Who will own the moon in the next half a century?

Bukola,

The Americans have just celebrated fifty years of visiting the moon. I can only imagine what the euphoria was like when the first man was catapulted into that alien space in search of another life there, or to find out if there were other governments, or if God lived there with his angels. This moon affair no doubt consolidated America’s influence on the global stage at a time when she was keeping malice with Russia after an international divorce nicknamed the Cold War.

Russia, like a jilted ex-wife trying to prove to her runaway husband that she was better and stronger alone than in that abusive marriage, also launched herself into that alien space first desecrated by America’s lack of respect for anything mysterious (yes, because while many people worshipped the moon and never contemplated what was in the orbit of their god, the only way the Americans could worship it was by first reducing its mystery). Was it not John Donne who asked God to rape him so that he could be chaste?

But it is not the bickering between America and Russia that interests me in this moon affair. It was the declaration made by America about the ownership of the moon that baffles me. In America’s unique magnanimity, like a father who brags about his sacrifices for his children, they declared that the moon belongs to everyone on earth and that whatever resources is found there will be used for the development of mankind. Don’t you just admire the American generosity? Their propensity to share the resources found in the moon with people of distant lands like my grandmother in far off Imbise is very staggering.

But what America didn’t say and didn’t need to say was that whoever has the power to reach the moon owns the moon. So if the Americans had found something in the moon who would have asked her to share it equitably? Would it have been like the Nigerian federal allocation style where all nations would travel to America to collect their monthly allocation of the moon wealth?

Bukola, I am worried. Not worried about the Americans now, but for Nigeria in the next 50 years if we survive as a nation. I am worried because while the world is busy ensuring that all children learn to code so that the future would not be determined by this form of American generosity, we are talking about Fulani herdsmen and Ruga settlements. I feel sad. Sad because while J.F Kennedy conjured up the vision of landing in the moon with that famous inaugural speech of his and backed by action, we have a president that cannot even pick his ministers months after winning an election.

While the world is coding, we are building mega-churches and mosques and forcing our children to recite verses of the holy books. Don’t bring up the argument about science without humanity, because religion cannot be equated to humanity.

With our current run of backwardness, can Nigeria own the moon with America and Russia in the next 50 years?

Is every Nigerian man not guilty of rape?

Rape in Nigeria didn’t start with Bosula Dakola- there have been daily reports of this cringe worthy act on a daily basis. Rape of minors, poor and helpless women daily plaster the pages of newspapers and blogs. But Busola’s story has given voice to these cases that we have grown agreeable to, ignoring, dismissing or shouting about it, but for only a short while. But don’t get too excited, for Nigeria’s outrage has a very short lifespan. I won’t be surprised if the outrage dies a natural death just the same way the aeroplane conversation involving brother Wole Soyinka took the aisle seat so that Busola’s outrage could occupy the window seat of our social media attention.

This Busola-Fatoyinbo rape story has got me thinking about the way we handle women in Nigeria. My editor will strike the word ‘handle’ and replace it with the word ‘treat’. She will argue that handle is a word that presupposes and encourages women subjugation. But in this case, I will probably win the argument for which word should stay in my essay. Women in Nigeria are not treated fairly, I would argue. They are therefore handled in worse ways than how most of us would hold our fragile china.  Unlike the western culture, which we ape ceaselessly but end up with a bad imitation each time, the culture of chivalry makes the man to stoop to conquer (chivalry is another word Bukola would gladly strike out, it makes dolls of women, she would say). Nigerian men do not stoop or understand the meaning of stooping to conquer (Oliver Goldsmith will be turning somewhere). It seems the kingdom of konji suffereth violence, and Nigerian men taketh it by force. Date rape. Marital rape, Gang rape.  And the most unthinkable on the list, but increasingly reported by the day, the rape of minors.

On social media, the responses by some men (I am trying hard not to call them morons) to this floodgate of accusations shows that this is a generational problem that has no intention of leaving us any time soon.

So I will like to quickly ask, is rape part of our culture?

First we have to revisit how we raise our children, and by this, the male child. Any Tom, Dick and Harry (not mine) thinks that when he pursues a girl and the girl is proving too hard to get that she is probably acting the opposite.  Like when she says she doesn’t want something that she’s exactly saying the opposite of what she wants. This dangerously passed on idea has become one of the most popular tips on wooing a girl. I looked into the good books of my religion, and Things Fall Apart has a song about how a girl says no when you ask her out, but when you put your hand across her waist, she pretends not to notice (I think I once tried this and she broke that hand, and it is yet to heal sufficiently).  

As I noted earlier, it is a good thing that rape victims are speaking out, even though one old writer recently called a middleclass conspiracy, because the cases of the poor, everyday victim had been far too ignored. But in ten to fifteen years from now, if we want a saner society, one where my daughters won’t have to fear spending time out with friends or walking home alone, then we have to start teaching our boys to learn to respect when a girl says No. We have to teach them that this No is the most important No they should pay attention to in life. And this is not going to be the death of romance.

We have to tell them that dressing indecently is not a call for sexual assault. That meeting her in the elevator alone is not a cause to rape her. That spending a night in your room is not a call to rape her. That we as men should be held to a higher code than animals in the jungle (this would be seen as insults by some well-behaved animals).

We have to tell them that it is normal for a lady to mean it when she says that she doesn’t want to date you, no matter how muscular, rich or handsome you may be. We have to let them know that even when a lady is dating you, it is rape if you take it when she isn’t willing or ready to give you.

One damage we have done to the male child is to let him grow up with  no rules and regulations. We unleash him unto the society and women like it’s open season. The bandied idea that he’s not a man yet if he has not sowed his wild oats on every girl that catches his fancy is wrong. So we see little boys yet to buy their first boxers trying to sow their wild oats.

We can remake this culture, if at all it is our culture.

I know by the time Bukola picks this for her regular forensics on my grammar, sentence structure, she will accuse me of trying to recuse myself from the flood of accusations that will come at me after the women that were forced to receive brother Biodun’s holy sperm are done with him. This is not my confession, I assure you all. But I wish I knew most of these things before now. At least, for the sake of that hand that I put across that girl’s waist.