NOPE, WE WON'T REASON WITH OUR POOR PARENTS

Nigerian parents will have kids when they are poor, depressed, frustrated, angry and fucked up and expect their kids to understand.

- Understand that we are poor;

- Understand that life is hard for us;

- Understand that this country does not favour us;

- Etc.

News flash: your children do not owe you anything. They don't owe you gratitude for birthing them. They do not owe you understanding for the terrible conditions in which you birthed them. 

They have the right to be angry and to want more from life.

The astonishing number of criminals we have in Nigeria is not related to spiritual causes. It is the result of generations of poverty, lack and deprivation. 

You understood your parents, who at their own time understood your grandparents. But your own children have refused to understand you, so now you want to play the victim. 

Why were you so quick to forget the hardship you suffered when you were young? Why did you decide to subject your own children to the same hardship? You made the conscious decision to repeat the same mistakes that your parents made and you think that this time things will be different?

Bro, you are not special. There are special people in this world, but all together they don't even make up 0.1% of the world population. 

The majority of us will die exactly in the same conditions in which we were born, or worse. The poor will die poor. The rich will die rich.

The universe will not help you to raise your kids right just becuase you are poor and you have to spend your whole time hustling.

We must stop expecting so much from our children. Perhaps we should stop having children altogether. Like, who sent you?

Enough with the "you know we are poor. You were poor before that child was born. You knew what you were doing.

Wicked soul.

MEAN GIRLS ARE DYSFUNCTIONAL PEOPLE

I'd like to reprise the topic of people who like to recruit other people into their circle of toxicity and hate, and delve into the matter to expatiate why this kind of behaviour should not be disregarded or brushed off as an act of immaturity. 

To do that, I'd love to repropose an event that happened years ago which I have often referenced in my posts.

In 2007, a girl arrived from Nigeria. In that same 2007, she saw a second girl for the first time. After that first non relatable and distant encounter, the first girl gathered the second girl's friends and asked them to stay away from her because she had deduced that the girl was a slut from her looks.

The first girl was 18, while the second girl was 14.

One will look at this scenario and brush it off as something minor. "Na small pikin dey worry am". Because in Nigeria, we don't pay much attention to the emotional components of people, as we are too busy thinking of our physical needs. Our comfort comes before our minds, so most times we do not pick up toxic behaviours at their early stage, leaving them to eventually morphe into full blown personality disorders.

If we consider that we can start identifying children's character and personality from as early as the age of 7, it means that at 18, that girl has had 11 years to consolidate that behaviour. A behaviour that shouldn't have been overlooked.

First of all, this was a group of friends who had known each other since they were kids. They met and spoke regularly. Even though they were just "kids", they knew each other to some extent. Then a disruptive element came into their midst, picked out one of them and encouraged the rest to ostracize her and emotionally abuse her.

Because it doesn't end with their not talking to her because she's a slut. It's also about their telling people, friends, acquaintances, social groups that they no longer speak to her or interact with her because she's a slut.

This 18 year old girl had deliberate plans to cause that much emotional damage to a 15 year old girl due to her own warped sense of morality.

The 18 year old girl was a church freak. She sang in the choir, dressed shabby and wore this garment of superior morality, as people commonly do in Nigeria - the country she had lived for 18 years. 

The 14 year old girl didn't. She went to church when she could. She sat among the congregation. She dressed like a teenager in Italy would dress - shirts, vests, trousers, jeans, dresses - and she never felt the need to act as if she was better than anybody else. She was not different from any other kid of her age.

One the one hand, we had this group of teenagers who lived in a controlled environment. If their parents weren't keeping them in check, their neighbours, church members, relatives, pastors and even strangers of the same nationality were doing so. They hadn't yet formed the ability to discern evil. They lived in a very small world.

On the other hand, there was this 18 year old girl who had seen more than the average girl and boy of her age who lived in Italy hadn't. She could tell what evil was as she had explored and experienced the harsh Nigerian reality. Behind the facade of a church girl, lay this viciously wicked and manipulative person.

Her father had died when she was little and her mother was the third wife. After her father's death, her mother was left to cater to 4 children on her own. At the age 15-16 she started wilding out and began her series of abusive and exploitative relationships with men. When she arrived in Italy, she was far from the naive, God fearing and well meaning person she had wanted to portray. It wouldn't take long before this image of "perfection" started to crack, until it shattered completely.

Violence, assault, betrayal, theft, fraud, near fatal self harm, are just a few of the actions she'd commit over the years, after that first episode of personal and social disruption. 

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When I say that we need to do better at being parents, I mean it. Because it's either your children will end up being like that 18 year old girl, become her enablers, or worse, become her victims.

By raising your child to be a good and empathetic person, you are not just doing a good job as a parent, you are also safeguarding every other child that will interact with them outside the house. You are protecting people from the future pain they would cause otherwise. 

Once your child is old enough to effectively harm people and they do not harm people, then you can say that you have done a good job as a parent. But if your child is the cause of pain to most people who come in contact with them, then you need to look into yourself and the way you have raised them.

There is no hope for people like that girl. She is set on that path and will tread it for as long as she lives. She will always be disruptive no matter where she goes.

But you have the chance to avoid making that same mistake now. You have the chance to love your children and be attentive to their emotional needs.

If we raise our kids to be empathetic, we won't have to live in a world where we fight for equality.

A WOMAN CANNOT USE A MAN IN A PATRIARCHY

You always brag about how you can make a man do anything you want.

But you come from a society where:

1. A man can have all the sex he wants, while you are expected to get married as a virgin and forgo sex forever if your husband dies prematurely;

2. You are called a prostitute for simply existing as a woman;

3. It's expected of a man to spend his money on women. Who else otherwise?

There are countries where women use men, but Nigeria is not one of them. Nigeria is a country where women "use" men to make their money then publicly deny that it happened like that. Because they know that it won't do well to their reputation. They know that they will be seen as the ones who were used by these men instead. 

Nigerian women who engage in any form of sex work do not want to be associated with that line of business. Sex workers are not even considered humans.

Meanwhile In other countries, the West for example, women wear that gold digging badge with honour. Why? Because, women enjoy sex as much as men and men are not expected to spend their money on women.

For a man to use his money as a bargaining chip for sex, it means that he's a loser. 

I'm not saying that women do not date or marry men for their money in these countries, but no man will openly admit it. Are you saying that his charm is not enough to attract such a beautiful woman?

That's the difference between countries where women are liberated and countries where women are not.

You can't use a man if he's doing what he's expected to do. 

MUMMY AND DADDY ISSUES

If she were my friend, I'd tell her to not look for a man like her father. And instead look for a man who is nothing like her father.

There is a big difference between a man who sees his child as an extension of himself, and therefore, gives her all that she wants as long as she does everything he wants, and a man who has no ties with that daughter and is only interested in getting what he wants from her. He could take everything and give her nothing in return.

We have heard of girls having daddy issues, but I don't think we fully understand what it means for a girl to have daddy issues.

We think daddy issues is when a girl lacks a father figure while growing up, and she ends up seeking male partners who can take that spot. So, she seeks out older men and form a childlike bond with them. She may also act out in the hope that the man will punish her, just like a father would. We like to think of every woman who does not conform to societal norms as a woman who lacked a good father figure. Because if her daddy loved her, she would be better behaved.

Well, I think the whole issue is more than that. I think that even girls who grew up with a father can still have daddy issues. Because the problem is not whether the father was present or absent. It's whether he was a healthy presence or a toxic one. Most children fail to see their parents' toxicity. They idolize them and eventually seek out partners that remind them of these toxic parental figures. 

Since this can happen to both boys and girls, to balance things out, as we talk about daddy issues, we should also talk about mummy issues.

Your parent is nice to you but horrible to every other person. You only get to do certain things or get away with certain behaviours just because you are their child. Many times you have watched them as they castigated and judged another person's child who wanted the same things as you or who did something you got away with.

Many women who end up in abusive relationships do so because they erroneously idolize their fathers. And many men who end up being abusive do so because they erroneously idolized their mothers.

We need to be more critical of these two human beings that bore us. They are not perfect. They are not beyond reproach. It could happen that they are just vessels. We come out of them, but we are nothing like them.

I wish I could sit every little girl down and tell her "No matter how great you think your father is, if you want a man, seek a man who is greater than him".

We need to break the cycle of abuse. 

We need to admit that our parents are flawed.

IT'S NOT BY CHANCE THE WIFE LOOKS LIKE THAT

I stand by my opinion that the side chick has no reason being with a man whose wife looks like that. And both the wife and the husband are to blame.

Say, for example, the wife leaves the man and the man marries the side chick, give it three years and the side chick would start to show the same signs of self neglect. Then the man would go outside and find himself another kpem side chick.

You can tell a lot about that man by simply looking at his wife and what has become of her after a few years of marriage. I am almost certain that she did not look like this when they got married.

An ex of mine married this non pretty woman, but he did not accept her like that simply because he met her like that. Before she met him, she dressed up like a church girl with basic make up. Now she wears cleavage revealing tops with the kind of make up you see on make up tutorials. Kind of a Teddy A and Bambam situation. 

That is obviously a man who cares that his wife looks presentable, in spite of her not being pretty. 

You don't have to be good looking to look presentable. That's the point. 

One time like that, my mother and a friend of mine chose an objectively ugly boy over a cute boy simply because the ugly boy looked polished, while the cute boy looked local, in their opinion. I disagreed, but it didn't do anything to change their mind.

You keep talking about weight and natural hair. Aren't there fat women with natural hair that look presentable? In fact, I'm attaching a picture to this post to show you that weight and hair are not the problem here.

The problem is the neglect this wife is neglecting herself because "I'm a married woman in sifia pain". 

It's like these women are not objective with their expectations. After seeing what happened to their mothers, aunties, sisters, cousins and friends, they still don't understand that MARRIAGE IN NIGERIA RUINS WOMEN? After everything, you still want to go with the flow? 

That woman needs to take a look at herself. That marriage is bad for her. The man is bad for her. In fact he is bad for every woman out there.

Among the wife, the husband and the side chick, they all suck and for different reasons. None is coming out looking good.

WHY ARE YOU TAKING CARE OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T TAKE CARE OF YOU?

In 2015, I ended a friendship which had spanned over a decade after I realized that our love and care for each other was always going to be a one way street.

The friendship lasted that long because all her friends, including me, had come to accept her as that weak person who couldn't make decisions for herself. So whenever she failed to turn up at appointments, missed out on important dates, let us down, or didn't stand up for us, we simply accepted her excuse. And it always came in the form of:

"My father said..."

"My mother said..."

"My boyfriend/husband said..."

I believe that among our friends, I was the one who bore the most brunt. 

In 2012, she refused to bear witness for me after I was assaulted, I still carried on being friends with her. 

A couple of months later, she did something else that would be a major deal breaker for me today and I still remained friends with her.

In 2013, I had to go and live with her and her family after I found myself stranded in a terrible apartment, and needed time to raise money to rent a better one.

"J, please I don't want my mother to know I am in your house."

*a few days later* "Mavis, my mum just told your mother that you are in our house. I couldn't do anything to stop her. I am sorry". 

It took two more years and three more of her selfish and inconsiderate actions for me to finally close that chapter and never look back. Even though I still remained friends with her on Facebook in 2015, I unfollowed her and never bothered to check on her until I permanently blocked her in 2016.

When I called out her mother in 2018, she expressed hurt, or whatever it is that she was feeling. At that point I no longer cared. She even said that she regretted not standing up for me in 2012. Totally warmed up my fricking heart. 

She had never done anything that I hadn't or wouldn't have done for her, but I did and was willing to do so much that she hadn't and wouldn't have done for me.

I do not miss her. And I actually feel relieved that we might never see each other again as far as this life goes. That wasn't a friendship. That was me caring for someone who, once in a while, bothered to chip in, her mother/father/boyfriend-husband permitting, of course.

I also do not regret calling out her mother.

People who readily wine and dine with their enemies simply because this time, someone else has become the target of their enemies denigration - someone who is supposedly their best friend's daughter -  deserve to be dragged and shamed. She's lucky if I don't spit on her face, if I ever see her again.

You had a terrible mother/father is not an excuse to become an epitome of passiveness. 

Passive people are even more useless than apaths.

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So, again I ask, why are you still taking care of that person who never takes care of you?

DEAR SIDE CHICK

Dear Side Chick,

Be grateful to that wife. She's the one keeping your affair with her husband afloat and sweet. She's the one acting as a shock absorber, absorbing all the negative energy, so that you can enjoy all of her husband's positivity. 

The day she decides that she's done acting as a shit sponge and leaves, is the day the sweetness in your romance with her husband will go sour. 

All his negativity will have no other place to go but to you, then you will understand that it's has never been about you or her. It's always been about him.

Pray for that marriage to last and for your sake, do not trespass. 

Yours sincerely,

Ishan Queen

THE STIGMA OF "BROKEN HOMES"

When I hear people, especially women, say that they can only marry from an unbroken home, I laugh in broken home.

I come from a broken home and thank goodness that it is broken. My father and I deserve the life that the both of us are living now. Because the price of having an unbroken home is one that neither of us is willing to pay.

Unbroken home. Their son will rape you, and they will call you wicked for reporting the matter to the police.

Unbroken home. Their son will beat you senseless and they will call you unruly for trying to leave.

Unbroken home. Their son will cheat and cheat. They will accuse you of not being a good wife.

Unbroken home. Their son will marry a second wife. They will tell you that you should have given him a male child or more children.

Unbroken home. Their son will travel abroad, ghost you and marry ada obodoyinbo. They will tell you to understand. Don't ruin his ministry.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Unbroken home noni.

Marriages for Nigeria do last, but the price required for such is high. And it's usually the woman that pays. 

Families in Nigeria are close knit, but the price required for such is also high. And it's usually the children that pay.

There are family that are genuinely close and loving. I have met one. But so far I have only met one.

Every other one I have met were either close in wickedness or in one mental or psychological disorder.

An unbroken home can be made up of broken people, while a broken home can be made up of solid people. 

Family is not everything and in this part of the world, family is overrated. 

Break what you have to break and trash what you want to trash. 

It's better to be from a broken home than to be a broken person.

TAAOMA: WOMEN AND MISOGYNY

Tooma's videos have a way of triggering me, and not in a good way. I especially hate the mother's character. I think she is unnecessarily dramatic and violent. She is either slapping other women or her daughter. Never the man, even when she catches him cheating or being dishonest. I think this says a lot about our society.

Women prey on other women and children because they are equally or more vulnerable. They don't have the guts to stand up to the person who actually treats them like trash. E.g.: the husband.

The daughter never does or says anything bad to her mother. The girl is on her own, doing her thing, and just being a teenager. Instead it's the mother that is always looking for whatever excuse she can find to embarrass, attack and at last slap her. And people laugh.

"My mother did it too, ha ha ha."

"I remember when my father did this to me, ha ha ha."

It's a narrative that is way too familiar and dangerous for me to sit down and enjoy the skits with lightheartedness. 

There are ways to make a parody of difficult topics without validating or normalizing those behaviours. Taooma wants us to believe that a cheating husband, a narcissistic mother and an abused daughter are a reality that we have to accept and reminisce. 

It's a pity. As a video creator myself, I know how much effort goes into creating a clip, so I will never criticize another person's work without a valid reason.

Taooma needs to clean up her characters. There are 1000 ways to be funny without promoting rubbish.

IT'S FINE IF YOUR KID DOESN'T WANT TO PLAY WITH OTHER KIDS

As a kid, my mother would often reprimand me for not wanting to play with other kids. She couldn't understand why a kid would want to stay indoors all the time, watch TV or just be by herself doing things that she, my mother, didn't think were interesting. 

She wished that I would mingle with her friends' children, perhaps come with her to visit them and be a little bit more sociable. 

The truth: 

1. I didn't feel like it;

2. I don't like people choosing my friends;

3. I disliked most of her friends. 

I won't describe myself as an introvert, but I am deeply interested and involved with myself. I can spend weeks or even months just being on my own without seeing anybody. As far as I can remember, even relationships were particularly draining and challenging for me, as they forced me to accommodate another person in the time and space I preferred to dedicate to being with myself.

Of course, the average Nigerian mentality is to associate solitude with weirdness or even evil, but that's just due to a widespread ignorance. 

The ability to be alone often denotes inner peace and great thinking ability. If you feel the need to talk more than you feel the need to think, then you are not churning out ideas that as great as you think. You are just probably loquacious and feel relevant only when someone else is at the receiving end of your poorly elaborated thoughts.

Check out history. In fact just watch movies. It is always the silent kid that ends up coming up with the greatest solutions. And the once loud protagonist will have to practice the art of silence and isolation to fully tap into their inner power.

Many of my ideas came to me when I was alone. For this reason I consider myself to be my biggest inspiration and my best friend. I have been with me since the beginning and I'll be with me in the end.

If that makes me a snob, weird, or evil so be it. But nothing will change until I die. 

Proud member of the "I just want to be all by myself" club.

YOUR SMART KID WILL DO MORE THAN SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH AND GET GOOD GRADES

Many parents struggle with their particularly intelligent children. In fact they cannot cope. Perhaps, it's because they are not particularly brilliant themselves, or it's because their brilliance has been killed by a very conservative upbringing. So when their kid turns out to be exceptionally smart, they are happy, for the first five years of the child's life, after which the kid starts showing traits that go beyond the usual "See what my kid can do".

1. UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS

Your smart kid will overwhelm you with questions and many of these questions will often put you in a tight spot and outright embarrass the hell out of you. You will think "How can this kid come up with this kind of question?" Well, if you are one of those parents who believe that children should not be talking about certain topics or asking certain questions, then you might want to reconsider. Because your kids will not stop and your attempt at shunning your kid will do them a lot of harm. If you cannot answer your kid's questions simply tell them "I don't know" or "I need to read up on the subject" or be honest and tell them that you do not feel comfortable talking about the subject. We often forget that children are people and you ought to talk with them like you would talk with an adult. There is no better time to start teaching your children complex emotions such as discomfort, shame and embarrassment than when they make you feel that way. That's how you teach them to be emotionally intelligent and responsive to other people's needs.

2. SAY ABSURD THINGS

Your smart child will say things that will leave your jaw hanging on the floor many times. Get ready. And many of those things won't make absolute sense to you. And it won't be necessarily because your kid has just said nonsense, but it will be because you cannot elaborate that kind of information. There is a similarity between a smart kid and an average adult that lives in a liberal society: they have similar pattern of thoughts as their critical thinking ability has not been dumbed down by the society. The main reason why you will be shocked by most of the things your kid will say is because you are not a critically thinking person. Your mind is dogmatic and anything that questions your dogmatic mind is automatically rejected. You may even feel insulted and disrespected. But that's your problem. Deal with it and appreciate that your kid is intelligent.

3. DON'T FIT IN WITH THEIR PEERS

Why would your smart kid fit in with their peers when they are millions of neurons apart? Perhaps your kid might have to stay in class with them, but they do not necessarily have to be friends with them. There is more to a kid's life than their school environment. Also I have noticed among Nigerians especially that people often associate smartness in kids with over-zealousness or the "I too know" attitude. As if it is bad that your kid is smarter than theirs. That's how envy creeps in and other kids and adults start ganging up against your kid. You have to accept that your kid is special and forcing them to mingle with average or mediocre minds will do them more harm than good. You like that your kid is the smartest in the bunch, but trust me, those other parents and their kids do not like it so much.

4. WILL GET BAD GRADES

How can a kid be smart and get bad grades? Well, sir/madam, your kid can be a genius and still suck big time at school. That's because the academic method of teaching does not follow the same often chaotic and non linear way in which the brain of an intelligent person processes information. An intelligent person will often tell you that they cannot focus on one particular subject or thought for too long as that subject or thought often creates multiple branches of thoughts which at their own time create other branches of thoughts. The only time their mind will stop to really ponder is when they'll reach and impasse which will force them to retrace their steps back to the genesis. That is if they need to go that far aback. Most brilliant kids find schools to be boring, and unless they get some sort of validation from getting good grades, they will not bother to do more than what is strictly necessary to pass. 

5. MAY NOT NEED A DEGREE TO BE SUCCESSFUL

I know Nigerian parents won't like this. We love our certificates. We want the degree, then the master's, then the PhD, then the post PhD (?). Everything, every title we can achieve, we want it. Except that for your smart kid, it might be an absolute waste of their time. Many of the millionaires and billionaires of this world are either drop outs or are doing something totally unrelated to what they studied at school. As a parent, it is your duty to help your child discover their talent and help them turn it into a skill. If that skill will require an academic qualification to be put into use professionally, then let the kid know so that together you can work towards that goal. But forcing your smart child to acquire a degree they do not care for to work a job they do not care for will just set them for a lifetime of unhappiness and unfulfillment.

BULLIES SHOULD SORT THEMSELVES OUT

I have noticed a recurring narrative in foreign movies and TV series when it comes to bullying.

Many times you will witness one of the characters being repeatedly bullied by a popular student, until the point that they might even contemplate or attempt suicide. Then, towards the end of the movie, there is a shift in the narrative.

The bully is now being portrayed as a victim of ignorance and circumstances, and the character they once bullied is saddled with the onus of forgiving them and accepting them. Often, they even get romantically involved with them.

This bullying can happen between two people of the same sex, two people of opposite sex, or between a homophobe and a homosexual person.

I am mostly concerned with the bullying that occurs between two people of the opposite sex and homophobic bullies.

it is totally unacceptable to promote the idea that not only do you have to forgive your bully, but you also have to accept their suppressed romantic feelings in order to maintain your status as a good person. 

In Glee, Karofsky bullied Kurt so much that the poor boy had to change school. Then Karofsky comes out as gay and kisses Kurt. He becomes friends with him and later goes on to date kurt's one and only true love.

In Sex Education, Adam bullied Eric. He made coming to school a terrifying experience for him, then Adam finds out that he is bisexual and the person he decides to romantically links up with is, guess who, Eric?

Are they for real? 

Please, bullying is a serious issue and these TV series need to stop promoting the idea that if you do not forgive your bully, then you are a bad person. You are not a bad a person. Your bully is the bad person.

There is more than just ignorance and self hatred when it comes to bullying. There is usually an underlying psychological issue that will not be resolved by the survivor's forgiveness or kiss. This is not a freaking fairytale.

Bullies need to be held responsible for their actions. They should be treated as criminals because that's what they are. What do these boys and girls do, that is different from what adults to that gets them locked up in jail? 

The last episode of Sex Education left me totally pissed off. 

Survivors of bullying, boys, girls, and members of the LGBTQ community deserve more respect.

CHOOSING THE OPPRESSORS AMONG THE OPPRESSED

Never assume that just because a woman is in a position of power, that she is also mentally liberated and sympathetic to your plight as a woman. She might have been chosen for the sole purpose of acting as a figure head.

I have come across comments and posts by members of Christ Embassy where they were defending their GO, Pastor Oyakhilome, after the video of his telling women that they were not equal to men, and that instead they were afterthoughts that were placed on the Earth to serve the latter, as a servant would serve his or her master, surfaced. According to them, Pastor Chris is not a misogynist because women occupy positions of power in his church. As a matter of fact, most leaders are women. How naive. Have you ever considered that he chose those women because he knew that it would render them more complaisant, since they know that he doesn't have much regard for our sex?

During World War II, after the Germans decided that they were done with the Jews and wanted them to live separated from the Germans, they started by segregating them in ghettos and formed the Judenrant to keep these ghettos in check. The Judenrant served as intermediary between the Nazis and the segregated Jews. They were literally called "Jewish Council Of Elders". In exchange for their service they were given certain privileges, like food and water.

When the Nazis opted for the final solution and started deporting the Jews down to various concentration camps across Poland, once again they called upon the Jews to help them in their mission.

When the cargoes of Jews arrived at the camps, they were welcomed by an orchestra formed by Jewish violinists, trombonists, e.t.c.. This orchestra would continue to play for them as they were being led to the gas chamber by the Nazi soldiers. 

When they arrived inside the crematorium, they were welcomed by another set of Jews, who told them that for the purpose of sanitation, that they had to have their hair shaved off and give up all their clothes. And because these instructions were coming from Jews who were alive and looked well fed, they had no reasons to ask questions. Once this operation was completed, this same set of Jews led the group to the gas chamber, but told them instead that they were showers.

"When you get in there, open your mouth and breathe in as much as possible. The water contains properties that act as disinfectant." 

Once again, the group of Jews trusted them. They went into the chambers, opened their mouth and inhaled the gas which inevitable killed them in less than five minutes.

Then the living and well fed set of Jews carried the bodies to be cremated by another set of Jews.

Both set of Jews had a life span of three months. They lived in good accommodations, ate good meals and even had showers. All they had to do was reassure all the Jews that arrived to be massacred that everything would be all right. Then three months later, they were executed by a fire squad. Because three months was not enough time for them to plan an uprising, but they could do so, a day after those three months.

Many times the oppressor will choose a leader or leaders among the oppressed as to give the oppressed an illusion of hope and power. Also, the oppressor will appear less cruel, and instead he or she will pass off as benevolent.

"If you follow the rules, I will reward you, just like I have done with them. I'm not a bad guy. I'm just trying to make sure that everything works as it should."

Saying that Chris Oyakhilome is not a misogynist because he gives leadership to women is like saying that the Nazis were not mass murderers and war criminals since they treated some Jews like human beings, at least while they let them live. Or that slave owners were not monsters since they allowed some slaves to live inside their houses, wear nice clothes and even "have sex with them". 

Whenever there is an oppressor and there is an oppressed, there is always a figure head acting as an intermediary. And the figure head is always chosen among the oppressed.

When a man stands in front of hundreds of people and communicates to the females among them that they are servants to their male counterparts, he is by all means a misogynist. He is just confiding in the fact that his occasional benevolence will confuse his critiques.

FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE

Today I want to talk about financial intelligence. Many Nigerians are not financially intelligent.

When I posted the screenshot of a person mocking me for not flying business class and for riding okada among other things (🤷🏽‍♀️ Them follow me go Nigeria, abi?), I was hoping you all would see the irony of everything this person had written. An irony that was made strongly evident by their foolishness. But you didn't.

I woke up from my sleep to find all of you wailing. Why are you wailing when you should be laughing? I deleted the post as your wailing was disturbing my ears.

You live abroad, your child lives abroad, your plans are abroad but "your" car and properties are collecting dust in Nigeria. Why?

I know a man who decided that he was tired of living as an illegal immigrant in the UK, so he packed up his stuff and bought a one way ticket back to Nigeria. In his first week in Nigeria, he bought a car worth millions of naira. His mates over here were euphoric, but my opinion was that he'd done something extremely foolish. Just like I had predicted, he went broke shortly after from partying and shopping. So he packed up his bags again. This time, however, he didn't come back to the UK. The UK slaps illegals with a 5 year ban. So he had to go to Malaysia. He had entered the UK from Malaysia. Imagine, leaving Nigeria to Malaysia, moving to Malaysia to the UK, coming back to Nigeria again and having to start all over again in Malaysia. And no UK in sight for the next 5 years.

Another man I know has a building complex that fetches him N4M in rent a year. A substantiable amount in Nigeria, but quite little for someone who lives in the UK. Minimum wage workers over the age of 25 collect £16,000 a year in salary. He gets about £9,000 in rent from Nigeria. He has a wife who doesn't work and a daughter. He's living on an income of £25,000, which is just enough to get by given his family situation. 

Another man again built a house in Benin City. He never goes to Benin, and he says he will never go to Benin. So why did he build the house? To show the people in Benin that he too has a house over there.

My mother has a house in Nigeria that is packing dust. And just like her, plenty abroadians have built houses, are building houses and will build houses that will just end up packing dust.

I wrote about those rich folks in Nigeria who buy houses all over the place. They are paying taxes and utility bills for empty houses just because they want to brag that they own a house abroad. 

Houses and cars are liabilities that you should never bother with unless you are using them to make money. 

I am a financially intelligent woman. Back in the day, I'd see my dad keeping count of all our expenses in his diary. My mother and I would mock him for being too attentive. But today I'm doing the same thing. I'm extremely frugal with my money. If I ever ask for a loan or support, trust me that my account is not empty. I just want to give my savings some rest. 

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This year is a new year. Become financially smart. Grab a pen and a sheet of paper. Write down:

- How much you make;

- How much you owe;

- The minimum you need to live a dignifying life;

- The most affordable investment based on your income.

Always save at least 10% of your income. You won't become rich by collecting a salary and saving alone. You must be proactive too.

Good luck with everything. See you in 2022 to celebrate our accomplishments.

NIGERIANS DO NOT PRACTICE RESPECT

Respect implies a mutuality, where people relate with one another on an equal level. It's at the very foundation of the concept of equality. People are not judged based on their status in the society but based on their humanity. You recognize that as people, we are born with the right to live freely and with dignity.

However that is not the case in Nigeria. Nigeria does not operate on the basis of equality, instead she operates on the basis of social hierarchy. Based on your sex, age, occupation, role and finances, you will be accorded a certain level of respect.

And because Nigeria is ruled by a patriarchy system, you have females at the bottom and males at the top. So no matter how low a male ranks, he will never rank as low as or lower than a female. And no matter how high a female ranks she will never rank as high as or higher than a male.

In the family setting, the parents rank higher than the children.

In a marriage the husband ranks higher than the wife.

In the society, men rank higher than women, adults rank higher than kids, rich people rank higher than poor people.

This structure means that people who rank lower must respect those who rank higher, but those who rank higher are not required to respect those who rank lower.

Wives are to respect their husbands, while the husbands are meant to love their wives.

Children are meant to respect their parents, while parents are meant to care for their children.

The people who are meant to give respect also have the onus of maintaining peace, forgiving and never challenging those above them.

BY NIGERIAN STANDARDS I AM EXTREMELY DISRESPECTFUL.

I'm an egalitarian, and I firmly believe in the concept of mutual respect. I do not respect people who do not respect me. No matter who they are.

And if you err me, I will demand for an apology. And until you apologise, I will not reinstate my respect for you.

As a progressist, I believe in challenging authority and holding it accountable for its actions. A society where those who occupy positions of power are never questioned is a society that will never grow or be egalitarian.

I want a society where people do not believe or get comfortable with their privileges.

And if you are assigned or have self assigned a role, play it well. There are too many people claiming to be something and acting unlike someone in that position.

The president is failing.
Governors are failing.
Policemen are failing.
SARS are failing.
Teachers are failing.
Parents are failing.
Religious leaders are failing.
Employers are failing.

They are failing because they do not respect those they consider beneath them. Like they do not owe us anything. However everyone of them still demands respect from us, their "subordinates".

This is not even funny anymore. This is the mentality of dictatorship and man worshipping.

The importance of reciprocating respect cannot be underemphasized. A society where respect does not exist, is a society that is doomed.

CORDIAL BREAK UP IS THE BEST

In Nigeria, you cannot break up, move on and still be friends with an ex. It means that the two of you must be sleeping together.

Because you know, once a man's penis has been inside your vagina, it can enter over and over again any time he wants.

Back in high school, I had classmates who dated, broke up and eventually became friends again. After the usual bitterness and anger that followed their separation, they would start getting close again, and within a few months, they were talking and chatting like they had never even been together before.

But in Nigeria, kole happen. They want you to be keeping malice with your ex to show that the two of you are no longer involved. Even then they will still judge you for being bitter and perhaps fake. Who knows? You could still be meeting up with him in secret.

Unless the person who has remained friends with an ex is their son or daughter of course. In which case, they will praise him or her for their maturity and ability to resolve conflicts.

The rest of us instead, will be labelled cheap sluts who still want a piece of their ex.

Imagine a woman questioning my decision to remain friends with an ex when her own son was going about town with his ex. The nerve of some people to be hypocrites and be shameless about it.

I'm one person who believes that some people are better off as friends than boyfriends/girlfriends. And just because you didn't work out as a couple doesn't mean you should discard each other like garbage. If you are constantly discarding your exes after a break up, it's time to sit down and ask yourself questions. Because it's either you are a horrible person or you are a damaged person who keeps choosing horrible people to date.

I know my value as a person and I know how much a friendship with me can be beneficial. I'm not perfect, but my friends can attest to my level of dedication and loyalty. You can't say you were friends with me or dated me and didn't gain anything. So any basic Nigerian who wants to use their sand brain to judge me should get ready to be trashed.

Exes are not vomit or sloppy sachets or used products. They are people. Know the value of people for who they are and not just for what they can give.

And if your exes keep running away from you after the break up, then my dear, you are the problem.

WE NEED TO REFORM THE MARRIAGE INSTITUTION

Marriage Reforms I'd Endorse

1. Treat it like the contract that it is.

The whole point of getting married is to legally document your relationship with someone, and, as such, the two parties enter a legally binding contract. Like any other contract, marriage comes with clauses and conditions under which it is valid or it is void. Except that those clauses do not take effect automatically like they do in other types of contracts.

As a matter of fact, the individual party will have to seek legal assistance to dissolve a marriage that has in fact already been dissolved due to a breach of contract.

All a marriage needs to be dissolved or voided is the proof that the other party broke one or more of the clauses stated in the marriage contract.

Divorce proceedings should not take months or years, instead there should immediate dissolution of the marriage in the face of a breach of contract.

2. Marriage license should be subject to renewal.

Marriage license should be valid only for a limited period of time, and after it expires, the couple would have one year to renew it, otherwise the contract would automatically cease to be valid and the marriage would be dissolved as a result.

3. Spousal support should be paid only if the couple agreed that one person should not work.

If I didn't ask you to stop working and made efforts to get you a job, after the divorce, you are leaving with your broke ass. I don't owe you shit.

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If I think of something else, I'll add it.

YOU BOND BY SHARING YOUR PAIN

When I arrived in Italy in 1999, my father was 51 and was a pensioner. The age of retirement was around 60 then. Nobody told me why.

When I arrived in Italy in 1999, my father and my mother slept in separate bedrooms. I shared room with my mother until I was 16. Nobody told me why.

I noticed that my dad took a lot of medication. Nobody told me why.

I overheard one time that he was ill and I asked "Is anything wrong with his heart?". My mother responded by throwing a plastic container at me.

Nobody ever told me anything but somehow I was expected to know that things were not right. How?

One of the reasons why my father and I have been able to build a relationship is because now we share our pains without the fear of being judged and ridiculed.

Something that my mother did so well. She lived to humiliate us over anything.

Imagine berating your child after he or she just got heartbroken, or lost a friend or went through shit at school. Why are you acting like you never went through any of that?

I often joke with my friends that whenever my father calls me, it is to complain of one pain or the other. And that he seems to be developing a new one every day. 🤣 But thank God he does. Because there was a time I was not allowed to know any of this. And he probably thought that the reason why I didn't care about his health was because I didn't care about him. If only he knew that the one time I enquired, I was met with an object thrown with brute force against my head.

People don't bond over the happy things in life. It's the sad ones that create those moments of sincerity and vulnerability among the parties involved.

So, please, if you are parent, do not be afraid to be vulnerable with your child. It won't cause them to disrespect you. Instead it will make you more relatable and approachable. And he or she will feel more human too.

The best relationships between parents and children I have seen so far are the ones where the parents share the pain and disappointment they experienced when they were young.

"I was once like you".

No other words can teach your children that life evolves, that things get better and that one day they will get to the point where they can talk about it, just like you did.

"I was once like you."
"This happened to me too."

Those words would have been of great comfort to me as a teenager. Luckily, I still grew up to learn of their importance.

GOSSIPS/RUMOUR MONGERS DO NOT PROGRESS

Years ago, I dated a guy whom I'll later describe as "the most stupid boy I have ever dated". However, this episode that I'm about to write is not what earned him the unflattering superlative adjective.

It happened that on a particular day, I was at his with a friend of his. Two adults, in their mid 20s, both struggling financially and living day to day.

One would expect that given the monetary urgency that afflicted their daily lives, these two youngsters would be devoting their time to searching for solutions or ideas that would fetch them money. Instead they spent their time in the most idiotic way possible.

For the two hours, or thereabout that the visit lasted, these two men talked about everybody else but themselves.

- Who is sleeping with whom;
- Who is doing runs;
- Who is doing whatnot;
- E.t.c..

After his friend left, I told him: " You and your friend just spent two hours of your time gossiping. Two hours."

He looked at me in total embarrassment.

I'm not saying that I don't gossip. But to make talking shit of other people or their business the entire purpose of my visit to a friend's? That's the height of mediocrity and hopelessness.

When years ago, they were forcing me to be "friends" with an imbecile, I'd tell them: "This person and I have nothing in common. As in, nothing".

What is the criteria for making friends?

- Same age;
- Same sex;
- Same tribe;
- Same struggles;
- Same church;
- Same relationship status?

Nope, none of that does it for me.

If you are only bringing gossips and problems, then stay in your lane.

I need people who can offer solutions or at least make efforts.

I have wasted enough years of my life in friendships that should have ended years ago simply because I was looking at what they could have been instead of what they were.

I want to receive. I have expectations. If our friendship is not feeding me with meaningful things, then it's time to waka.

BRAGGERS ARE DEALING WITH TRAUMA

As sleep don abandon me, let me use this opportunity to drop some info.

👉🏽 That person that is always exaggerating their achievements is dealing with trauma.

I believe that most people can distinguish their fantasies from their realities, so even though they dream of living in a million dollar mansion, they recognise that they are still far away from achieving that and as such, are realistic about their lives and achievements.

Unfortunately, some people can't.

Some people often obsess over their fantasies to the point that they considerably inflate their reality as to make these two spheres match. And, since people generally do not bother asking intrusive questions unless they suspect a foul play, they just take words at face value. As a result, many people get away with bragging about a reality that is not theirs.

Let's take for example the son of a deceased rich man who cannot accept the social and financial decline that his family suffered after the death of his father. Even though it's been over twenty years, he is still convinced that he is the son of a rich man, and wants to enjoy the perks of belonging to the upper class.

"I only wear designer clothes. Gucci is my favourite brand."

"My family has three houses, two in Nigeria and one abroad. My father left one, while my grandmother left the other one. The one abroad was bought by my mother."

But should you ask questions, you'd find out that he is a minimum wage worker who lives way above his means and that his family assets are not that valuable.

Questions that would send him on a rage:

Why does he priotise finances over his well being in his relationships?

His father died more than twenty years ago. What is a house that was built that long ago worth today?

His mother married his late father at the age of seventeen. What well to do family allows their underage daughter to get married?

Why did his mother buy a flat in a low income neighbourhood?

People have different ways of dealing with trauma. And the death of a parent, coupled with the loss of a comfortable lifestyle can definitely trigger a defense mechanism, which, left untreated, could permanently alter our perception of reality. We could find our ourselves lost in a fantasy world that resembles the world we believe we would have had, if we had not suffered that loss.

Why not simply work hard to recreate that world then?

Well, when people feel that they have been slighted and unjustly wronged by life, they are more likely to wait for life itself to make it up to them, rather than get their asses up to try and rebuild what they have lost. Also, It could be that they do not have what it takes to recreate that life.

In my example, the father was a rich man. Not the son. What results can an entitled man with average abilities achieve on his own? It's much easier to try and ride on his father's long gone glory and expect handouts from people.

Doesn't he have friends who can shake him back to reality?

You can't always wake people up from their daydreams, and people might even cut you off for criticising their choices.

So when next you come across a bragger, do not get upset with their incessant boasting. Instead, hug them and tell them: "Nobody cares if you wear Gucci. You are just a messed up person who needs help".