Xray-like stare for a while, I shot him a glare. He became unnerved and apologized. He said he had always had the view that the North was a wild land, inhabited by uneducated cattle shepherds who had an unusual thirst for power. He said he had actually told his friend that he hoped he was not bringing Hausa ‘fura da nono’ sellers to come hang with them. Even in that assessment, you can’t help but see how wrong he was about his knowledge of the Hausa tribe. We laughed about it and in the end, he said, ‘I have changed my views about the Hausa man and the North’. When I asked if he had met any Hausa man, he snorted and said, ‘You, now!’ (For crying out loud, I’m a mix of Idoma and Ebira. But let me continue.)A little while back, a friend told me of his experience with some people when he went to serve in the Eastern part of the country. They were welcoming until they found out he was from Borno State. Easy camaraderie turned into glacier coldness. They watched him with suspicion and accused him of being among the Hausas who had killed their fellow Igbo brothers. At one point, he was scared for his life. He actually thought they were going to kill him. This only changed when they saw him in church one day. After the service, they accosted him. When they ascertained that he wasn’t a member of Boko Haram sent to bomb their church, they asked him how a Hausa man could be a Christian. He explained to them that he wasn’t Hausa. One of them quipped, ‘Are you not from Borno?’. At his affirmation, they asked again, ‘Is Borno not in the North?’ Nodding his head, they said, ‘Then you are Hausa jare!’. Despite his explanations, they still wouldn’t believe that the North wasn’t solely a Hausa region. My friend had to resign to their strongly held ideas, even accepting the nickname, ‘Hausa boy’. He just couldn’t get it into their heads that Hausa is not even an indigent tribe in Borno State. Kanuri yes, but definitely not Hausa! A friend on Facebook also told me of his brother who had gone to one of the Western States for an interview. Having scored the job, he set about looking for a house. He asked a security man to help him get a place. When the security guy was free, he took my friend around and they met many landlords. One would expect that he would easily get a house. But he was rejected by all of them! As soon as they realized he was from the North, they clammed up and refused to give him their houses for rent. One landlord went as far as saying that he didn’t want a Hausa man in his house and that he sure didn’t want a “Boko haram” in his house. This man had to resort to living with the only nice person he had met in that town; the security man. His money was not good enough to get him a place as long as he was perceived as Hausa. The worst part is that there are only five states in the North that are predominantly Hausa. They are Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano, Katsina and Jigawa. That is to say that of the nineteen Northern States, there are only five States with Hausa people making up the majority indigenous population. Why then are we all regarded as Hausa people? Adamawa State has about 58 indigenous languages, Kaduna has about 57 and Benue has close to 14. I can talk about these States because I have some attachment and affiliation to them. Add that to the Hausa States and that is just eight out of nineteen. What about the other States? Are their individual tribes not recognized? Must we all be swept in the same boat? Now, I have no problems with the Hausa people. They are very nice people. I’ve lived with many of them and I understand them to a certain point. My worry is that people, especially those from other regions of the country, feel that the North is made up of just Hausa people. What is worse, they attach illiteracy and underdevelopment to the Hausa people, and in essence, the North. Clearly the North cannot claim to possess the same exposure or average level of education with Lagos, but we are not a cluster of huts or open spaces as other regions think. When I was in camp for the mandatory orientation exercise of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), we had
The Unfairness Of Marriage
Culled from: MADAMNOIRE A time comes when women begin to feel the flutters of loneliness, where the desire to have a person they can call their own sets in. Marriage ideas begin to grow, and she starts to screen possible suitors according to her preformed ideology of what marriage entails. Soon enough, she settles on one man who satisfies at least 70% of her desires, if not all of it. That seems all good and diddly until the day after the wedding. Things change so drastically after she says ‘I do’ that she wonders whether she is on a roller-coaster ride. She wakes up to the reality that marriage may not be the fairy tale she had envisioned it to be. First of all, she loses her identity. She is no longer called ‘Martha’, ‘Janelle’, ‘Iniobong’ or ‘Safiya’, but ‘Mrs. (insert husband’s name)’. No one cares anymore that she was a person in her own right before she joined herself to her man. Many people conveniently forget her name because she is (huffs) now married. In the typical Nigerian context, she might be called Amariya, Iyawo, Nwunyem or our wife. Secondly, society expects her to stop dressing beautifully because she now no longer has any reason to. Society thinks she was dressing in an attractive manner to catch a man and having done so, should stop being attractive. No one cares that she probably dressed well because she wants to or loves to. On the other hand, no one expects the man to stop rocking his jeans and polo shirts. No one expects the man to look shabby on purpose. They expect him to always look dapper or the wife gets blamed; one of her many chores it seems. But the woman has to start wearing big(ger) clothes, wrappers and Abayas. If she is found wearing sexy clothes, or even normal clothes (such as jeans and a simple top or tee), she will not be able to live down the side-eye she is sure to get from other women…and men too. Also, if push comes to shove, the woman is expected to give up her career and job to play house and raise the kids (if there are any). This comes from the notion that husbands and children are the essence of the woman’s life. No one cares that raising kids is a two-parent affair; at least. A woman might have to give up on her life for her kids, because society dictates that kids are the center of her life. Does that, in essence, mean the kids are of no importance to the man or not as important to him as they are to the woman? When a woman considers marriage, let her realize that religion (if she practices any) places a huge role on women. In Christianity, it is expected that the woman submits to her husband (Ephesians 5:22-24) as the church would submit to God himself. The flip side is that, a man has to love the woman as Christ himself loved the church; willing to put up life to restore the world. Marriage in Islam is viewed as an important and sacred union between a man and woman that fulfills half of one’s religious obligations. Let women also consider that in Africa, the dictates of society on married women is condescending, patriarchal and in some cases, absolutely misogynistic. The unfairness of marriage is such that until you are willing submit to that man whom you profess to love, you are not expected to be talking about marriage. Submission of this sort, if not properly considered and digested, can lead to bitterness and immeasurable sorrow. If however, you are of the opinion that marriage is a partnership – as it should be – you would still need to contend with family members who refuse to accept your postulations. Men can get away with being opinionated about the things they want; women, not so much. We are changing the narrative, but it really is at a sloth’s pace. So really consider if you want to get married. Can you handle the pressure? Can you hold your own? Does your partner know who you are…and supports it? Because if you are marrying for the feelings of it, you may be headed for a place of such utter sorrow. Think about it…and prepare for that marriage if you choose to walk down that road.
Sitting Ducks
It has been a year (and some) since the state of emergency was imposed on three of the North-Eastern states of Nigeria. The House of Assembly and the Senate all agreed that a second extension of this state of emergency was needed, hence Adamawa, Borno and Yobe are to remain under the emergency rule.One of the effects of this emergency rule is a curfew in all three states. That is not the only effect -as there are the annoyingly long military checkpoints- but this is one that gives most people the creeps. The Oxford Advanced Dictionary defines the word ‘Curfew’ as, ‘A law which says people must not go outside after a particular time at night until the morning; a time after which nobody must go outside’. In that definition, one word bobs out twice. It is a strong word and no, it is not the word ‘go’, but the word ‘must’. ‘Must’ is used in the present to say that something is necessary or should be done. It connotes necessity and obligation. So, when the military says that they have imposed a curfew on the North-Eastern zone, they are in essence saying that NOBODY has the right to go out from the start of the curfew to the end of it each day. Citizens in these regions are quite obedient and stay home during the curfew hours. I don’t want to talk about how almost three hundred girls were kidnapped from a town under curfew or how boys were murdered in their sleeps whilst in school. I actually want to focus on what has been happening in Adamawa, specifically, Yola. The curfew in Yola and most of the other local governments is from 11pm to 5am. During that time frame, if you are caught outside, you will be roughed up by the army. At 10pm, the streets are empty, with only a trickle of cars returning home. Now this is not unusual as Yola isn’t a night-life town. From this assessment, it is fair to say that almost everyone is tucked in their homes (and most likely in bed) by say, 11pm. My friend was one of such people who was in bed at 11pm. He had a friend over that night. They had watched football (I think it was the Champions League) and then they fell asleep. At about 1:30am, my friend woke up, having this feeling that something was wrong. He reached for his phone that was charging on the bedside drawer. The phone was not there. He put on the lights, and realised his laptop was not there too. He woke his friend and asked him if he had used the phone or the computer. His friend said no. He went into his living room and found the laptop and the phone. The screen of the laptop was crushed to smithereens. Someone had been in his house. Exactly one week later, he got called at about 2am. His family house had been raided. Someone got in, took his father’s laptop and phones, money from his mother’s purse, his sisters’ phones and other stuff. What was bad about this was that his father’s phone was close to his head and one of his sister’s phone was under the pillow on which she laid her head. Fast-forward to Thursday and we hear of a man whose house was raided. His TV, phones, laptops and money were taken. And to crown it all, another friend told me that armed robbers, numbering around eleven, barged into his family house on Saturday, leaving many injured, bruised and scared. All these happened close to or during the curfew hours; same curfew hours where people were not allowed to go out. The stories mentioned are examples of what is going on in and around Yola. How can people be shut in their homes because of an imposed curfew and still not be safe? How can thieves traipse into a person’s house, all the way to the bedrooms and even under their pillows, in the very town where Soldiers are supposed to be patrolling the night? What guts do armed robbers have to be able to carry out their raid with a large entourage to boost their fear-delivery factor? If this is happening a lot (and I assure you it is), how effective is the military in these troubled regions? Is it then a wonder that whole villages have been razed by insurgents and girls kidnapped? When you go to a pond and see sitting ducks, they are oblivious to any hunter in the surrounding bushes. The hunter can pick them out one by one and at his own pace. But unlike the sitting ducks in the hypothetical pond, Yola residents are well aware of all the dangers that surround us. But though those ducks sit there because they want to, Yola residents are forced to be the bull’s eye targets for anyone who so chooses. This is a cause for concern. The military and police have to step up their surveillance of the streets of Yola and protect her citizens. I cannot imagine the power the culprits have when they stand over one’s head whilst they sleep. At that point, one’s life actually lies in the hands of the thief. If thieves can waltz into your house while you sleep, what prevents the insurgent from coming to kill or kidnap residents in the their safety nets, their homes, their beds? Yola trusts you with her security and safety. Don’t fail her!
The Press Influence
‘Another Bomb Blast Leaves Scores Dead in Maiduguri’. That was the headline I saw. The moment that sunk in, I flew through my contacts until I got to my friend’s name. I called and with every ring that completed it’s cycle, my fear became more palpable. At last! Someone picked! I couldn’t hear who was there. After a few seconds of shouting, ‘My guy…! My guy….!’, he finally responded. I didn’t know just how worried I was until I heard his voice. We got talking and he said he had been at that very spot where the bombing occurred the previous day and the spot had claimed ‘scores’ of lives the following. An area that was a commercial hub, according to all the media reports, was attacked by a lone suicide bomber who probably did it because of the projected casualty and maybe a sense of greatness for their cause, which up till now, is not known. What shocked me was when my friend said bombings were normal in Maiduguri. The people left their houses with the belief that they could die at anytime. Why won’t suicide bombings be normal? Have you watched Press TV recently? They show one car bomb here in Iraq, another one in Iran or Pakistan and like the citizens of Maiduguri, those citizens of the mentioned countries see bombings as normal. When media outfits preach violence and racism and anti-Semitism (I won’t even pretend to be subliminal here. I’m talking about Press TV and other stations of her ilk), people get influenced to also be violent, racists and anti-Semitics. You never heard of no bombings until media outfits started showing them daily. You tune in to a channel and you hear 5-10 news stories of car bombings, suicide quests, hatred of anything Jew and/ or Christian and it is no wonder some zealots take up arms, or in this case, bombs. The Middle Eastern and North African revolutions which was widely publicized by media houses such as Press TV, Aljazeera etc, went a long way in influencing other nations into committing similar acts. Syria is going on and on with a war that is destroying the nation and the media houses keep fueling the war by taking the government’s side today and the opposition’s tomorrow. Egypt is in turmoil because of the said revolution, which was again highly publicized by media outlets. Libya, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine all setting the trend for suicides, car bombings, church bombings etc. No wonder bombs in Maiduguri are now considered the norm in society. Am I blaming the media? YES! You can’t show me scenes of black people been constantly treated as scum by white people without planting the seeds of hatred in me. And like most seeds planted, THEY GROW! People are moved by what they constantly hear, see or read. I remember feeling the hatred from the graphic scenes shown by Press TV and after watching for some hours, I felt Israel was totally evil. But then, I had to come to the conclusion that they only reported what Israel was doing. What happened to what the Palestines were doing to the Israelis? It could only be a war if two people were plying each other with bombs. That was when I realized Press TV had an anti-Semitic agenda. Every media house has an agenda which they transmit in everything they do. Media outfits should be objective in their reporting of issues. They should ensure their stories are factual, yet balanced. Nigerian reporters say, ‘Muslim North’ and I’m like ‘What?!’. People who have never been to the Northern part of this country ask whether we have churches in the North, whether Christians are allowed to move freely. All the little innuendos perpetuated by the media is what fuels the discord that defines the country now. If reporting is not objective, discord and disharmony becomes the norm! The media fueled the crisis in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Egypt and other such nations and if we do not hold the media responsible and accountable, we might allow them to goad us towards war and believe me, if Nigeria were to go to war today, it will be the mother of all wars because we are so many, so different in our tribes and cultures and our religious issues are so widely disparaging that Nigeria might implode on herself. Let truth be said. Let the media report what is happening. Let them get the stories to the listeners, readers and viewers as objectively as possible, without subliminal hate messages imbibed into their reports. The nation is at the edge of a breaking cliff right now and we sure don’t need any media house trying to push it into an unending chasm of war. It is time for young people to stand up and address such issues and charge the government into holding the media accountable for every word it says, writes or shows. I’m all for free press and all that but your rights are only your rights as long as it does not impinge on the rights of another. The older generation do not have any nationalistic values hence, they do not care what the media does. We are the one that have to deal with the aftermath of everything. So, STAND UP!
Can We Be Any More Stupid?!
From the moment I read about the attack on kids in Yobe state, I have had this heaviness in my heart and cannot seem to dispel it. This heaviness has wrapped it’s claws firmly around my chest region and it might not abate in a long time. Where did these gunmen loose their humanity? I get fighting men who are on equal footing with you but when you attack children who are smaller than you, have no inkling of why they are attacked, and who are in no way of any consequence to your cause, then you know that you have gone from enforcing your cause to blatant disregard for the essence of the human life! What is worse is the apathy of the governors of the North as a whole and the three North-Eastern governors in particular. Are there any more apathetic governors than these?! Their citizens are slaughtered almost everyday and the atrocities in Izge, Bama, Yobe and some parts of Madagali has been nothing short of bone jarring. Not only are the governors not bothered about this, they go about their stupid selfish agenda like lives don’t matter! I’m so mad at these governors! If the governors showed some form of concern for their citizens, it will translate to speedy action from the office of the Presidency. The president will then not be accepting awards in grandiose ceremonies while his citizens are been slaughtered daily. If the president were under pressure from the coalition of all the Northern governors, he would have ensured that the military does a speedy job about cleaning up this menace. The president should be hiding his head in shame instead of thinking of another term. He, of couse cannot do this because the Northern governors, infact. the entire governors of Nigeria, have not pressed on him to end this massacre of his citizens! Speaking of the military, we heard idiotic statements like, ‘Nigerian land army is the best in the world’ and my question is, ‘How can you be the best in the world and can’t handle an issue on the home front?’. You were sent to Mali and you helped them resolve their issue yet you cannot contain the evil happening in one region in your own country??? It is my belief that the military should be held equally as responsible for the deaths of these Nigerians as the unidentified gunmen! It is easy to oppress people with your uniforms but soon enough, people will no longer fear your uniforms if they regard you as incompetent. Nations all over are revolutionising against their governments and the military might have the guns, but the everyday man still outnumbers all the politicians and miltary men. Nigerians are known to be stubborn and eventually, stubborness overcomes fear! About Nigerians’ stubborness, I read a report about the recent killings written by Sahara Reporters and rather than Nigerians fighting their common enemy, they went ham on each other, bringing tribalism and religious hatred into the equation! Takes me back to my heading; CAN WE BE ANY MORE STUPID? Who cares about your tribe or your religious affiliation??? Children died for being Nigerians and you honestly think your tribe is important at this moment?????? Again I ask, CAN WE BE ANY MORE STUPID???? Isn’t it high time we stopped playing the tribal and religious card and started playing the patriotic card?! I can assure you that if we do not start being more concerned about our nation than we are about our tribes and religion, the terror unleashed in the Northeastern region will spill into other regions of this nation until the whole nation implodes on itself in a full blown war. Then, maybe then, will we realise that what affects one Nigerian, affects ALL Nigerians!! Take a cue from the Central African Republic for crying out loud! It will be worse for Nigeria if we get to that point because we have so many tribes and even in our religious beliefs, within the same religion, there are different factions. Imagine what a war will look like!!! Wake up Nigeria!! Wake up to the fact that we cannot continue like this! The moment children became targets, we all lost our safety. No one is safe!! NO ONE! My heart weeps for this nation! Oh Nigeria!! Oh my land! Oh my home! The gutter of our minds have to be cleaned up. Our atrocities as a nation is catching up to us! Our complacent tolerance of corruption and immoral behavior has allowed us to welcome our very own destruction!! Romans 1:28 keeps ringing in my head. ‘And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do things which are not convenient’. Verses 29-32 says the vile things and those are the things we see happening today. Oh Nigeria! When will we be united against our enemy? When will we stop this foolish tribalism and religious partiality? When will we regard human life above regional locations? Oh Nigeria! Oh, our mother land!! Couldn’t help but rant but this #BornoMassacre, #YobeMassacre and #NigeriansMassacre must come to an end!!!!!
Rape Cases… And The Apologists Who Make It Worse
Mateus Souza for Pexels I am overly sensitive about the plight of women and children: women because they are at the mercy of society’s dictates and children because they are quite helpless and need protection. I am also known to easily get into a rant about issues that touch me, be they direct or otherwise. As a result, I can be totally jaded when issues surrounding women are brought to fore. Having said that, I want to say I’m totally normal and clear-eyed as I type this piece. Also, I hold responsibility for every word that appears here. On twitter a few months ago, a guy said women who got raped had themselves to blame. The sky turned red for me at that point and I couldn’t see past the bloody curtain. I asked how women could cause something of such life-altering magnitude to happen to themselves. He said provocative dressing was a reason why women were raped. I asked him to explain how women who wore niqab were then raped; how they used their ‘provocative dressing’ to seduce their rapists. (PS: A niqab is a piece of cloth worn by some Muslim women to cover the whole face except the eyes.) He said that women who wore niqab were never raped. At that point, I knew I was talking to a dunce! Rape has never been about the victim. It has (and will always be) about the power the rapist wields or want to wield. That power doesn’t care about the victim. It chooses anyone and proceeds to mete out untold pain to them. Women who have been raped…in fact, everyone who has been raped, has had to coil up in shame and hide. They cringe from the sheer effects of it. Most rape victims are so scarred after that they totally clam up and shut off sexual relations. It seems that the more violent the rape, the less likely the victim is to talk about it. Society has also effectively found a way of putting the blame at the survivor’s feet, thereby increasing instances of shame-laden silence. So, when a woman in a niqab doesn’t come out to say she has been raped, that doesn’t change the fact that she has been! Back to the deliberately dense dude. Seeing that he was unwilling to get off his obviously dead horse, I asked him to tell me how a three-month old baby could have dressed provocatively enough to make a man rape her. I also asked him to explain how a 4-year old could have provocatively lured a man to dip his finger in her vagina and fondle her until she bled; how a 13-year old who kept screaming, ‘Uncle stop! Please!’could have been the wanton seductress. He said in such cases, the rapist was sick and needed psychological help. I gave him a good tongue lashing, insisting that a man who raped kids was no ‘sicker’ than a man who raped grown women! I’ve heard of totally good girls who got raped on their way from school, church, the office etc. I’ve talked to girls who got raped by that close ‘friend’, brother, cousin, uncle and even father! I’ve seen pictures of girls who boarded buses in India, who got gang-raped by as many as seven men, leading to an eventual death. How did these girls ‘seduce’ their attackers?! How did they provocatively lure them?! Now, if rumors are to be believed, the Chibok Girls who were kidnapped by the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād insurgent sect – or Boko Haram as they are widely called – are being constantly raped and married off to their captors. Can one of those rape-apologists tell me how those girls wantonly sought their abductors/rapists?! It is bad that society makes it hard for women and children who have been raped, but that you attribute the rape to the actions of the survivor is pure wickedness! Can you imagine the pain that comes with forced entry into a vagina or anus? Can you imagine how dreadful the act is to the survivor, not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically too? Do you know how many victims have had to commit suicide, or led totally lack-lustre sex lives because of that one incidence of rape? Do you know the trauma rape victims suffer…and keep suffering for life?! The time has come for people to stand up for those 2-year olds whose ‘uncles’ forced their penises into their vaginas. We need to fight for the 8-year olds carrying babies of their own; babies whose gene pool is the same with their granddad. We cannot continue to shut up while 13-year-olds are married off to 65-year-old ‘grandbands’ and most especially, we need to bring to justice all the sons-of-a-gun who force themselves upon women and children! Rape is a crime against the humanity of the victim. Sometimes, these victims become survivors. Other times, they never heal from the trauma. However, at no time is a rape the fault of the survivor. It begs to be repeated. At no time is a rape the fault of the survivor…no matter what they wear, say or do. As for all rapists and rape apologists, I feel castration is a fitting punishment but not necessarily enough. I hope the justice systems gets you and punishes you appropriately. #EndRape
Oh! Americah!
(Name Credit: Chimamanda Adichie)The United States of America is currently the world power (though she will soon be toppled by China). She has used her capitalist policies to create needs in the world and proferred solutions to those needs. When most nations were thinking of one-year plans, the big-ole US of A was making twenty five-year plans. They used the media to project what they wanted done in say, five-years, and were able to achieve world power status! With everyone who has tasted power, you know it is quite the intoxicant! It gives you this feeling of perpetual high, knowing that you can do almost anything you want and still get people to bend to your will. If you have ever hatched a plot to do something and seen how the domino toppled in place for that plot, you will know that there is a HUGE thrill in having power. So if there is any nation powerful enough to stop insurgency in Nigeria, it has to be the US of A. Judging by their track record in freeing nations from……………HOLD UP! WAIT! WAIT!! WAIT!! America does not have that track record! Let us go down memory lane a bit. After the 9/11 attacks on the world trade centre, the USA launched a campaign against the terror group that had purportedly bombed and killed thousands of Americans and other world citizens. The group wa(i)s called the al-Qaeda. This group was supposed to be based in Afghanistan and were under the protection of the Taliban government of that time. The USA asked the Afghan government to release Osama bin Ladin, the head of the al-Qaeda, to them so they could (kill) take him to trial. When the Afghan government refused to give him over without evidence linking him to the terror act, the USA got really pissed. At this blatant disregard for the ‘world power’, the USA proceeded to go to war with the nation, ousting the Taliban government and putting in someone that was more pliable to American policies. Good story yeah? No!!! Go online to read the story on the war with Afghanistan and you will see that it says 2001-present, meaning the war is still on, fourteen good years after the war started! Though Afghans had relatively hard lives before the US invasion, their lives couldn’t be more terrible than it is now. The Talibans and al-Qaeda are working overtime to bring the nation to her knees. Everyday you put on your news channels, you hear of one bomb blast or the other in Afghanistan. The nation has been troubled since America invaded her. Another glaring example is America’s supposed help to Iraqis and the world at large by ridding it of the menace of weapons of mass destruction, capable of wiping out entire regions of the world. Rewind to 2003 and the war in Iraq is born. Saddam’s government was toppled and a new government installed. Fast-forward back to today and we still haven’t found the weapons of mass destruction that they said was the reason for the war. Like her middle eastern counterpart, Iraq is still a hot zone, with bombs going off day in and day out! So why was Nigeria, knowing this track record, too eager to ask for the help of the US of A? Why are Nigerians so ecstatic about this help Americah is obviously willing to offer? Why are we inviting a nation that is power drunk to come handle the most sensitive issue in the country? And most important of, what do they stand to gain by offering and giving this ‘help’? And while we are at it, let us ask also why Britain and France, colonialist extraordinaire, are also so eager to help Nigeria. Are we so eager to forget how these two nations plundered Africa in the name of colonialism? How they told us they were ‘educating’ us whilst they stole our resources, our art, our produce and our people?!! Are we so blinded by movies like 24, that we are willing to let our former ‘masters’ come to the country with heavily armed military? We need the #ChibokGirls to be found, there is no doubt about that. We need all the help we can possibly get. There is still no doubt about that. But we do not need to have our nation end up worse than she started off and colour me purple, but that is what will happen when these nations bring their ‘help’. Wars are always won intelligently before the first bullet is fired and America is an intelligent nation. So, oh! Americah! We urge you to ‘help’ us but we also want to let you know that we will not allow you take over our country, our oil fields, our other resources and/or our man-power. Help us, but don’t get comfortable! And if we are pushed to end up like Iraq or Afghanistan, we will fight back! We will not go back to slavery, with or without the shackles. So Americah! Help us, but don’t get comfortable!!!!!
A.P.C, PLEASE RESPOND
On Twitter, Facebook and other social media, a topic was trending but I paid no heed to it. This persisted for some days. My father came to ‘gist’ with us and asked me how my Governor was doing. I went into a tirade about his inefficiency and his general lack of developmental policies. My sister chimed in by saying he had released a memo to the Northern Governors, showing the height of his foolishness. At this point, I knew I had to read the memo. Governor Murtala Nyako is the Governor of Adamawa state, a former P.D.P member who threatened all sorts of drama if Bamanga Tukur was not removed from his position as the P.D.P national chairman. He eventually decamped to A.P.C, along with other Governors. He is the oldest Governor of any Nigerian state and should be the wisest. But alas, that is not the case! In his memo, he said the Federal Government was systematically trying to kill Northerners, citing attacks on his person, the Governor of Benue state, two Royal highnesses etc. Now, he knew that would not shake anybody because in truth, the masses could care less about the upper echelon dying, because they were more worried about themselves. The masses were killed almost daily, so their thought wouldn’t have been on the rich dying. Nyako went further by saying the Federal Government was trying to create a divide between Muslims and Christians in the North. If you are a Nigerian, you know that statement already has people on the defensive. The wars between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria is always more bloody than any other society based crisis. He went on to sound off like the Federal Government was the South, trying to use genocide (his term) to flush the North out. Since he is an old dude, he was around when the North systematically killed Igbos every time there was a clash, from 1945, to the era of the Maitatsine. I’m no Igbo but I got my history right. The Maitatsine reign of terror bordered on ethno-religious lines and Igbos suffered the most. The Kaduna riots, which I saw, created a huge divide between Muslims and Christians of this country and especially of Kaduna state. The slightest provocation can agitate these two groups into the dance of attack and defense. Yet, our ‘wonderful’ Governor didn’t feel anything wrong in broaching the subject. And because he is a Fulani man, he said his people were uprooted from lands they had been on for over 100 years by the Federal Government, via the military. He went on to say Fulanis were nomads and since that is true, why are they killing other tribes who own their own land? Why did they use chemical weapons to attack a village in Benue? Why are they causing communal clashes in Taraba? Unless of course the definition of a nomad changed in the last week. Nyako wants the North to heed to his ‘call to action’ . Does he want the North to take up arms and fight the Federal Government, which is run by ‘a son of the South’? Does he want Northern Nigeria to fight the Southern part? Is Nigeria’s division his ultimate goal? Are Christians assured that if we heed to his call, we will not be slaughtered eventually? Will the North be an Islamic state or a free state? Where is the place of other tribes that might not want to associate with this Northern call to action, yet have to because of geographical zone? Furthermore, Nyako seemed to absolve the insurgent group of any wrong, saying the Federal Government was the perpetrator of all the insurgents had done, only laying the blame at them. This brings me to my topic. APC, do you have the same ideology? Is your newest decampee speaking your thoughts? Are these the premises on which you want to run your activities? If not, why has there not been an outcry about his call to Nigeria’s division? Why do you allow him utter such profound statements without reining him in? Why has there been an usual silence about this from your camps? As for the military, I do agree that the way they are handling this crisis is poor at best, what with an open lie about the girls of Chibok fed to the media, but the disunity Nyako is fostering in the ranks has only one solution and that solution will be a repeat of 1966-1970. Age doesn’t in anyway mean wisdom and Nyako has just displayed his lack of it in his memo. I will wait to see if the Northern Governors take his memo seriously. We Northerners are waiting.
