Nigeria: Her Women and Mothers (Proverbs)

Lisa Goldman photo

By

Prince Charles Dickson

Yet another Mothers’ Day celebration across various faiths in Nigerian Christendom. I love women, and graciously say that I am jealous of them; when it is not Mothers’ Day, they would have Mothering Sunday, and then how about that International Day of Women and that of the girl child. Well, there might be serious objections to the way and manner I would have used ‘women’ in this essay, so before I go further I humbly tender an unreserved apology to the women folk…this piece is not intended, however like it is said one girl misbehaves, all are insulted.

The objections to this piece may also stem from the fact that we live in a world with more exposure and enlightenment on gender sensitive issues but as the world seems to be heading forward, the nation Nigeria has had as usual a peculiar way of taking the proverbial ten steps back after making a miserable step forward.

The interpretation of proverbs is very complex, since they are said to come alive only in oral communication and acquire new connotations each time they are quoted. So in this essay I say Nigeria and indeed her leaders are ‘women’ and some bitter truth exists in the following lines that I have penned down.

A nice naval does not prevent a girl from suffering stomach upset, so also does our sleeping giant status in Africa make us different today from war and conflict ravaged Sudan or CAR, with the likes of Professor Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, late Chinua Achebe, Zainab Alkali all beautiful and great writers, it is unfortunate that Nigeria today has lost it. All irreplaceable as we live in the shadow of past glory, not with the kind of educational sector where fine face now means empty head in the University and tertiary institutions. It may be difficult to attribute a proverb outside a live situation without any definite meaning, however I have chosen to give life to or make the Nigeria situation live…Despite our proverbial big opportunities tag, we remain with a nagging stomach upset.

If you marry the woman you met on the dance floor, she will someday go off with a drummer; in its raw Yoruba dialect this proverb is a delight. Its basis however is not far from my grief on Nigeria today because of her leaders that are behaving like a woman that was so picked by a man. It’s sad that Mr. Buhari and his APC cohorts almost 4 years into this misadventure have left their countrymen who gave them this change charge and away they are dancing to the drumbeat of doom.

The way Nigeria was married to her people without proper introduction rites is causing us problems because at every slightest opportunity there is a drummer for her to engage her fantasies on. She runs away…

Our leaders have turned us to women of loose morals, like the woman who decided to follow a band of musicians…They have succeeded in embarrassing us through their open display of foolishness, some doctor friend of mine said our leaders need psychiatric evaluation as they sure are examples of insanity. Wherever money is shared our leaders would be there, we have the misfortune of leaders who have picked their ideals and principles from the dance floor, and as 2019 approaches it remains bleak, because very little exists to show any change of direction.

Our leaders like women picked on the dance floor, no moral, direction, focus, or drive…as the music sounds they develop steps of crookedness and stealing, caring less about the governed.

A woman is like a rat, even if it grows up in your home it steals from you. I am sure someone is calling for my head…once more apologies, with the present change programme, we have witnessed more stealing from the same people that grew up in this mistake called Nigeria. The same people are stealing from the same people they are supposed to protect. Snakes and monkeys are swallowing and running away with monies. This is when we are not dissipating our population through very avoidable ailing sprees in various parts of the nation.

In our Northern parts we say he who listened to women suffered from famine at harvest time, when we were listening to the APC songstress and making deals we forgot that a woman’s advice ends up in “oh that I had known!” we do not believe a deceitful woman until a day after. Go ask Lai Mohammed, my friends Shehu Garba and Femi Adesina if in their heart this was what they bargained for?

Our leaders today are the same people that we cured their penis and they are on a rampage; our wives are now pregnant and like the Igbos say what a woman gets from prostitution, she calls it gift from her relatives; our government is looking us in the face and telling us that heaven is some miles away when indeed we are living in Hell. They are stealing us dry and are telling us it is our cause they are pursuing from Ijaw, Ogoni, Biafra, Arewa Odua, Middle and far Belts. Buying a life for themselves, making sure their children are no longer citizens of the soon to crumble nation. The same mandate we gave them, although I often say we did not give them they stole it…but if they stole it and we have refused to go get it back it simply means we have surrendered it to the rogues. This same mandate is our undoing, it has become our hardship, our cry, our hunger, tears, depravation, we asked for leadership they gave us slavery, for service they have made us servants…look after my wife has become marry her to them. Do we really blame them when all we do as a people is sit, watch and lackadaisically complain while our leaders shows us an illustrative definition of atrocity every day.

Whether the debate is of medical tourism, or how much the last administration stole, it only betrays the fact we agree that all women are unfaithful, it’s only the excessively unfaithful that people call harlots. Because Obasanjo is a thief so he should not talk, or the Jonathans of this world was irresponsible so spare us our irresponsibility.

Nigeria is a shame to any woman… No mother would want to have a child called Nigeria, when the child is good, he or she is papa’s boy/girl but when the contrary is the case the mother is asked where did you get this child from…where did we get the whores leading us from and were we under any compulsion to a bunch that has mortgaged the lives of fellow countrymen. Nigerians rise where ever we find ourselves, we need to talk, let’s stop the deceit called hope…hope is a coward’s replacement for action.

Nigerian women should beyond celebrations, beyond the call for affirmative action, take the gauntlet as our men may have failed us, it’s bad enough the men have stolen our money now they are thieving your feminism…for how long—Only time will tell.

Prince Charles Dickson

Currently Prince Charles, is based out of Jos, Plateau State, and conducts field research and investigations in the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria with an extensive reach out to the entire North and other parts. Prince Charles worked on projects for UN Women, Search for Common Ground, and International Crisis Group, among others. He is an alumnus of the University of Jos and the prestigious Humanitarian Academy at Harvard and Knight Center For Journalism, University of Texas at Austin. A doctoral candidate of Georgetown University

Born in Lagos State (South West Nigeria), Prince Charles is proud of his Nigerian roots. He is a Henry Luce Fellow, Ford Foundation grantee and is proficient in English, French, Yoruba Ibo and Hausa. Married with two boys, and a few dogs and birds.