FRUSTRATED (while I prepare to present Academie's sequel)

As usual, when I am preparing to update my blogs, I skim through my favourite blogs both for inspiration as well as to try and discern the general mood in blogville. If the trend is to be serious, I try and interject some philosophical reasoning into my posts and if levity is the mood, I strive to accomodate.

Blogville has opened my mind and heart to discourses that I feel in my estimation need to be experienced by all. From politics to erotica, blogville has something for you. Nigerian bloggers are much more special because their insights are borned out of surviving in a country which has little or nor respect for the workings of a creative mind. The average person has no patience to comprehend how much work it taked to craft words into literary sculptures to pique interest, seduce the intellect and hammer home a strong message. They are too busy with the business of surviving.


That is why I would think that Governor Fashola will have much more on his plates than to push sanctions of the choice of wardrobe of the modern Nigerian. The hypocrisy of this witch hunt is so blatant, it is disgusting. The same people screaming for moral reform are unwilling to tackle issues like sexual and domestic abuse, human rights violations, economic corruption and trafficking of any kind.


I need an explanation of how the sight of skin is going to affect the price of fuel. I need to know how a man choosing to braid his hair is going to provide constant eletricities so that students can study, businesses can run and people can enjoy the small, modest comforts of their homes.


Our forefathers and foremothers walked around (in most cultures) in loin cloths, completely unashamed and UNAFFECTED with the sight of exposed skin. In comes the puritanistic and pervasively conservative caucasian missionaries and they brainwash an entire people into believing that they are ugly and backward and we accept it and pass it on both directly and subliminally to subsequent generations.

Maybe we are, or how can you explain that a majority faith leader issues the ban on what a woman can wear to worship and immediately the entire congregation accepts it because, like in the worship of shrines, God apparently resides in one place.

My aunt who agrees with this idea of women not being ALLOWED to wear trousers to church told me she felt so because it is a garment associated with men. I corrected her by saying that it is a garment associated with freedom: freedom of mobility. A man is free to move around and do what he wants while women are forced to scurry about in the shadows so as not to terrify the man when he realises that the woman, if given the opportunity will accomplish alot and possibly more than he can. Am I now to cater to the insecurities of all men who cannot define themselves exclusive of the worship, adoration and deference of women?


I think amongst our people of sheep, God is a semi senile, absent minded caucasian MAN with a long beard and a quick temper who forgets what is going on and then remembers with swift "punishments" for those who erred whilst he was sleeping.


Nigerians, please wake up. You are sliding further and further into the backwardness of ignorance and hypocrisy. You are ruled by fear in all that you do. The western world sees this and capitalises on it and you say nothing.You refuse to challenge those whom you know are responsible for your problems, instead, you in turn inflict more pain on yourselves and on others or you chase after matters that have little or no bearing on the immediate situation. Case in point, the administrative board using HIV and pregnancy tests as a combatant for pre-marital sex when most HIV victims contracted the virus from our pathetically substandard medical practices. Please go to every university in the country, no matter how low on the radar and you will be shown, if you ask which youth are mistresses and boy toys to the wealthy and powerful. Start using your brains, there is a reason why that organ was placed in your head, above all other organs so you can think and reason from a higher perspective.


Some might say, why are you speaking out? Is it because you are one of those women who dresses indecently? I ask, then, what is decency and by whose standards do we measure it? Some people think that it is immoral to patronise and perform in the arts; to them all form of vocal talent that can be displayed is immoral and for the more silent ones like the fine arts, they are a waste of time. There are some that consider the advancements of technology such as the television and radio backward.Some think I am immoral for even speaking at all because as a woman, i guess their understanding is that, as a woman, I am only supposed to use my voice in acquiescence to whatever oppressive and represive situation I am faced with. Are these the people I am supposed to watch blindly while they attempt to come between me and my destiny?


How dare I even think to challenge the status quo? Well, the status quo is rubbish; an amalgamation of ill conceived ideas, structured to keep a certain group of people in control of a nation of people who are just like sheep.


I am getting increasingly frustrated that there will be no country for my children to grow up in. Our neighbours are leaving us behind. We call ourselves the "Giant of Africa" but now Nigeria is appearing more and more like the good for nothing big brother with an over inlated image of himself. And I am panicked to think of how many women and men will get hurt by these recent developments

I am tired and I need to know what I can do.