Foreign Vs Home-grown...

I came across this funny cartoon (Translation: kids basically wanting what isn’t readily available) and after the laughter faded, several things came to mind...Let me put this into context. I am referring to Las Gidi babes, 9aija babes, Aristo babes, wuteva d heck they’re called now! I am talking about how we (18-29 age group) are chasing our Nigerian men away with our materialism, how we make criminals of them to suit our lavish lifestyles.

I had been thinking about this for awhile now, hearing my brothers/ guy friends talking about not being able to date 9aija girls again because they can’t keep up with their “long-throat”. And my friends/ family pple are faaaaar from church rats…so this was saying something. Younger guys don’t even bother any more, they’ve left it to the older men with more money. I mean, how can they compete? (4get d silver spoon kiddos for a hot minute)

Then I came across this article on Sturvs about Jim Iyke being in a relationship with a woman he’s very happy with and with whom he may be walking down the aisle with in fact! Surprise surprise, she’s Jamaican…I read on to find out what she had that all the 9aija women he dated couldn’t offer him…and I have to admit, I couldn’t even fault his logic man! He said this woman fell in love with his mind, with him as a person, not the actor or play-boy persona we all see, he said he didn’t have to continually prove his worth to her or convince her to shun society’s remarks of his personality, how it didn’t take as long to convince her that the “female” he was reportedly flirting with is actually just a platonic friend…nothing more, how 9aija women focus more on pedigree, social background, wealth etc than the actual person. Closer to home, my brother is now dating a Ghanaian chick and is very happy.

When I was in 9aija last summer, and several guys chatted me up (being the hot sturvs dat I am, lol!), I noticed a pattern with all of them…they always started with what they could offer me… “Baby, what is it you want? Is it Dubai? Let’s go der!, let me take care of you, mo lenu pa! ma na’wo si e lorun! (Translation: I’m well known, I get mouth, I’ll spend lavishly on you.) lmao! While it was very funny/ endearing, it made me worry. Why did they feel the need to offer me luxuries first? Am I now incapable of falling in love with their person without being offered money first? Ah ah, I felt like a prostitute oh…had to be bought over shaa! Is it a lack of confidence on their part or the act they feel that they have to put up?

But I worry oh…I really worry! Even the songs coming outta 9aij, Eldee’s Bosi bangba, d’banj, its all them tryna let you know how much they have, which is the reason why women follow them in droves. Don’t get me wrong oh, I absolutely heart luxuries, I am a shopaholic and I will not complain if you reeeeli wana spend! i know money makes the world go round but I have a problem with those who can’t afford it and try so hard to "feel among", I worry about love going extinct and social class/ wealth taking its place, I worry about hard-working men who get their love thrown back in their face because they can’t afford a Hermes Birkin.

Very soon, all the eligible men will cross borders to find wifey, den una go sidon look wondering where the hell they all went to. We have to be willing to grow with a man, so that when he does rise to the top (in a legit way), you can both enjoy the spoils together. And he will rise to the top, IF he has your love and support.

I blame the mothers, the caregivers, I blame the state of the nation, poverty and all those things that made the Nigerian female the gold-digging pro she is now.

“Those who insult our generation forget who raised it.”

PS: Biko, i beg the pardon of whoever this cartoon originally belongs to. all copyrights ish duly observed!

Pack Mentality...

From a guy’s perspective, I have always wondered what happens when one of your guy-friends is all loved-up…
What happens when the guys go out partying, drinking or just out to have a little bit of fun?
I’ve heard/ read that there’s always the notorious guy-friend who makes the “faithful/ loved-up one” try to POP or just behave badly.
I also heard that guys have a sort of “pack mentality” (like dogs/ wolves etc)… meaning that if one of the pack members is behaving so out-of-character (in our context, in love), there is a tendency to want to make him conform or just shake the silly-ness of the emotion out of him!
All this may be true…it certainly applies to girls as well.
Various reasons may make a “concerned friend” want to react. You may have been hurt by an ex-lover and don’t want to see brother-man go down the same route. You may be thinking now is the time for this son-of-a-gun to be having the time of his life, not getting his love on lock-down! You could be missing his company because sister-girl has come into his life, taking up all of his damn time! No time to play pro-evo/ mack on random chicks et al…lol I’m thinking this is the main reason…you miss him!(oh pls admit it, ain’t nothing gay about that shit- its called bromance, I hear).
Definitely, you still want to have fun…relationships don’t have to spell the end of your social life. I certainly would hate for that to happen.
From person-in-a-relationship’s point of view, I think it still boils down to who you are as an individual. You are grown, you know right from wrong, wifey/ boyfi does not have to stalk or blow your phone up before you know how to behave…
Hopefully, you are crazy about who you are with to not want to intentionally hurt them. You know you got a good thing…
If you think about the person and smile, then for the love of God, do everything in your power to keep yourself (and better-half too!) smiling.

Or better still, in the words of my fellow blogger, “Don’t fuck up: don’t disrespect the missus”! http://www.singleblackmale.net/
Lol …enough said eh?

PS: if you do everything in your power to respect and keep better-half secure, and they still act all paranoid, insisting on being everywhere with you, by all means, suggest therapy…I smell bigger trust issues.

Run Down!

So I was talking to an older friend the other day…and this is what she lamented about…
My friend is in her late 20’s and is married with a kid. At the start of her relationship, her husband was fun to be around, the life of the party and totally into her. You know, the calling all the damn time, wining-and-dining that comes with the honey-moon stage of every relationship. He had his shades on all the time, with “Gongo Aso” everly blaring from the speakers of his Cayenne. To use Banky W’s words… “face of a fine boy, so much Swagga”!

Lately, she said he’s become emotionally abusive and has nothing nice to say to her. Whenever she dresses up, he runs her outfit down, saying stuff lyk
“see how this outfit is showing all the contours of your body…don’t you see how Abuja babes are dressing ni?” or “ gbogbo oju e loti baje yen (meaning ur face is all messed up now- referring to her spots I assume.)
Incase you are wondering, my friend is actually very pretty…tall, fair-skinned, nice boobs…d whole works u know…but no one is without their imperfections.
When its time to wind down in the evening and they are conversating about the events of the day and my friend is giving him gist about, say a friend of hers who’s experiencing marital problems, he flares up saying she’s just a nasty gossip & that is the sort of thing that always comes out of her mouth…
Then, thinking he’s one of those types that are averse to female gossip, she changes the topic of the convo to herself, asking him for advice, say about her career progression…this guy just tells her to do what she thinks is best. He never has any good advice to give and scarcely has deep moments…she says she never talks to him these days cos she does not know what may anger him. She just listens to him talk…
Trying to be objective, I say maybe he thinks you are better suited to decide your life ambitions yourself...but she tells me about how he constantly receives calls from female “colleagues” listening attentively to their problems, and throwing in words of wisdom every now and then….So its as not as if hubby is a bad listener or doesn’t know what to do/say.
When she finally went ahead and took up a Senior Position at work, he accused her of taking decisions without asking his opinion or thinking selfishly about her self as opposed to the best interests of the family.
She was like, “ but I asked you and you said to do what i felt was best.?!”
He replies with “Na wa oh”!

Worse still, he gets so paranoid when she receives calls from other male friends of hers...
The other day, a male colleague of hers was calling her at nite. But she was worried about picking the phone because hubby gets into a serious hissy fit when the dude calls, accusing her of having an affair/ something on the side with this guy-friend.
(You see, my friend and the guy-friend are both doctors and used to work in National Hospital together before the friend travelled to Jand for his Residency. )
Guy-friend kept calling frantically from Jand…lyk over 10 times, and this was late in the evening. Not wanting to start a fight with her hubby, she ignored the call and switched her phone off.
The next day she called him, wanting to find out what was so damn urgent last night.
Only for Guy-friend to accuse her of being a very bad friend, that she’s not there for others in time of need. Apparently, guy-friend’s young relation was visiting 9aija from JD and was staying over at their crib in Wuse. She came with other friends of hers for her mate’s wedding. So the night before she was scheduled to go back to JD, she went with her friends to some suya spot, you know…wanting to get her fill of 9aija barbecue before it was time to go back. His mum was’nt really feeling it, telling them to stay home…that its not safe at night for young girls and she’s got an early flight to catch. She even called the babe’s mumc, telling her that your daughter wants to be roaming the streets oh in search of suya at this ungodly hour…(you know how 9aija mumcs get sick with worry)
The babe sha went with her friends down the road for her suya…only for them to return with the other friend carrying her on the back. Apparently, after tasting the suya, she began gasping for breath really badly and she couldn’t walk…turns out babe is asthmatic and allergic to groundnuts, pepper n ish. Guy-friend’s mumc now called him shrieking on the fone that
“ko ma mi mo” (she’s not breathing!).
Obviously unable to do anything from where he was at, he was calling my friend so she could rush down to give CPR or some other emergency procedure before they get to the clinic…
My friend lives not too far from their base in Wuse.
To cut a long story short, the babe died within 10 mins of all this madness and by the time they got to the hospital, nothing could be done but to pronounce her dead.
You can imagine how bad my friend felt about this…

Only for her hubby to start making comments the next morning about how she’s not “pure”, she’s a very sly person…that he wonders which man-friend was calling her last night that she couldn’t pick up….blah blah blah

She couldn’t tell him anything about the events of the night before, worried that he would disapprove of her maintaining contact with her guy-friend. In short, hubby has put the fear of God in her oh.
And now almost 6 weeks after, guy-friend is still not talking to her.

So my question is…what is it about distrusting and running your partner down that appeals to certain men?

See wut im working with!

Someone once wrote "while writing fiction, one can wish for reality"...

Being my first blog post, i wanted to fill pple in on wut to expect from me...

Bcos human nature fascinates me so much, i will talk about relationships....they are the one thing you can't predict.
But Bcos Nigerian relationships are the ones i have the most experience on, this is what i'll do.
i will tell stories, i will throw questions out there, ask for your thoughts on issues...


let me tell a little story about a young woman i will call Devota.
So Devota is a lawyer, married to this business man. He came in from England and they hooked up. She was in the Unilag at the time when they started dating. Before long, she was pregnant and they held the traditional wedding ceremony.
they guy seemed to be a baller; they were living in a rented house of about N2mil, she had just returned from birthing her beautiful daughter in Yankee, she just graduated from law school...life was good.

Then Hubby told her not to practise, being a new mother; that she should join him in business instead. he had a rentals business...knowing lagos, parties never stop, so business was good.
then she had a second daughter....at this point, hubby wus geting impatient, really wanting a son now. then she got preggers for her 3rd baby, but when the scan showed it was a girl, she aborted it, waiting on this son. again, she got preggers, using all the tips and old wives tales on getting a male child.
But nope, she had another girl. hubby wus so pissed he said, "what am i going to do with an unemployed wife and 3 daughters"?
i think at this point, he began to listen to friends and bowed to family pressure so he started to take his frustration out on Devota. He did not even attend the naming ceremony of his new little girl, saying he had business to attend to overseas.
at this point, Devota started looking for a job bcos his stay abroad wus getting extended. but the law firms were not keen on taking a lawyer with no prior experience.it got so bad she had to begin borrowing money from friends.
She keeps asking how she got herself into this quagmire in the first place...

what i still find difficult to comprehend is the reality that some Nigerian men despite impeccable education and a good deal of refinement, still insist on this "male child" issue.
what ever happened to placing value on the girl-child?

do you think this is a reality that will never really go away? how can women like Devota avoid getting into such situations?

Bear in mind that this phenomenon is no respecter of tribes...it cuts across all cultures...from ibos to yoruba pple.