STOP THE STIGMA AGAINST DIVORCÉS

Woman: Why did you divorce your wife?

Man: I did not divorce her o. She divorced me.

Woman: What happened?

Man: My ex wife was a witch and a demon. She almost ruined my life, but I thank God.

Woman: What did she do?

Man: Imagine o. A woman that I married with my money, brought to the US with my money and sponsored with my money had the effrontery to call the police on me.

Woman: Haba, why now?

Man: Because of small argument o. Women have too much power in this country. They leave Nigeria, come here and think that they can start rubbing shoulders with men.

Woman: You mean the police can just arrest you for quarrelling with your wife?

Man: Yes o. Here you cannot be the man of the house in peace. You beat your children, they arrest you and take the children away. You beat your wife, they arrest you....

Woman: Wait, you beat you wife?

Man: Ha! That one na normal husband and wife fight now. You know how women like to run their mouths.

Woman: I'm sorry but I don't think I can do this.

Man: Men have really suffered o. Just because I'm divorced, now she won't marry me.

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Stop the stigma against divorced men.

MEN DEMAND SUBMISSION AND NO QUESTIONING FOR BEING PROVIDERS

If you want to flip the script at least have a knowledge of what the reality is like before you try to compare it to the alternative. It's not every time you come up with the line "But if a man is doing this for a woman, you won't complain".

Point of correction, that certain behaviours and settings have become the norm and have been accepted as established gender roles does not mean that they are in fact fair or productive.

Let's look at the issue of where a man significantly earns more than the woman.

I am personally against the idea of dating or marrying a person who earns way more than you do. I once turned down a man's advances when I found out where he lived. I wasn't in a good place financially and I did not want to bother myself with explanations about why we couldn't go to some places or do some things together, since my finances were much less than his and tied to an important project that would dilapidate my income even before the money settled in my account. To put it short, I didn't have enough money to sustain a relationship with that kind of earner.

Secondly, the power dynamics in that relationship would have been completely skewed in his favour. Women who date men that are way richer than them know that the only way to compensate is to become highly sexual. I don't mean that just as having sex all the time or bending to all his sexual demands. It also means that these women always have to remind the man that there are other men out there who would gladly replace them if they decide to start acting funny. Personally, I don't have time for that crap. I don't have time to put myself out there for the purpose of creating a list of back-ups in case my rich boyfriend decides to screw up. Relationships are draining, and after a while, even these women become tired from moving from one man to the other, especially when all the men end up doing the same thing that the previous one has done.

My kind of person wants to chill and relax when I'm dating. I don't have time for jealousy, competitions, or childish game. I wouldn't do well in a relationship where the man has the money and because of that demands that I look the other way when he behaves in ways that are disrespectful to me and detrimental to our relationship. I can't swallow crap because I need the man to pass me crumbs from time to time.

And this is why the whole narrative of "But men have been dating broke women yen yen yen" does not work. Speak to those women, and you are going to hear all kinds of stories. Very few of them, as in very few of them are not constantly reminded of the fact they do not bring shit into the relationship.

Just last week we discussed men who bring their Nigerian wives over to the West. We saw the level of entitlement those men have towards their wives and their money, for reuniting with them, and helping these women boost their academic qualification in order to get a good paying job. Now, tell me, is that your idea of "men have been doing it for women"? Because if a woman behaved like that, you wouldn't like it.

I know enough about the status quo to know that just because men and women have been doing something for a long time does not mean that it is yielding good results. We have just accepted it, while lying to ourselves that it does simply because it favours the privileged gender.

It favours men to lord over women, disrespect them, cheat on them, threaten to throw them out, demand total submission just because they earn more. But when a woman earns more, you do not expect her to do all of this. You still want her to treat her man with respect. The correct flipping of the script would be to allow women to treat men who earn less than them the same way men treat women who earn less than them. But God forbid that you do.

I know Nigerians are terrible at analogies, especially the ones who want to ridicule the feminist movement. These ones always seem to reason with their anus instead of their brain. But hey you are supposed to be the LOGICAL gender, right? So be logical.

If it works, you flip.

If it ain't working, you don't flip.

BRINGING YOUR WIFE ABROAD AND PAYING FOR A CERTIFICATION IS NOT A FAVOUR.

I can see that many people ignore the meaning and importance of marriage, and that tells me that they also underestimate the amount of efforts it takes to work out.

When you marry a person, you become a single unit with that person under the law. You are counted as a family, and whatever benefit you are supposed to enjoy is given to you as a family.

Your decision to invest in your spouse, unless stated otherwise is not counted as an individual investment. If you want it to be so, then make the spouse sign a contract that clearly says "This is a loan and I want you to pay back in so so ways", otherwise forget it.

You cannot compare a person's decision to bring their husband or wife abroad and pay for their diploma, to Amaka's decision to invest in her friend's business. The first is a gift from a spouse to another, counted also as spousal responsibility, the second is a purely a business transaction. And even in this case Amaka has to prove that she didn't gift Uche that money.

If I were a woman who was sponsored abroad. Sorry. I am a woman who was sponsored abroad. My mother brought me over to Italy when I was ten years old, and I remember the number of times she held it over my head.

"I could have left you in Nigeria. I can send you back to Nigeria. I could chase you out of this house."

No, she couldn't. The law does not consider her bringing me over to Italy a favour she did me. Instead it sees it as her fulfilling a parental obligation. And that is the same between husband and wife. I mean, why shouldn't a husband and wife be living together? You making efforts to bring your family together under the same roof is seen as you making efforts to make your marriage work. For your own personal benefit too.

You cannot throw your spouse out of the house because you brought him or her over. You cannot demand their salary either. You cannot enslave them in any way or deny them their fundamental rights. I mean, you cannot do this with a stranger who has no ties with you. That is tantamount to human trafficking. So, why do you think you can do this with a spouse?

If you do not want to perform that kind of spousal responsibility, then don't get married. Unless you don't rate marriage and you are OK with allowing your husband or wife to rot away in a third world country while you live as a single person in a first world country.

WHEN YOU ARE NIGERIAN, BUT LIVE AMONG ROMANS

There is one sentence that every child who grew up abroad will tell you that someone told them at some point. Be this person a parent, a guardian or just a random adult who believed that they had the right to educate the young one: "Don't forget that you are from Nigeria even though you live abroad".

This sentence was mainly said with the hope of maintaining a status quo that consisted of gratuitous sexism - in particular misogyny, classism, bigotry, tribalism. ageism, etc. In fact, everything that we should have discarded in Nigeria a long time ago. And this was the reason why you could easily find a Nigerian who had lived a decade or more in Italy, but had not done away with his or her "Nigerian mentality". He or she had to maintain it in order to pass it on to the next generation. There were also hypocrites who only wanted other people and their kids to possess the mentality while they and their children lived very Italian lives. Eg: pastors.

As a child who went to primary school in Italy, you would learn three notions from the very first day:

1. Respect is not by age;

2. Respect has nothing to do with addressing people by their titles or name;

3. Respect is mutual.

The moment you learnt this, immediately the scale fell of your eyes, and the struggle between your Nigerian and Italian counterparts began, and furiously.

- Why does this person feel like he or she can talk to me like this?

- Why does this person insists that I call her aunty even though she is just a couple of years older than me?

- What is Dr (Mrs)?

- Why is this old person acting mad because I asked him to apologise to me?

And that was how the "disrespect" that our adults from Nigeria and/or who insisted on holding on to non productive practises of Nigeria feared so much, began.

Cultural confrontation is inevitable, as well as necessary. It's the only way you can succeed in a foreign land. Believe it or not, your academic and financial success will depend largely on your ability to let go of those silly doctrines that do not serve you as a person, but instead serve the collective alone. And yes, various cultures around Nigeria will always lose out to Western cultures. For one, in the West, the individual is valued. Unlike in Nigeria where the individual is in function of the collective and is considered nothing without the collective, and their approval.

This is not to say that an individualistic culture is supreme. That level of egotism is also damaging on the long run. However it remains more attractive than moulding yourself to blend in with a bunch of adults who went through to same process with people who have been dead for ages.

Exposure has nothing to do with living in a foreign land, watching foreign movies or reading foreign authors. It is about confrontation. That moment when you sit down and put your old/native reality side by side with a new/acquired reality.

The deeper you are willing to dive and the more you are willing to shed will determine how opened your mind will be.

Can One Live A Good Life In Nigeria With N300K A Month?

For my trip to Nigeria in 2018, I had a budget of N200K for two weeks. I was not going to pay for accommodation or food. I only had to worry about transportation and personal shopping. Then I also had about £4000 which I had saved for the purpose of business, so I had no plan of touching it. Then my friend shocked me. She said, "Babe, make that N400K". Shioor? That was about £800. For two weeks of stay???

Then I arrived in Nigeria. During my two weeks, I stayed at a luxury residence - Governor's Apartments at Omole Phase I, enjoyed room service, restaurant meals, rode Uber all through, visited Mega Chicken multiple times, went to Balogun Market; all paid for by my friend and the Facebook friends who came by to see me. But somehow I still spent more than N400K of my own money.

Nigeria is freaking expensive, like expensive. I don't know how people do it. Ordinary trip to Shoprite, I spent N40K. What did we even buy? Cornflakes and milk. Haaa! N40K for shopping in a country where people make as little as N20K?

I don't know how people do it, but the people that are doing it are trying.