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Tag: lust

  • Of love, infatuation, obsession and lust

    Of love, infatuation, obsession and lust

    It is common and very normal to confuse lust, obsession, and infatuation for love.

    By definition, lust is an emotion or feeling of intense sexual desire. By implication, it is more of a physical attraction that pushes a person to seek sexual gratification. Teenagers are more susceptible to confuse lust for love.

    However, as we grow older, become wiser and get more experience in life, we are able to differentiate love from lust.

    God created us to have physical urges, desires and needs. In themselves, they are not wrong or bad. But when we yield to them at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons and with the wrong person, they can become destructive.

    Infatuation according to Wikipedia is the state of being carried away by an unreasoned passion, usually towards another person for which one has developed strong romantic feelings. Unlike lust, infatuation has its origin in something more transcendental than just feeling attracted to the physical appearance of someone.

    It is usually an unguided passion towards someone you most likely do not have knowledge of or any aorta of familiarity with. All you feel for the person is physical or sexual attraction; He or she might not even return or share the affection you have for them. Infatuation is usually unrealistic but very idealistic.

    Obsession on the other hand can be very easily confused for great love, when in reality, is just an ailment of the mind that keeps the person emotionally and mentally enslave to someone else. It is an overwhelming desire to possess another person with an inability to accept rejection or failure.

    It is often mistaken for love especially among youths these days. Recently, there have been several cases of ladies committing suicide over guys that left them for someone else; since they couldn’t cope with rejection, they decided to put an end to their own life.

    While the stubborn ones among them believe if they can’t have the person they are obsessed with, then no one will; they try to either hurt or (in extreme cases) kill the person.

    LOVE is a feeling especially in the soul; a connection that goes over and beyond physical appearances.

    When you truly love somebody and that person loves you back, you feel an overwhelming sense of value and worth; unlike lust, infatuation and obsession which render their undiscerning victims empty, dry and finished.

    You don’t have to chase after it, because if it is love, it happens naturally. When you are in love with someone, His/her happiness becomes your happiness and you can’t imagine life without him/her which is why you might think you are obsessed.

    But you also need to understand that if the feeling is not reciprocated you won’t want to force the other person to be with you. Love makes you selfless; it brings out the best in you and sometimes the worst which your other half will accept willingly if he/she truly loves you.

    Love is never enslaving but liberating. It never lays absolute claim to its significant other.

    It is always patient and kind. Never jealous, boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and it is not resentful.

    After all have been said and done, what really matters the most is how much we have given and experienced love.

    People really do not care how much you know, but want to know how much you care. SHOW SOME LOVE TODAY!

  • Lust and prejudice in the time of Buhari

    Fear is the oxygen of change. It is what makes it combustible too. Fear of old iniquities and a pervasive terror of the new, drives many a man or woman to scurry into a hole or pitch tent with the proverbial known evil. There is too much uncertainty with the new.

    The fear of the unknown drove many to pitch tent with Goodluck Jonathan at the last general elections. Fear of old iniquities, the bleak present and an austere future drove many more to put their hopes in Muhammadu Buhari.

    Buhari’s emergence however, complicates our perverse dynamics of corruption. His immediate past predecessor was no revolutionary – Jonathan was no hero and he never pretended to be one. He was not interested in upsetting the status quo or ridding the country of sleaze – he understood that Nigeria throve on vice thus he simply played the role of passive leader and enabler. His infamous ‘Stealing is not corruption’ assertion accentuated imagery of his leadership as an intellectual and moral aberration.

    Enter Muhammadu Buhari, the redeemed dictator, self-proclaimed martyr and moral crusader. Buhari’s publicised distaste for corruption incites the separation and tension between moral and amoral personae. The attendant backlash from profiteers from the corrupt order, accentuates the thrill of seduction and revolt against the incumbent president’s  anti-corruption campaign.

    In the ensuing melee, hard choices have to be made and unpopular decisions taken, often to the detriment of the nation’s longsuffering citizenry. Although there are estimated benefits in the long run, very few Nigerians are ready to accept that the obnoxious hike in pump price of Premium Methylated Spirit (PMS) from N87 to N145 for instance, was a necessary evil amid the country’s bordello of chaos and institutionalised corruption.

    While the measure became necessary to check the excesses and criminality of Nigeria’s buccaneering oil cabal and their cohorts in government, the impact is more severe on the citizenry. In the gale of severe criticism that trails the hike in fuel price, flashes of reasoning and spirited arguments in support of President Buhari’s ‘harsh but necessary measure,’ resonate across the social and political landscape.

    This no doubt establishes burgeoning goodwill for the president among progressive segments of the citizenry. It also relates to trust. For instance, it can be inferred from various arguments in the social and traditional media that Nigerians are solidly behind Buhari’s anti-corruption campaign and occasional painful palliatives. Highly opinionated segments of the citizenry declare that they aren’t giving Buhari as much grief as they gave Jonathan because they trust Buhari “not to eat their yam” or leave it for random goats to eat.

    Nonetheless, Buhari’s brazen offensive against institutionalised corruption is seen as unwarranted invasion, trespass and criminal intrusion into the debauchers and debauchees’ sacred space. In pre-Buhari era, immoderate lust for riches was dismissed as priapism of want – like drunkenness and promiscuity, that was the fault of fools and satyrs. Buhari’s animosity against the debauched and his stark polarity of good versus evil canonizes integrity and amplifies the significance of honesty in public service.

    However, his inability to address the degeneracy within his cabinet will be counterproductive to his efficiency as president and anti-corruption crusader. Like this writer intoned in an earlier piece, of Buhari’s ministers, too many are vectors, mortal agents of the worst kind of viruses. Eventually, they will make his government food for worms. From the moment of their appointment, the infestation of Buhari’s administration commenced but Buhari and his political groupies naively maintained that if the head – that is, Buhari – be moral, the body (his cabinet and underlings) too will have no choice but get with his program.

    Buhari confuses their obsequiousness, exaggerated display of loyalty and forthrightness with a heartfelt yearning to serve Nigeria and bolster his campaign to redeem the country from the jaws of his predatory ruling class. He mistakes his capacity to instill fear in the hearts of his ministers as a trait of effective leadership. But fear is never enough. Buhari’s ministers may fear him but they do not respect or appreciate him. They do not buy into his vision for Nigeria because the system that produced them negates Mr. President’s dream of an ideal state.

    It is worthy of note that his ministers’ terror of him stems from their fear of being chucked off his cabinet. Their inability to arrogate authority to themselves and appropriate political celebrity for selfish ends, causes Buhari’s team great dissatisfaction. They consider themselves unduly chaperoned and monitored. Their predecessors, that is, ministers that served with the last administration, consider them Buhari’s parlour pets.

    Lust, an immoderate hankering for riches, which was an intrinsic trait of the Nigerian presidency is under chains and lock in the current dispensation. This is a good thing for the nation but a tragedy to Buhari’s ministers and the ruling class. Lust characterised the aggressive, predatory cabinet of former President Jonathan thus making it the norm and coda of public service. Consequently, Nigerians imbibed and bought into the culture of corruption. Those that hadn’t the nerve or the connection to profit from the rot, assumed the role of voyeurs, watching as the nation drowned in a quicksand of debauchery.

    As Nigeria mutated into a frightening theatre of politics and blood, Buhari emerged on the stage, donning the cape of a new-fangled alchemist hero. To actualise his fantasy of ‘change,’ he inserts Victorian ideals in a dysfunctional polity. The resultant clash of personal ethics and political culture is instructive. Tragedy morphs with comedy, the banal with lyric, and ideal beauty with the grotesque and obscene. Buhari’s culture and ethic of change soon conflicts with his cabinet’s. His ministers consider his politics a product of naive sentimentality, dubious patriotism and cynical sophistication.

    The fact that Buhari ignores them to seek the ‘wise’ counsel of his ‘closest confidant’ outside his cabinet rankles his ministers. It resonates jarringly to them. They understand that they are highly dispensable and replaceable. Rumours that certain men and women on occasional visits to the Presidential Villa in Aso Rock comprise the president’s preferred replacements to certain members of his cabinet. A few members of his team that sucked up to him and played acquiescent ‘Yes-men’ cum errand boys have come to the sad realisation that, like they used Buhari as a means to their ends, the Retired General from Daura, equally used them as means to his own end. Although they considered Buhari incapable of playing dirty, they found out that the president’s seemingly bland and linear politics is a hybrid of self-fertilising forms.

    Suddenly, they realise that Mr. President is aware that they are dubious change agents that rode into his cabinet on spurious waves of sentimentality, political indebtedness and dirty politics. Certain members of the presidential cabinet know they will not survive the current term or a second term with Buhari. From the president’s body language, they know he simply tolerates them. Buhari’s favourable run of goodwill among the citizenry also poses a grievous problem to them. Unlike the previous dispensation when they easily concocted and marshaled webs of brilliant propaganda against Jonathan’s government, they understand, albeit very sadly, that it is impossible for them to employ similar tactic with the incumbent regime. Buhari has to be corrupt or identifiable as an enabler of corruption for them to succeed with such plan.

  • Differentiating lust from love

    DEAR Harriet I am an easy-going person with a good job. I am 40 and in a relationship with a lady of 31. We have been dating for six months now. She is always concerned with her own interest, pleasure and happiness without putting what will benefit us into consideration. She only plays nice when she needs money from me. Her financial demands are beginning to scare me from taking the relationship to the next level in spite of the fact that I love her. Please, I need your counsel. Thanks.

    Chuks. Lagos

     

    Thanks for your text message. I must commend you for being very observant.  Many are financial providers without knowing it, a situation where you are only relevant when the person needs you.

    This is an indication that the person is only in a relationship with you because of what she or he stands to benefit from you.  Such people can be regarded as manipulators. And they are selfish. Selfishness cuts across all ages. It can be traced to a person’s childhood.

    One thing you need to understand is that people get manipulated, not because they are weak, but they have these feelings that they might stand to lose something by not giving in to this person. This is mostly common in romantic relationships, a situation where one partner always gives in to the other partner just to please or to avoid offending the other.

    People who lack assertiveness in their personality have the tendency to bring out the manipulative aspect of people they date. If you are the type of person that  cannot  say  ‘no’ or who has a hard time stopping yourself from doing favour for someone, even if you don’t want to do it, you will be attracting manipulators like moths.

    The yearning to give and receive love throbs in the heart of everyone. People try in many ways to discover true love, real love, a love that is strong and deep, a love that lasts. Yet the pursuit of love has caused more bitterness than all diseases and conflicts among nations.

    Many times people feel they are in love, but what they are feeling actually is lust. Lust and love are often confused in our minds. We need to understand that love is actually different from lust. Love gives, but lust takes. Love values, but lust uses. Love endures, but lust subsides.

    The fact remains that people going into relationships with one common thing in mind and that is their why (reasons). Some are in it for the affection they have for their partners. Some are in it for what they stand to benefit, while some are in relationship for marriage.

    Therefore, it is very vital for you to know how your partner sees you, and of what value are you to her or him. The worst thing that can happen to somebody in a relationship is when the person is being used. Affection works in both ways, so once this starts lacking, it is nice for you to question your relationship because it can be devastating when you feel someone is on the same page with you when the person is only with you for his or her selfish aim.

    The decision really is for you to take because you are the person in the relationship and you know the reason.  It will be nice for you to assess what is keeping you in the relationship, knowing that you are being used. Is it the fear of the unknown, pity or  are you afraid to be alone?  So what  exactly are the factors that keep you stuck?

    There are two ways to handle selfish relationship. Fix it or end it because staying in such relationship will only lead to frustration and heartache.  If you decide to stay, you will need to take a firm stand to change the act by effective communication. Bring everything in black and white on the table for discussion. Openly without reservation, state the effect on you and the relationship.

    Also talk about your aim for the relationship and your stand if things continue the way they are. Make her realise that she only shows interest in you because of what she stands to gain. Having an open discussion with her about her attitude will give you a form of relief and a better understanding of her position and prepare you against future occurrences.

    On the other hand, in case you choose to end the relationship after an effective communication with her, you must understand that ending a relationship, no matter how unhealthy it might be, is heartbreaking and can be overwhelming. It is a loss of something you have spent significant time building and is only natural that it will take time to heal.

    Therefore, you need to be prepared to face all that comes with it, but the interesting aspect is that you are actually putting an end to a toxic  relationship, a relationship that is based on what I can get, not what I can give.  Selfishness causes a lot of problems in a relationship, if not dealt with immediately.

     

    Harriet Ogbobine is a counsellor and a motivational speaker. Send your questions and suggestions to her on bineharriet@gmail.com or txt message only 08054682598. You can also follow her on twitter: @bineharrietj

  • Of love, lust and justice

    Of love, lust and justice

    LET’S forget about politics and politicians – just for a while. Let’s take our minds off the crashing oil prices and the battered Naira, the dizzying figures of the cash laid at the foot of the demon of corruption and the row sparked by President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointments, a harmless action that has been hijacked by ethnic warriors to feather their nest. Let’s turn our gaze off Sambisa to other forests that are as dreadful as that evil redoubt of the redoubtable Boko Haram terrorists. Just for a while.

    I don’t expect you to hail me for raising the alarm: sexual crimes are on the rise. We all know this. What is unclear is: how many of us are worried? The stories range from those of deranged minds in mindless assault on minors, rape and sexual peccadilloes of celebrities. All in August.

    I tried my all to ignore them all, but the subject kept coming up like the phoenix. How do we, in a family newspaper such as ours, deal with salacious matters, especially those bordering on concupiscence, eroticism and, in some cases, sheer rumpy pumpy, without offending the reader’s sensibility? How?

    Many homes have been broken since the shocking unveiling of the Ashley Madison adultery website. Some women, unable to stand the reality that their husbands could philander with other women, quit their marriages, hacked to marital death by those merciless hackers. There have been reports of suicide and company chiefs stepping down.

    The revelations have been earth-shaking. Now, Alabama has been described as the adultery capital of the United States after it was found to have the highest levels of credit card movements on the extra-marital cheating website among the 50 states. In the United Kingdom, Cambridge –yes, Cambridge, the university city –  has the highest number of potential cheats. One in 20 of its adults, including  many academic giants – men and women – are registered on the website.

    What is the relationship between learning and technology for which Cambridge, home of a world famous university, is known and extra-marital indiscretions? I am sure researchers will soon let us into this amazing secret.

    In South Africa, the police announced that a case of assault had been opened against a grandson of the late statesman, Dr Nelson Mandela. The young man had earlier been accused of raping a 15-year-old girl. He was allowed home on a R7,000 bail by a Johannesburg magistrate. He spent a week in custody.

    A relation of the suspect denied rape. He said it was all consensual and that the girl was of age. Do rape victims always get justice? Hardly. Any doubt is often resolved in the favour of the accused. The complainant is subjected to so much questioning that she would regret ever bringing up the matter. The burden of proof is often so heavy that cases get abandoned. The result is that many victims of rape would rather suffer in silence, sink into depression and, in some cases, take their own lives.

    The other day at the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos, a female police officer and her lover, apparently seeking a way out of the regimental camp life of rigorous exercises, parades and examinations, went inside a parked car and carried on as if they were home in the bedroom. A senior officer on routine checks, a flash lamp in his hand, found a stationery car moving rhythmically. Curious, he decided to check. And what a spectacle. An eyeful. He ordered  the show stopped and subjected the panting actors to some grilling. Unable to take it anymore, the man, who claimed to be a police officer, fled the scene. His companion lost a rank for indecent conduct  unbecoming of an officer.

    Is that fair? Well, it is neither here nor there. I waited for our army of women rights activists and Beijing champions to take up the matter and fight for the poor woman’s rank to be restored but they did not seem to be interested.

    When does an unrestrained lustful desire become a crime? Is such an act done in the night in a car by two consenting adults and away from public glare an affront to public sensibility and decency? Isn’t this why our people say bodi no be wood? Is the police chief’s action not a brazen assault on the female police officer’s copulative rights and privileges? I really don’t know. Where are our legal experts?

    In Anambra State, women of easy virtue went on the rampage, razing a market because the brothels in which they practise their trade in Amansea, Awka North Local Government, were demolished by the Urban Development Board, which claimed that the place was a haven for criminals. That was on August 14.

    It has been suggested by some analysts that instead of taking the law into their hands, these women should have gone to court to demand damages. The question, however, remains: in what capacity? Do they have an association? What will they tell the judge? Isn’t there a difference between human rights and the liberty to practise an illegal trade? Can they ever get justice?

    Also in August, a University of Lagos (UNILAG) teacher was accused of raping an admission seeker. The university disowned the randy teacher who reportedly denied the accusation. The matter, I learnt, is still being investigated.

    Of all these cases, none has been as sensational as that of Mrs Emily Richard-Obire, who petitioned the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to complain that Justice Olamide Oloyede of the Osun State Judiciary – remember her? Her Lordship was the one who petitioned the  Assembly to impeach Governor Rauf Aregbesola  –  had snatched her husband. An Ashley Madisonian stuff, the story attracted a flood of comments.

    How? Her husband and Justice Olojede were co-habiting, she alleged and urged the National Judicial Council (NJC) to issue a perpetual injunction restraining Justice Oloyede, her agents, privies, servants and others from snatching her husband.

    Apparently realising the urgency of the matter, Chief Justice Mahmoud Mohammed asked Her Lordship to defend her integrity in 14 days. A source said she did with dispatch. Did Her Lordship deny all the concubinary exploits ascribed to her by the petitioner?

    I do not know yet how this matter will be settled. As I said, it drew an avalanche of comments and an army of emergency experts – family lawyers, psychologists, psychoanalysts, physiologists and all manner of charlatans who have lunched into exotic theories on the matter of Her Lordship’s yet unproven concubinary adventure.

    They have been asking: When does co-habitation become snatching? Can there be snatching without violence? Any sign of violence in this instance? Why will a  man leave his family to warm a strange woman’s bed? What is the attraction? Is it normal? What is the other woman doing better – culinary adventurism? Copulative virtuosity? Erotomania? Mere romance?

    Said Mrs Richard-Obire, a mother of four: “I have evidence that she has been addressing my husband as ‘my husband’ and my husband has been addressing her as ‘my beautiful wife’.”

    It is incredible how this matter of co-habitation and all the corollary of such actions has been blown out of proportion, leaping straight out of the inner recesses of a home somewhere in a city to the streets where some strange rights activists have seized upon it as a weapon to fight their battle against Aregbesola – all because workers are owed salaries.

    A hitherto unknown Civil Societies (sic) Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State joined the fray, nestling like a dutiful coach in Justice Oloyede’s corner. It suggested that the NJC was usurping the functions of a magistrate’s court by entertaining Mrs Richard-Obire’s petition. Her husband, said the coalition, is free to fall in bed –sorry, a slip there – in love with whomsoever he chooses. In fact, the fellows went on, the man had filed for divorce. The activists added other details, which I would rather leave out here, again because this is a family newspaper.

    The emergency experts, aforementioned, would also not rest. They keep probing.  When does fantasy end, giving way to adultery? Is co-habitation adultery? What proof is Mrs Richard- Obire going to present – pictures of late night inner-room hot kisses or just a pat on the buttocks in the kitchen? Or the gentle touch on the chin? Does she have a video/audio evidence? Has she been involved in some voyeurism?

    A little bird tells me this story is just unfolding, waiting to blossom in typical kiss-and-tell manner. For instance, we are yet to hear from Mr Obire, the man at the centre of all this. What kind of man is he? Seductive? Quiet? Active? Handsome?  Will the NJC summon him? Will he be asked to choose either of the two women? If so, who will he like to go with?

    Whichever way the NJC resolves this delicate matter, which those who know nothing about law and its practice said should have been left for a magistrate, our jurisprudence would have been richly enriched at the end of the day.  It may well turn out that indeed, not only justice is blind, love also shares that attribute; it is blind.

    C-o-u-r-t!.

  • Mad lust and ‘table manners’

    Few months ago, a colleague of mine told me in a voice laden with a sneer and veiled contempt that, “Nobody reads you guys anymore. Nobody cares what you write as a columnist. You are just wasting your time,” he said. According to him, the best form of social commentary is that which seeks to elevate and shamelessly venerate even the worst of Nigeria’s perverted ruling class. “You have to be smart,” he advised.

    Few months later, another colleague told me in the same tenor that it’s about time I started sucking up to the politicians and industry leaders. “You need them more than you would ever know. You need connections with them and the money they can give you. You can’t keep writing English, you have to be smart,” he said.

    Between the two, an indisputable truth resonates jarringly; it echoes the depth of our descent as men and citizens. Both colleagues of mine, while issuing a subtle mockery of my professional and personal ethics, endeavoured to tell me the truth as they have learnt to see it.

    I agree with them that being close to politicians and sucking up to the latter manifests in almost instant and outrageous wealth for many journalists. Forget journalists, it is a veritable shortcut to instantaneous and sudden wealth for Nigerians of all gender, professional, religious and ethnic divides even as you read. Little wonder it has become trendy for many a Nigerian to virulently lambast the incumbent leadership or opposition until opportunity beckons for them to be co-opted into the special circuit of treasury looters, associate looters or aspiring looters. And this is the point at which they begin to exhibit ‘table manners.’

    According to a famous and now domesticated human rights and political activist, “Table manners demand that when you eat, you don’t talk.” Thus in showing table manners, many Nigerians careen in the perilous swirl of the country’s tragedies, with their mouths stuffed, until the end.

    The end is what should scare us. But nobody cares. Hardly anyone gives a hoot about that imminent epoch when greed, self-pity and deceit will no longer serve us. I speak of that looming epoch when we shall grope through the lattices of personal disaster into the ruins of national disaster; when anarchy and genocide shall find their perch past corruption and greed, in our hearts – even as we burn and blaze in the name of mammon, tribe and tin-gods.

    The language of our madness will not be understood by all even as our madness is patronized and enabled by all. In our madness, our perverted neighbours of the ‘first world’ shall nourish and thrive. Nigeria shall become that perfect prey for the ‘first world’ and all manners of world to rip off.

    It’s not such a long haul to that epoch right now; the tragedies that would ruin us are right at our doorsteps. They are rooted in our hearts and clannish havens of chaos and plunder. They manifest as Boko Haram, falling oil prices, persistent looting of our treasury by the incumbent ruling class and recent devaluation of the Naira. In the wake of these tragic manifestations, not a few people rue President Goodluck Jonathan’s apparent intellectual, psychological and moral handicaps at steering Nigeria off the course of troubled waters and incessant storms.

    But even as we balk and fret over the likelihood of the country’s descent into socioeconomic and political recession, friends like mine and of the ruling class fixate on the next corrupt politician whose deep pocket they could scavenge from. These parasites could be likened to the mythical harpies and servants of the furies. They abide in and currently run amok our socioeconomic and political space doling unequal plaudits to a savage ruling class, for a fee.

    Men like Doyin Okupe to the average scheming, conniving and soulless supporter of the incumbent ruling class serve as perfect epitomes of what the harpies connote. Like the latter, they are fortune hunters and airborne brigands, befouling our corridors of power and society with their droppings. They represent the aspect of bestiality that ravages and kills in order to sate its lusts.

    These mentally and materially-impoverished worshippers cum Mr. President’s media mongrels and attack-dogs, would argue that he is the best President Nigeria ever had. They argue that President Jonathan is the best thing to happen to Nigeria politicizing his “humility” and “love of God” to the fascination and appreciation of Mr. President’s groupies nationwide.

    There is the oft-repeated logic and inclination to blame this persistent and saddening malaise on greed, ‘enlightened self interest’ or capitalism; however, the impulse for giving a monster a mild name, the lust for acquisition, pursuit of gain and money are merely symptoms, like capitalism, of the society’s steady descent the slope of the decadent and grotesque.

    Max Weber, the late German economist and social historian would say it has been common to all sorts and conditions of men at all times and in all cultures of the earth but I would say that the Nigerian malaise is brought about by the absence of an enduring moral code.

    This deficit manifests in deficiencies of personal and societal ethics – the consequence of which is the preponderance and regeneration of eejits, tyrants, greedy-guts, fraudsters, narcissists, murderers and bloodhounds of all kinds and of all nature, across the country’s landscape.

    The trials of Nigerians’ moral degeneration – as exemplified by the citizenry’s inordinate lust for money and the country’s recurrent tragedies– reveal an overarching tendency to savour short-term greed and relief over long-term prosperity.

    Despite a protracted and tumultuous history of impoverishment and bad leadership, Nigerians continue to look for quick fix solutions by casting their votes for the clueless and corrupt at election time, for a fee, thus mortgaging the country’s present and future for short-term benefits.

    Through decades of self-inflicted scourges and disasters, Nigerians continue to bemoan their tragic fate; while many argue that the country ruins because the youth are too weak and too selfish to spill as much blood as is required to rid the nation of every human and institutional affliction, many more contend that the country’s woes will disappear immediately poverty is eradicated by the ruling class.

    We should be inching towards freedom but we aren’t. We should have attained freedom, but we haven’t; makes it a wonder what manner of patriots we have become. Destiny is what you experience by the fabrication of your own hand. It’s about time we desisted from excusing our evilness and stupidity in the name of fate.

    It is our so-called intellectuals, labour leaders, radicals and human rights activists that amaze me; add to the mix every mercantile journalist, ‘columnist of note and substance’ and you have a perfect blend of Nigeria’s worst enemies. It will no longer do to excuse our idiocy and greed as pertinent elements of political and socio-economic expediencies; everybody knows that every one of us is playing his own card.

    We are enjoying a great deal by selling out. It is what the domesticated activist called exhibition of “good table manners.” Funny how every journalist, labour leader, banker, doctor, cleric and activist to mention a few, have developed excellent “table manners.”

  • Of lust and love

    Of lust and love

    Title: Lust in storms
    Author: Ena’ Rose Igbuwe
    Number of pages: 340
    Publishers: D. Dewdrops
    Year of publication: 2010
    Reviewer: Joe Agbro Jr.

    Growing up as a child can be fun and sheltered for many girls, but as the teenage years approach, some realities set in. But the realities detailed in Lust In Storms, a novel written by Ena’ Rose Igbuwe, are peculiar to quite a number of girls; however in varying degrees.

    For Lillian, the protagonist in the book, despite having good grades from secondary school, finance was a barrier to furthering her education. Finding herself with a docile mum, and an ogling step-father, Lagos offered better prospects than her dreary hometown in Edo State. It was an opportunity which she would grab but which would not be as smooth as envisaged.

    With no one to cater for her in Lagos upon arrival, Lillian found solace in a church. And the kind-hearted pastor seconded her to live with Mercy, a sister who worshipped in the church. Ensconced in Mercy’s one-room apartment in the Ebutte-Metta part of the state, Lillian began her foray in Lagos.

    Being a beautiful girl, Lillian attracted male attention. But while she resisted much, a young man, Yemi, despite Mercy’s disapproval, eventually captured her heart. And it started by Yemi’s offer of a job. But, Mercy’s advice was, ‘You are a Christian and he (Yemi) is not. In Bible language, you are light and he is darkness.” But young Lillian was already in love. And her boss seemed to reciprocate this love.

    And spending much time with Yemi reduced Lillian’s commitment to church activities, a situation which did not please Mercy or her pastor very much. But, not too long after this, news of Lillian’s mother’s ill health would destabilise her. However, Yemi came to her rescue with money for the treatment. Armed with money to treat her mother, she went home to her village where she met with an admixture welcome. While some praised her for caring for her mother, others sniggered on how she could only have been prostituting to come by such money. But apart from her mother’s illness, the disappearance of Steve, her brother, also worried her.

    However, feeling grateful for Yemi’s assistance, Lillian easily succumbed to him on her return from the village and they made love, against her better judgment. Another chapter also opened whereby she moved out of Mercy’s one-room apartment to one rented by Yemi for her. After a series of trysts, she discovered Yemi had a wife and daughter in Europe. She also discovered she was pregnant. And while a sad Lillian was morose on breaking the news to Yemi, Yemi, on the other hand was ecstatic and immediately asked to marry her. He travelled with Lillian home to begin the rites.

    But the troubles began – Yemi’s friend, Kola, wanted to harm her. And only a chance meeting with Steve, her brother, saved her. Brother and sister and husband by a stroke of fate, each suffering, were however destined to meet again, but in a hospital.

    While Igbuwe’s tale is peculiarly Nigerian, it nevertheless focuses on some of the travails which might befall the girl-child. In the course of living, the sexual innuendoes thrown at females are a reality. And for those that reject such overtures, the journey to success could be made harder. And in the course of the book, the author also played up the need for Christian virtues.