Friday, August 10, 2007

WHAT A SHAME

I am not quite sure how I feel. This feeling must be beyond sadness, beyond anger, beyond frustration. What on earth is going on? Have we really stooped this low, is this some kind of joke? When I first read of this indecent dressing drama, I thought someone was just trying to be funny, but reading Funmi Iyanda’s personal experience, I know now that it is for real.

We cannot take this, we must not take this. We will not take this. Something has to be done, I am tired of being docile. Tired of taking whatever crap is dished out to me. I am telling my mum I must fight this one battle, and she says what can you do, all we can do is pray. This I think is exactly the problem. We have so clouded ourselves with religion that we are almost blind. And our leaders know this so they take advantage. What on earth has prayer got to do with this? What exactly am I supposed to pray about, that God should change the IG or the governor or ….? This is a physical issue for Pete’s sake and must be dealt with physically. Much as I am a Jesus' freak I do remember that when the fishermen had toiled for long without catching any fish,Jesus took their fishing nets and cast it into the sea pulling out several fishes. He didnt command the fishes to jump out of the water into their laps.

I remember when I was at the university; a young girl was raped on campus at about 5.30.am. And people said, what was she doing out of her room that early? Did she not know the place was unsafe? Some of these people being women. Nigeria is crazy. Is the armed robber justified because the security guards were asleep? Should the drunk driver who hits someone go free because the pub was open? What on earth is wrong with us?
And so we carried placards in protest, sent letters/articles to the press, one was published, I do not know if it achieved much or anything but I can I least tell my children I did something.

Covenant university is refusing to graduate HIV positive students, and those unmarried but pregnant, NACA(National agency for the control of AIDS) has been trying to reach them, but no one wants to talk. A professor who just finished his Sabbatical at the university says they are all bound by fear, students and lecturers alike, but that is a story for another day. My brother lives in the UK and was recently refused a job because he is Nigerian; they told him to his face. A pregnant colleague fainted at work recently, we have a sick bay but the nurse at duty had no idea what to do, there was no ambulance to call, the hospital card in her bag had no phone number. Issues, issues and more issues and my dear country is arresting women for “indecent” dressing in a state where the governor is a lawyer. If I weren’t so angry I would find this comical.

We should stand up and speak out on this one, or else next they will tell us what hair styles to wear, and what color of lipsticks and nail polish to use. Where are all the activists on blogville, if we must go naked on the streets to be heard, then we should. Nigerians have been disrespected and downtrodden for too long.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Thanks for the warm welcome! You are so sweet! xxx

Bitchy said...

Lady, I'm completely with you on this one! Read Funmi's post admittedly a little late yesterday... it's an outrage!! Have you sent her an email? She said to compose strongly worded letters which she can pass on to journalists, the IG etc - funmi@newdawnwithfunmi.com

Nonesuch said...

The police came on air yesterday to sdeny the indiscrinmate arrest of women. How about that?

myne said...

a real shame.
was harassed some days back,just comments made 2 let me know my pair of pants was now illegal in lag pretended 2 be deaf.later tot i should have asked what they tot about the economy,bad roads,poor power supply,killings,robberies,corruption

Shylle said...

Certainly we don craze patapata. Read Hamilton's column in The Sun this morning and people were ranting that he was against the police's action on "indecent" dressing. People sef.

Perhaps we should just make banters and jokes out of it all like my little kid sister once did. We were walking on the street one day when she saw a lady wearing a short tank top that didn't cover her belly, and skirts that were way above her knees. My sister giggled and pointed, “See, she’s wearing her little sister’s clothes!”

I think Fashola and the IG should go jump into Lake Chad!