Essential Snobbery 101: Letting Mother Help You Choose Good Friends

The Wisdom of Maternal Instinct

Mothers of my generation who happened to be in the UK during the 1960s seemed to acquire a turn of phrase associated with that exposure, which we, their children, sometimes had trouble understanding. However, with hindsight, many of their observations were insightful, intuitive, and prescient.

When your mother said, "This friend of yours is too good for my liking," whilst she was not commanding you to break the friendship there and then, she expected you to find ways of extricating yourself from that relationship.

Usually, this meant bringing new friends into your orbit and having something aspirational within those friendships against which she could compare you, urging you to do better. As our parents cannot essentially make our friends for us, they exercise a kind of judgement on our decision-making in the best interests of our protection, even if we cannot see why.

The Mirror of Association

Another saying of foreboding is, "Show me your friends, and I will show you who you are." Association becomes a marker for discernment, character, and principle. Choose and keep the wrong associations, and watch your own reputation go up in flames, even if you are neither involved nor culpable in the nefarious activities of your chosen friends.

Moral judgement, a good conscience, along with a sense of knowing when something is wrong, are instincts we should all have. Beyond that, we need to be aware of when we begin to think that status and means provide immunity for impunity, creating an aura of invincibility bordering on being untouchable. It is the most dangerous cocoon of existence in which a man can find himself.

It is in this light that I have wondered how wise counsel deserted men of wealth and power concerning Jeffrey Epstein. Firstly, the evil and wickedness he inflicted on young, vulnerable women for his pleasure and that of those he corralled into his circle of influence is unforgivable. Lives were ruined and damaged beyond any form of redemption. The most public of them, Virginia Giuffre, took her own life last year.

The Voiceless Victims

For those still living, I can only hope that they find the love and care to give them not merely the will to live, but a purpose that can help them craft a better story regardless of their past. They remain the voiceless in this atrocity, in which he gave himself the easy exit of suicide rather than be held accountable for his actions.

His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in prison but hardly languishing in a gulag. She probably holds a bargaining chip of influence and blackmail that could ease the severity of the punishment she truly deserves. However, apart from these two principals in this influential harem of inordinate abuse, almost rivalling the court of Caligula, no one else has faced the remote prospect of indictment, let alone prosecution.

A Global Web of Complicity

The names on Jeffrey Epstein's Rolodex and roll of shame reach into a global Who's Who of money, power, royalty, politics, and academia, touching the once respected, revered, or adored. We have begun to question our own sanity, yet one can only be in awe of how he networked to create a veneer of respectability over his disreputable and criminal enterprise. Those involved became inadvertent enablers, and within that bubble, they were mesmerised into the suspension of disbelief.

The taint of association has claimed scalps and led to disgrace in many spheres. It started with a CEO of a global bank losing his job, the marriage of the richest man in the world for over a decade collapsing, a prince losing his titles and honours, an ambassador sacked with the prospect of losing his peerage, and today, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister resigning for just being a friend of a friend.

That list is not exhaustive, but it is indicative of how a mother's observation could have saved the reputations and honour of some who have now become part of Epstein's story.

Heeding the Warning Signs

It is obvious that we need to regularly review the kinds of friendships we keep, no matter how influential, rich, and connected that person might be. I know those people my mother took exception to; there are two who never became good friends. One of them became involved in criminality in the UK, such that his history stood against his ability to practise law there.

Sometimes, I hear my mother's voice in my head. There are times I hear her in my own speaking, too. In both cases, I am glad there is that premonition to avoid some people.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

In the throes of maternal angst

Thinking motherhood

Mother is a word of many emotions, to which we all belong sometimes in terms and ways we cannot find to describe. Of all my siblings, it is obvious that we all have different views of mother almost like the Six men of Indostan.

Of love we have plenty and of experience we have many, in her duty it is impossible not to find praise and admiration, even gratitude will abound because she is devoted and unstinting, if that were the only perspective to consider, sainthood would beckon without asking.

Yet, the mother is human and imperfect, with passions and frailties that might shock or surprise. The memory of such is hurt and pain, leading a declension into resentment. Forgive, forgive, the heart cries, in pain, in pain, the soul weeps. For a child much can be done unawares, and to the child, the memory does not disappear.

Conflicted situations

Why am I plagued with a remembrance of abandonment, threat, and curse? For they leave marks indelible that the showers of love fail to wash away totally. Even somewhere in my spirit, I hear the divine ask to take care of it all, I guess I have not reached where I can cast it all upon him.

Much as I have questions, I probably do not need any answers, for there is no change to be expected of those who are determined they did no wrong. One has to be thankful that God is not like man for His longsuffering, mercifulness, lovingkindness, and faithfulness. How hard have I made my way to be more like God?

There are many ways in which I am blessed and even when mother is sent to Coventry, in spite of everything, a mother remains steadfastly praying, for the peace we all seek to live by.

Nigeria: The embarrassment of maternal mortality

Mother and child can be safe

Despite the opprobrium that it attracts and in some cases justly so, the subtext to the story the woman who with the help of induced conception gave birth to octuplets [1] is that they are all alive as she also is well and alive to take care of her babies.

Just over 10 years ago, a couple also through assisted fertilisation became parents of a set of live octuplets [2], one of whom died within a week of birth. This couple becoming the first of such an event in America were of Nigerian ancestry and received the best of medical attention that the 7 are healthy vibrant normal children today.

Their mother a few years later conceived naturally to give birth to a girl which brings the number back up to 8 blessings of joy – they have only recently been garnering public attention with the birth of the other octuplets.

Care is of the utmost importance

At my birthday just over 2 months ago, I asked my father [3] about when I was born and if anything, what I heard the most was his gratitude to a medical system 43 years ago that gave a 26-week premature baby the opportunity to thrive and become what I am today.

Last weekend, in Sagamu where I went to secondary school [4] and in a hospital where some 30 years ago, my terror of injections was so shamelessly viewed by many, a lady gave birth to a set of sextuplets [5].

Probably no mean feat and amazing in every case, the sextuplets did survive but a few days afterwards tragedy struck with the death of the mother.

This highlights a very serious health emergency in Nigeria where the country counts for 10% of global maternal mortality [6] deaths linked to child birth – Nigeria ranks second only to India which has about 7 times the population of Nigeria.

Lackadaisical attention to health

I have not been convinced of our government's handling that emergency and embarrassment with any sense of responsibility or urgency; giving that after a fraudulent scandal in the health ministry [7] last year, it took the best part of a year to fill the post of minister and minister of state with competent personnel holding the substantive portfolio.

Meanwhile, the lawmakers bungled [8] their first attempt at a health bill which had a committee of probably the most qualified health professionals sitting and debating.

I have written a lot about health and healthcare in Nigeria and it can only be that those who can afford it get shipped out of the country at any feeling of discomfort whilst the masses self-medicate with unproven but mythically effective herbs and natural remedies until they are beyond orthodox, traditional or spiritual help and consequently die of that pathogenic brief illness.

It should not escape the notice of the reader that the hospital that delivered the sextuplets had been upgraded to a university teaching hospital where presumably one would expect to find the best medical hands and brains but the subtext reads that two of the babies were transferred to the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Lagos some 40 kilometres away where their condition has improved.

It is an emergency

Whilst I can only commend the efficacy of the transport and stabilisation systems that allowed the babies to be delicately transferred to another hospital, the damning reality is how a seeming centre of medical excellence could not provide in totality the care for the babies having inadvertently lost the mother through excessive bleeding.

A few years ago it was another teaching hospital where fake anaesthetic drugs were administered to hapless victim patients and a minister of health [9] who could not be bothered by the health emergency this signified.

Can we get better people?

Then we have a minister of women affairs [10], I say this without prejudice and with no condemnation of what is generally acceptable, whose amazing profile [11] includes the main and only hobby of reading the Quran – with what that all entails about the rights of women, the child and its attendant health issues.

The CEDAW protocol [12] languishes in our legislature whilst they promulgate laws about indecent dressing as another unfortunate woman succumbs into another grievous and heinous statistic of utter irresponsibility on the part of our leadership.

This whole matter of the sextuplets must not end with the mercy missions of charity for the upkeep and survival of the children but it should go to the root of the problem which is the extraordinarily unacceptable number of women needlessly dying at childbirth – this is the critical health emergency that Nigeria faces today and it needs addressing urgently.

Sources

[1] American woman gives birth to live octuplets - Times Online

[2] Chukwu octuplets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] Four before three, I am 43 today! [akin.blog-city.com]

[4] Remo Secondary School (RSS) at 60 [akin.blog-city.com]

[5] BBC NEWS | Africa | Nigerian sextuplets' mother dies

[6] HEALTH-NIGERIA: Little Progress on Maternal Mortality

[7] Nigeria: The resignation of Adenike Grange [akin.blog-city.com]

[8] Nigeria: The Senate Health Bill is rejected [akin.blog-city.com]

[9] Unhealthy directors of Nigerian Health [akin.blog-city.com]

[10] Ministry of Women Affairs

[11] Profile of Minister Saudatu Usman Bungudu [PDF]

[12] Nigeria: Women badly represented at CEDAW convention [akin.blog-city.com]

Nigeria: Women badly represented at CEDAW convention

Going to UN to defend

When Hajiya Saudatu Bungudu announced [Source: allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Minister to Defend CEDAW Bill in UN] last month that she would lead a delegation of Nigerian women to the United Nations to defend the sixth country report on the implementation of CEDAW [Source: Wikipedia] in Nigeria, many would have had great expectations.

She as the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development would have been expected to say in truth, detail and candour how the Nigerian woman had been emancipated year on year in terms of rights, privileges, means and achievable goals.

CEDAW is the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women which came in force on the 3^rd of September 1981 with Nigeria signing the treaty on the 23^rd of April 1984 and ratifying that treaty on the 13^th of June 1985, a good six years before the Netherlands. [Source: CEDAW: States parties]

Little to defend

Hajiya Bungudu seemed to have a lot to defend but the text of it all indicates not much had been done.

Legislation was yet to be promulgated and schemes were yet to be put in place to deal with trafficking – a subject highlighted with harrowing detail by the CNN earlier this year on the World’s Untold Stories series with the title Trapped [CNN.com World’s Untold Stories] – widowhood rights, female genital mutilation, unwholesome practices against women and the provision of equal opportunities.

Part of the legislation being promulgated is the Nudity Bill which cannot seem to earn enough opprobrium and seems to draw the most appalling derision, sponsored by the Senator Eme Ufot Ekaette, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Women and Youth [Source: Nigerian Senate – a much improved web site]

Senator Ekaette is a qualified pharmacist and she seems to have brought her prescriptive abilities to this bill.

A dosage of plain nudity

The bill defines public nudity as

a. State of nakedness in the public or open;

b. State of indecent dressing which expose in the public or in the open any of the following parts of the human body:

i. The breast of a female above the age of 14 years;

ii. The laps of a female above the age of 14 years;

iii. The belly and or waist of a female above the age of 14 years;

iv. Any part of the body from two (2) inches below the shoulders downwards to the knee of a female person above the age of 14 years;

v. Any part of the body of the male person above the age of 14 years from the waist to the knee;

c. Any form of dressing with a transparent cloth or clothing in the public or the open which exposes any part of the body from two inches below the shoulders level downward to the knee of a female person above the age of 14 years; provided that exposure of the hands of the female person above the age of 14 years shall not be construed as public nudity.

d. Any form of dressing with a transparent cloth or clothing which exposes any part of the body of the male person above the age of 14 years from the waist to the knee in the public or open.

[Source: Culled from Vanguard Online Edition - Nudity Bill: How Govt officials embarrassed Nigeria with a 73-man delegation at the UN]

Only a pharmacist can consider a dosage of nudity measured 2 inches below the shoulder, it would be like giving an epidural for a broken finger nail.

I could remember as a child, my grandmothers who were well above 14 years of age went around bare-chested, probably because their mammary organs might have lost their sexual appeal to men at large, but I would not say that they were not still of value to the men who sired their children.

Men as rabid sexual animals

Obviously, this whole prescription frenzy panders to the conception that African men are voracious sexual animals who on seeing female flesh succumb to the canine tendency to sniff any and every faecal orifice to satisfy their uncontrolled need for sex.

Well, the men have to clearly let the women know that they are well advanced members of the Homo sapiens sapiens [Source: Wikipedia] species that could exercise restraint, self-control and discernment regardless of what they see.

In fact, many men would like to excuse their wiles and blame their lapses on the women – I would say it is criminal and any man who for whatever state of undress a woman is in, who allows his instincts to molest to take control of his better judgement should be caged like a dog and prodded with red hot iron rods till he learns to join the human race.

Just as everyone has a right to be disgusted and I do get disgusted by some fashion I see, those who decide to be so uncouth about their fashion have a right to express themselves so unashamedly, we just have to find ways of bearing the pain of the decline of style and comportment.

Commonsense is winning

It is unfortunate that those put in leadership to advance the cause of women have been pre-occupied with legislation that creates other means of abuse, discrimination and denigration of women and womanhood.

Thankfully, commonsense has prevailed in the Nigerian Senate that both times the bill was introduced; it has suffered and not advanced as the Senate President has clearly tried to make the sponsors see the difference between issues of morality and those of objective legislation.

This did not deter the women’s delegation from taking this bill to the United Nations to make a complete ridicule of Nigerians.

The first examination

At the 41^st Session of the CEDAW Committee, Nigeria’s document [Source: 41st Session of the CEDAW Committee - WWW.FIDH.ORG] was examined on the 3^rd of July 2008 with the interesting note that the National Assembly rejected a bill to incorporate CEDAW conventions into domestic legislation in 2007.

It noted that legislation still sustained discrimination against women as the inability to transfer their nationality amongst other discriminatory issues mentioned earlier.

Two particular issues suffered more scrutiny - the Nudity Bill and the compulsory pregnancy and HIV tests for university students [Source: akin.blog-city.com - The flaw of the covenant] – this all was preparatory work for the scrutineers at the open session that the Minister later visited to defend the CEDAW that could not make the law books in Nigeria.

The showdown

The minister lead a delegation of 73 members [Source: Vanguard Online Edition - Nudity Bill: How Govt officials embarrassed Nigeria with a 73-man delegation at the UN] to a 2-hour convention that discussed the Nigerian document and all she had to say in the light of glaring evidence amounted to dissimulation because all they had were proposals, draft legislation and activities in the pipeline, there was nothing in the laws of Nigeria that had positively identified the pressing case for the emancipation of women.

A delegate from Jamaica (Glenda Simms) rounded in on the Nudity Bill and with sarcastic derisiveness wondered if the police would have measuring tapes to check the length of dresses in some sort stop-and-measure crack down.

She was as vehement as to suggest that dress codes were about the abuse of power and dressing a woman from head to toe was a form of rape as women had a right to aesthetics of their bodies and the right to present themselves any way they wanted.

The delegate from Algeria (Meriem Belmihoub) on counting their conspicuous number hoped that Nigerian women were just as represented in political life and governance.

The delegate from Bangladesh (Ferdous Ara Begum) wondered about the tardiness in adopting a bill on violence against women.

Between the extremes of a liberated Jamaica through a changing Algeria to the more conservative Bangladesh, no country could have been so roundly condemned and castigated for losing sight of more pressing issues and priorities to address the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world, the discrimination against married and pregnant women, sexual harassment in the work place and a host of other pertinent women’s rights issues.

Speechless in embarrassment

In the end, the delegation of eminent women on a foreign jaunt could not defend the absurd bill and ended up defending the atrocious laws that give men more preference over women – they were at that point an utter embarrassment and disgrace.

There is much work to be done about women’s rights in Nigeria, I have my doubts that the women who went to the UN have the acumen to promote visionary and courageous goals for women and there are definitely better qualified women of Nigerian descent who can do a better job.

I would hope that people who can make things happen in Nigeria would work at encouraging these women to step forward and really give this issue a good shake up because the ladies who have gone on before have to my disappointment been useless, to say the least and that is a real shame. To whom much was given, however little, a lot more was expected.