It is an old story which expectedly, won’t leave the social media circuit. It is the story of Kenyan women who took to the streets to protest their husbands’ underperformance and inability to get them pregnant.
A touchy bed bedroom matter you would say, but some perspectives: first, it will amount to an over-generalisation to describe them as Kenyan women as stories have conveniently headlined. They are actually a section of women from a county known as Limuru, Kiambu. So it is not a country-wide phenomenon (unless more facts unfold to prove one wrong); not even country-wide.
Having made that important clarification, the grouse of the women is that because their husbands imbibe too much alcohol, their ability to perform at optimum in bed as well as the other important function of getting them pregnant may have been impaired.
Pressing the point further, they noted that married women abound in the county but only few are pregnant. And the problem is with both the young and old they claim, threatening to relocate to another county if nothing was done to assuage their obvious conjugal woes. For solution, they recommend that government should make strict laws to curtail their men’s binging on alcohol to certain hours during week days and weekend.
This uprising actually took place late last year but it remains in the front burner because the issues raised are deep (no pun please), universal and I dare say, pervasive. Some Nigerian men have been talking like Don Juan in the social media, threatening to invade Kenya and give succour to the aching women. But I wager that that may be sheer braggadocio. I wager again that the average Kenyan fella is no different from his Nigerian brother in every material particular. We shall return to this later.
One is inclined to see these women as heroines for taking to the highways, what is considered a bedroom taboo. These Kenyan women are truly stars of a new narrative having bucked the trend to voice their frustrations against what is obviously an incipient penile tragedy looming across Africa and the emerging worlds.
One cannot help but love and admire the courage of these gallant amazons who have exhibited characteristic Masaiac courage in standing up, defying African tradition to highlight what might well be the new scourge afflicting the modern African man. Challenging what looks like a looming matrimonial atrophy.
It is said that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. But let’s tweak that a little to say, there is no fury like a woman aroused and left unfulfilled. In fact it may well be better to scorn a woman by not starting at all than to leave her mid-sea. This I believe is the contention of these brave women. Why take a wife and bond her under your roof if you are not man enough at your conjugal duties? They are simply demanding for their men to man-up in the bedroom and stop sabotaging it all with excessive booze. A wife of course has a fundamental right to love and sex from her legally married husband. A full-fledged woman (and have you seen a typical Kenyan woman in her prime?) in a freshly consummated matrimony cannot ask for anything less than a regimen of steamy, intimate sessions which should culminate into a baby bulge in the shortest possible time. This is not too much to ask.
Imagine the trauma and psychological agony of the denial of this matrimonial entitlement; and out of no genuine reason than male foolishness and waywardness. And you expect the other person to live and die in mind-bending silence? So protest may well be some form of therapy.
Inebriating the mind, body and soul from the Central, down to the South and East of Africa, it is a well known fact that since the post-colonial era of the 60s, alcohol consumption has remained an issue. Many writers of these regions have highlighted it in their works. One such is Meja Mwangi who in Going Down River Road paints a grim picture of independent Africa covered in dusty poverty and suffused with cheap alcohol. The kind of liquor that chews the guts and damages the soul, not to mention libido.
But these gallant Kenyan women may have rekindled a light and someday soon, Africa just might begin to pay attention to the effects of alcohol on the continent. Because the African man is of innate physical strength, he could imbibe heavily for a long spell of his life without his system being impaired. But this may be changing as modern living takes its toll.
The hitherto redoubtable African stud is giving way to an effete mulatto nourished on junk-ish Macdonald’s fries and ersatz rice from Asia. Today’s African man bred on processed food is less vital than his father and even less so, his grand father. Yet he consumes even more alcohol today due to the stress of modern living. Of course too much alcohol bugs down his organs, wears his muscles and causes much lethargy to his libido. And don’t forget the new scourge of the African man, his withering prostrate gland.
Like Kenya, like Nigeria. It may well be the same problem with Nigeria but because the Kenyan women are upfront and less inhibited, they have forged a noble coalition against their drunken husbands. There is, however, evidence of heavy drinking in Nigeria too. In the last decade, Nigerian men may have been imbibing more alcohol and performance enhancing drinks more than ever. From beers to spirits, wines, energy drinks and even wild, local concoctions.
In the last five years, there has emerged in Nigeria, a rash of alcoholic ‘bitters’ both from the big brewers and dingy backyards. Many go by such suggestive names like ogidiga, mokogan, jango bitters, lion bitters, champion bitters, hit-and-run bitters; all sorts. And there is a legion of unlabelled others with exotic primary colours ostensibly made to imbue libidinal prowess.
In a place where health and regulatory authorities have been overwhelmed and just anything goes … down the Nigerian man’s gullet and into his system, there is indeed danger ahead. With sustained consumption of these delirious poisons, not only will our male libidos suffer in the long run, more kidneys will crash and livers will fail.
If nothing is done, in 10 years very few Nigeria men will be able to bring on a viable erection for nary one minute. Quietly, our new lifestyle is scourging our man and manhood. The African male specie must begin to re-learn a lot about life and living in this age lest African women migrated to ‘far countries’ to find conjugal bliss.
In summary, the best masculine physiognomy is one in which the blood and the entire body systems are clean, fluid and uncluttered, not necessarily the muscular. Too much alcohol, too much junk food and lack of conscious physical exercise will only put a man out of action early in life.
To think that simple antidotes work magic: natural foods, fruits and vegetables, moderate to no alcohol, a lot of water and hygiene is it. In fact, some of the simple cures for poor libido include watermelon, ginger, garlic, nuts, bananas, sweet potatoes and bitter leaf juice. And talking about hygiene, most of us men would climb into bed to our partners with breath booming with booze and such stuff we picked from those corner bars and we expect it to actually turn her on. I doubt that it does.
But just as most women are thought to keep clean and many actually do; men too must be conscious to be clean, especially for bed. And guy, here is one test for you as you climb into bed tonight: take a peek at the sole of your feet – what you see is a testimony to the state of your body and even your soul.
Once again, this is to the brave Limuru, Kiambu women of Kenya.
OUK versus TA: Unending pettiness
One is much troubled that the current debilitating inertia in Abia State has been reduced to a joking matter by none other than a former helmsman of the state who held sway for about 12 years. The stand-off in that state portends a huge economic and infrastructural debacle that may not be easily quantifiable. The people of the state are paying and will pay heavy price for some time to come.
But former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu writing in his column (SaturdaySun, July 9, 2016) only trivialised issues by heaping all the blames on his arch-enemy, immediate past Governor T.A. Orji. In 41 paragraphs of a running drivel, he blamed all the woes of Abia and some of his own on TA.
But one is a witness of the Abia story from 1999 to 2007 when OUK ruled Abia; and 2007 to 2011 of TA’s tenure he usurped. As it is well known, it was the locust years of Abia when nothing worthwhile sprouted in the land and nothing stood; a time of extreme violence when all Abia elders and statesmen were chased out of town.
It is a long, sad story that one believes history has noted accurately. But suffice to say that at a time when worthy Igbo elders were brainstorming in Owerri over the Igbo condition, OUK was busy stoking the fire of parochial politics in Abia. What a pity, what pettiness?
