Yesterday, for some unknown reasons (commonly referred to as the leading of the spirit), one of the biggest icons in Nigerian Christianity took to Twitter to tout some of the most callous views on human relationships as “the way of the lord”. And hardly surprisingly, he had people who agreed with his views. And while we want to act like it’s a reflection of the time he’s from or poor information, there is a deeper-seated problem that showed at the height he sits and reflects similarly, a lot of the time even in the men who would occupy the lowest ranks of society; as you see less than 12 hours from the publishing of that collection of nonsense ideas, there was the most disturbing display of pedophilia by a group of men who have nothing in common except Nigeria and a deep psychopathy (they may also attend RCCG who knows?). It’s beyond laughable that the people expect a misogynist to come out and say “Hey guys, I just want to tell everyone that I hate women.” Much like love, hate is best portrayed in the actions.
Examine the Nigerian male child. From the moment he begins to have a grasp of the workings of the world he is born into, he is taught to blame women for his hardship, it is the will of *god* as punishment for her shortcomings. He is taught to work hard to provide for her, so he is never beneath her, he is superior. He is taught that the hardship of his life will be necessary to please her, he must suffer to get her and she is not to wait for his suffering to bear fruit. He is naturally prone to bear resentment towards the women of the world for limiting his expression, having to fake strength to balance her *weaknesses* (“don’t cry you’re not a girl”, “don’t talk too much that’s for girls”, and all the many rules on how to grow up to be a “real man”).
He is taught that he is already above her, he just has to get rich enough, strong enough, powerful enough to show it. And every time there’s a problem in the society he can swear there’s a woman at the center. “She can’t drive, she’ll cause traffic”, “She can’t lead, she’s too emotional to be smart”, “She’s not capable of working for her own money, she’s selling her body for it”. These and many more are nuances that are peddled to the Nigerian male child by the men and women in his life and when in adulthood he can’t stand to see women breathe in their *inferiority* there is really nothing to be surprised about. And because god said it in so many ways, his father reminds him every now and then and even his mother, a slave to the idea that she might have a hand in reinforcing, there’s no way he’s wrong.
He knows he’ll be backed up, covered up for. Daddy GO will say “it’s the will of God” or “God is all-knowing and all-forgiving” if he goes too far. He knows deep down that even with his strength and position he has backing, because no matter how despicable his actions, the society can find a way to paint him as “hurt” or “changed”. So every day, he tests the limits of his immunity, on men he considers weaker, on women no matter how strong. She might be a life source but he is larger than life. He’ll hurt people physically, socially, financially, emotionally and not ever question his actions. Empathy is for the weak and he can never be weak. The seeds planted in the child that you hoped would be a light bore fruits that taste like pain and tears. The pain and tears of others, of course, he’s not allowed to express such things.
The very pillars of our society – Family, Religion, Education and Government go on to press the most hateful agenda and when the consequences of the ideologies that they invest so much time enforcing come to light we can only hope for a “We condemn these actions”, “We do not support…” and, if we’re really really lucky, “SAY NO TO…” in all caps so we know they are serious.
I want to say fix it Jesus, but Jesus is a tool that works more in their favor these days. There’s so much to fix, we might have kids and they might suffer this reality or an evolved version, a misogyny lite. Men and women have to sit, think and see where we can do better. We might have been shown it wrong all our lives but we owe it to the generations after us to make it better.
