Sunday, February 8, 2009

10th wife will not be my portion!

Women don suffer finish for this country oh. Chei! Imagine, if a whole president’s daughter, a young woman, born into a family of wealth, imagine if she self, agree to be fourth wife of old papa, then wetin the rest of us suppose do? No hope for us. Na to begin marry man wey dey over eighty na! We go come be 10th wife. God forbid bad thing! It is not my portion!

The amusing part is that the two principal characters involved in this debacle are men of great power. A president and a governor. A father and a husband. One, thought it fit to marry away his young daughter and the other, happily accepted a young wife. What is my problem, you may ask? After all, in their religion it is totally acceptable.

My problem is that as a woman in this country, I no longer feel safe. If they can treat their “own” in such a manner, then what about the rest of us? If they see their own daughter as “property”, then how do they see you and I? We must be under the category of “recyclable garbage”. I am not even sure we might make it to “recyclable”, we might just be rubbish.

What our leaders fail to realise is that they are the examples we have. They are the people that we look up to, to lead us. The kind of choices they make in their lives affects a whole nation. What kind of message are both men giving other men in the country? Next thing you know, all these old papas will be happily chasing school girls all over the place. After all, if their president thinks it is okay then why not?
No, I do not feel safe anymore. If anybody should ever ask me to visit Aso rock, I shall decline. I advise all young women to keep away from Abuja. That place does not seem to follow the norms of other societies. I am afraid our civilisation may be at risk. We seem to be going backwards and with great speed as well! Before you know it, we shall become “hunters and gatherers” again.

It seems our leaders are bent on convincing us that they live in another world, too far away from ours. We want leaders that live in the present century. We want leaders that understand the important role women have in the society. As long as we have leaders who do not understand this, I am afraid we shall never be able to rise in this country. As long as we have a leader who thinks that marrying a fourth wife is a priority in these hard times, then I am afraid this country is doomed.

P.S:Meanwhile all these governors self, dem dey take woman matter pass government work oh! Na wah.

waffywaffarian@yahoo.com

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