Purposefully walking away

Walking through and away

If I have ever had a grace that has blessed the many times, I have faced any kind of trauma in my life and there are many that have signalled themselves better in a narrative than in how I choose to be defined, it is the force that drives the determination to walk away.

As I reflect on what the fourth verse of Psalm 23 says to me, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” [Bible Hub: Psalm 23:4 (KJV)]

Even on reading that verse again, I am getting new insight just from observing the punctuation, and indeed, in life, yes, we do walk, and not stop but walk-through issues, situations, trauma, circumstances, adversity, infirmity, and much else that identifies with human existence in its sorriest state, but we press on, refusing to be defined by the experience.

This has been a default response in my subconscious many times before I consciously realised I am on a journey rather than at a destination.

Walking towards and into

I am confident that every adverse event presents new opportunities to earn laurels than acquire scars. The scars are for stories and the laurels are for a life of testimony. Yes, the force of hope and possibility propels me in ways that defy logic or understanding, I do not wait around to try to explain how or why, as what is ahead presents attraction beyond immediate distractions.

Digging through archives of blogs I have written before; I am reminded that there is much to walk away from and the beauty of love and wonder to walk into. Even when I am processing things, it is a process of compartmentalisation, a way of ensuring that the darkest moments do not become the milestones of my storied existence.

“One cannot deny that these things happened, but one can decide with all the help one can get, spiritual, psychological or with friends and family to ensure that these events do not become milestones, goalposts or walls.” [I walked away (January 2007)]

It is that thinking that gives me the strength to walk away, not because I do not want to deal with an issue, but because I can better utilise my time and resources on other wholesome things, I choose not to be a victim when I can be a victor.

References

Blog - Walking away (February 2017)

Blog - I walked away (January 2007)

Blog - Walk away! (December 2013) – A poem.

Thought Picnic: In the omerta of abuse

No perfect narrative exists

There are taboo topics that society, community, or situation makes too difficult to talk about for many reasons from not having a frame of reference in which to conceptualise and understand to the need to avoid engagement so that the horror of that reality does not inflict on our comfort.

In the matters of child sexual abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, or bullying, some of which I have addressed in my almost 20 years of blogging, finding the form of words to discuss with the hope that it does not upset is one for which there is neither art, skill, nor perfection to convey silent suffering and the associated issues.

Why they suffer in silence

I would guess that is the reason that obvious and apparent victims do not share their experiences and mostly never report anything because of shame or embarrassment, worse still the default audience sits in judgement with the view that there is much more that could have been done to prevent things happening to oneself.

Yet, reporting any abuse is not as easy as making a customer complaint or reporting a theft, the violation of the person is visceral, it starts with the body, as the mind considers what has happened, and the spirit is grieved in the realisation of that truth. Maybe, the bruised body can be healed, and the conflicted mind can with time find peace, to reach into the spirit to enliven it is a whole different matter. A person must find their way just as they have to work with the dreams and imaginations that play in their heads.

Wrestling back some agency

That these taboos need to see the light of day through expression, sharing, and talking about it so that perpetrators realise that they do not hold any power over the people they violate or are emboldened to act with impunity is necessary. However, navigating the present to gain the support, sympathy and empathy needed to grow would never be an easy task.

The child abused who on mentioning it is shut down because the adults who should protect them cannot deal with it, the person who has suffered domestic abuse takes the blame for instigation rather than the abuser getting excoriated, sexual assault is seen as opportunistic and victimless that partners of victims are more hurt than the one molested, being on the receiving end of bullying considered an act and state of weakness when one is expected to fight back and put a stop to it.

Help, don’t worsen it

The long hard mile that others would never walk in the shoes of the wearer is deemed the easiest feat of endeavour. People in pain from living through it are doubly hurt by others taking on the same pain for what they never lived. It is a strange world, you begin to believe that the cruellest thing to allow to happen to yourself is to suffer pain, to be a victim, to be caught in circumstances you should have controlled but you failed to.

Whilst silence cannot be the answer, we have to find it somewhere in our human nature to consider, to appreciate, to understand, to commiserate, to empathise, to feel, and to know, that others will have experiences beyond our comprehension, if we cannot help them, we should not make it worse. Sadly, this all is part of the story of our humanity, much as we would love better stories. I do not have the answers, we should be careful of taking offence in the hurt of another.

Once again, “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” [Romans 14:22b] The journey of self-healing is lonely, scary, unsure, and not guaranteed. You take each day as vulnerable and human with the hope that there is better ahead.

When we stand up, we identify with shared victimhood

Deeper human interest

Much as I am more inclined to what documentary type programmes like railway journeys that serve as excursions to places around the world along with biographies and the histories of people, places, cultures and events, detective drama can be considered an unhealthy diet in understanding the nature and motivations of people.

Last night, I watched an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit which explores themes of sexual abuse and violation, some involving deaths and how the investigation unravels into some sort of closure. In this case, a teenaged popular social media schoolgirl was drugged, violated, photographed, and humiliated by the publication of her pictures.

Exhuming the truth

The process of getting to the truth of what happened went through closing ranks, accusations, bullying, threats and almost irreconcilable breakdown of relationships and friendships. That the boys involved were presumably friends of the girl was unfortunate, but the issues of teenage angst were quite adequately covered.

In the end, the truth of what happened was discovered without the need for the victim to relive the whole ordeal in court. The culmination was in the lead female police officer, Olivia Benson, visiting the school to discuss the issues around abuse, cyberbullying, and consent. The victim took the stage with the police office relaying what she went through, being the stronger through the experience.

Standing up to identify

Olivia Benson after giving a short talk persuaded everyone to participate in an experiment, instructing them all to close their eyes before asking the pupils affected by scenarios she painted to stand up. Those who had bad things said about them, those who had been humiliated, those who had lost friends due to some adverse situation, those who had been shamed or ridiculed, those who had been bullied, those who had been physically abused, those who had been sexually violated, and so on.

In turn, they stood up with more than half the audience standing, they were asked to open their eyes and which point Olivia Benson said, we are not alone, everyone is affected by these things and fear keeps people from talking of how they are have been victimised. Some then took the opportunity to talk of their own experiences, victims, bullies, or the silenced.

Talking helps people deal with the issues and knowing that the other people might just be as affected means we can help each other.

We share experiences

I already had tears in my eyes, I could be quite a softie when it comes to deeply emotional issues as this, much as I could relate to it all. I could have stood up for each scenario, the story of ostracism, victimisation, abuse, ridicule and damaged relationships could make books but for the saving grace of those things not ruling one’s life or defining the person one is.

We find that we need to stand up and be counted, not so much as victims or survivors, but as those who have experienced things to share amongst others to give each other support and succour drawing sympathy and empathy out of our involved humanity. I find it strange that a blog I wrote over 13 years ago when I first shared my story of child sexual abuse is being read a lot recently.

Blog - My Sex Post (January 2007)

Then, the blog was hosted elsewhere, and I was amazed by the number of comments that came in from others who had been abused and violated by paedophiles and hebephiles. The blog was like standing up to the prompting of what you might have experienced in life. That is why I write about these things, the taboo subjects that we have kept silent about with the hope they would sink away into the depths of passing and forgetful time, even if the scars take much longer to heal, if ever.

If we can, we need to stand up and be counted, so others might feel counted and not alone isolated in the thought that they are to blame for the harm inflicted on their bodily, mental, and sexual wellbeing.

Nigeria: On the #BBNaija disqualification, let's not be conflicted

Alright, it’s Big Brother

Last night, the irksome menace of the Big Brother franchise flooded my social media space with the news of a disqualification from the Nigerian version of the competition being filmed in South Africa.

Now, I am no fan of Big Brother which I think is a zoo under the intensity of Klieg lights with every move and activity beamed into the living rooms of voyeurs in denial of their appetite for watching people express themselves with the basest instincts.

Then again, it does provide a welcome distraction for many minds that cannot find any other productive activity for their time when ogling the ‘animals’ of the Big Brother zoo is fulfilling entertainment of a sort.

However, the disqualification came about because one of the contestants, Ekemini "Kemen" Ekerette, 27 (some say that is a football age), had sexually molested another housemate, "TBoss" Tokunbo Idowu, 32. I did see a snippet of the molestation, but the opinions about it appeared to be both divided and conflicted, in some cases the victim was termed Machiavellian and scheming as the perpetrator appeared to gain sympathy and pity.

Licence is no permission

The issue must be addressed head-on and there should be no room for equivocation on the matter. The facts are self-evident and the rest is sophistry seeking a conjecture towards exculpation which should attract excoriation with respite.

There is no doubt that the Big Brother environment provides a licence for lasciviousness, that licence must however never be construed to be the excuse to abuse anyone, emotionally, physically, sexually or verbally. Whatever excess becomes the expression of base and primal instinct, agency, self-control and consideration are not suddenly passé.

The Big Brother viewing audience is huge, within the spectacle of histrionics and restraint, there is a competition to win the hearts of the audience and thereby the competition. There is no clear path to success, but eventually, the true personality of the participant would be revealed to a global audience. There is no hiding place.

Without consent

So, in that setting, Kemen crept into TBoss’s bed without invitation, as if he had entitlement to her body, he began to caress the lady without having obtained consent and was well into the criminality of sexual abuse when the lady appeared to turn away from these apparently imposed upon and unwelcome advances.

Whether Kemen could take the hint and desist is for anyone to decide and whether TBoss should have violently fought off the encroachment into her private, personal space is open to debate, but that is not the matter at hand.

Kemen, without invitation or consent, violated a woman asleep in her own bed, that is the end of the story and the beginning of judgement. Whatever happened after he got under the sheets was an imposition borne of the aggressive persistence of a man who thought he could have his way and never face consequence or sanction.

No excuses

Maybe, there is some cultural schooling that not only excuses the violation of the woman or the child by those who take sexual favours off the vulnerable for their pleasure, we appear to acquiesce to and tolerate it too.

Much as TBoss was the victim of a wanton sexual violation, there were some ready to paint her as a Jezebel, suggesting she should have fought off the attack on her person and having not done that, she had tacitly given consent. There was no consent, none whatsoever. What happened without putting a finer point to it was at the very least an attempted rape and in the severest case, a rape.

Any sympathy that might have been felt for Kemen must dissipate without remnant, the man is a predator lacking any sense of self-control. That he allowed his urges to get the better of his senses is by no means worthy of pleas of mitigation. The disqualification was probably the minimum sanction acceptable in the scheme of things.

Don’t be conflicted

Those who think Kemen’s professional prospects have been destroyed, Kemen alone is responsible for his actions, he chose to violate a woman and he must face the consequences of his actions and whatever entails from his despicable act.

To all us who have a view on this matter, we cannot afford to be conflicted on this issue, when Kemen conceived the idea of entering TBoss’s room, he could have resisted the urge. When he entered her room and saw she was asleep, he could have turned back and waited until the morning to apologise for entering the room without invitation.

However, the moment he climbed into that bed, he had crossed the line, he had reached the point of harassment, violation, molestation and every reprehensible term of sexual misconduct anyone can muster and for that alone, his disqualification was merciful and more than deserved, his disgrace was assured and as we wait for his apology, I do hope that any other women within reach of this beast are not subjected to this entitlement complex of sexual violation, especially where there might be no evidence to prove this atrocity.

The Big Brother farce continues and I hope the setting offers a mirror on society and lessons to be learnt.

Thought Picnic: Household escapee abusers and doubly abused victims

The household

We were planning to go the village from the city for a long weekend, I cannot remember whether it was for some event, but my parents in the 1980s were active members of a group of people who sought different aspects of development for the village, the people and the community at large.

Within our nuclear family then, even though my uncle and his family lived downstairs, we had a house help or to use the colloquial expression, a house girl, let’s call her Rukayah. My family being a senior corporation man, had two official cars and a driver, let’s call him Billiamin, who lived close by, but by terms was essentially a member of the family.

This defines the typical household, the parents, the children, the relations both close and distant, the helps; domestic in the home, in the garden, the security personnel and the driver, an ill-defined hierarchy where everyone appears to know their place with the parents at the top.

Something awry

That morning, my mother went to have her hair done whilst my father went to work, just before noon, the driver came over and I cannot say why my siblings were not at home apart from the youngest in the care of our house girl. As it transpired, my cousin and I who were both at home had to take a message to my mother at the hairdressers and leaving Rukayah, Billiamin, and my youngest sister at home, we went for my mother.

Her hair was only half done, however, we were made so welcome that we stayed at the hairdressing salon until her hair was finished, before we all walked back home. On getting home, I was probably the only one who noticed that Rukayah’s hair was messed up and she looked dishevelled. At the back of my mind, I suspected something had happened whilst we were away, but I kept it at the back of my mind.

A few months after that day, I was called into my mother’s bedroom with Rukayah in a state of distress. As women of a certain age in Nigeria do notice, apparently, the whites of the eyes of Rukayah were prominent, she was getting lethargic, spitting constantly and probably showing signs of morning sickness. She was pregnant.

The inquisition

As our motherly folk are wont to do, the interrogation of the subject is the equivalent of the Spanish inquisition, question following question without pausing for an answer, genuflection, and histrionics at full tilt and in the process, my good name was inadvertently besmirched when my mother asked Rukayah whether I was responsible for her nascent baby bump. There was an ‘how dare you?’ look on my face and my mother listed every male resident and visitor except the dog.

I do not think we got to the truth in that session, but it turned out that Billiamin was responsible and it very well could have been that day when my mother went to the hairdressers. At least, that is what clicked in my mind as the state of Rukayah when we return from the hairdresser.

There is no doubt in my mind that Rukayah was sexually assaulted and raped by Billiamin, however, how my parents dealt with the matter cannot singularly be unique in a Nigerian household.

The repercussions

Billiamin was summarily sacked and that became his punishment for rape. It goes without saying that an undercurrent of shame and embarrassment dictates the way such issues never end up in a police docket and that extends to child sexual abuse and other related forms of abuse.

Within a week, an abortion was procured for Rukayah and she was sent back home probably with the report that she had been a bad girl. Then again, difficult as this story is to write because it involves close family and making it fictional storytelling takes away from the palpability of the situation, this was not the first time a house boy or house girl had been returned after offence or victimisation by my parents for events under our roof.

This rapid clean-up of a mess and deft extrication from culpability and responsibility typifies the illusion of perfect households we attempt to portray. Putting these people out of sight and they having no recourse for any justice than the fate delivered to them by their paymasters is the end of the matter for the paymaster but possibly the beginning of a new hell for Billiamin and Rukayah.

With hindsight

Billiamin should have been handed to the law with the allegation of rape beyond the betrayal of trust as a member of our wider family to have committed a heinous act in our home. He got away scot free and maybe for a short period was out of work before he found other opportunities. The possibility that we might have been vulnerable to vindictive reprisals probably never occurred to my parents, Billiamin lived hardly a kilometre away.

On the part of Rukayah, we never saw or heard from her again. A poor girl under the guardianship of my parents and possibly a breadwinner for her family in some distant hamlet where part of the promise of the job would have been to give her opportunity she would never have had in her village. I say this because we have had other house helps that my parents sponsored through secondary school and mentored thereafter.

Rukayah in the harsh reality of the times had become a victim twice of first rape and then the punishment for what she had no control over. It is also instructive that maybe under threat or fear when she was raped, she was unable to tell anyone of her ordeal. She lived with that dilemma until it was impossible to conceal the consequence.

Typical occurrence

The case of Billiamin and Rukayah because it happened to servants rarely just sits in that spectrum, the same happens to wards and children with them being taken advantage of by trusted people who are brought into the suppose safety of the household and have the opportunity to exploit that trust to deleterious effect.

The perpetrator gets a bye by exclusion from the family unit when discovered, the victim, however, receives no help beyond physical examination for a possible violation whilst the victim is given the impression that they are responsible for their shameful plight. I have not seen any household where professional help has been sought in terms of psychiatric intervention or therapy to begin a healing process from the abuse.

Time exacerbates it

The assumption is time heals everything or the child will eventually forget, what is closer to reality is the scars run deeper and the damage is more lasting. If eventually in adulthood the victim finds any help, that old episode in their lives is already defining of their outlook and a consummate moderator of any relationships they go on to form.

Sadly, apart from the physical, no much is noticed of emotional and psychological change in people after abuse and with no one to share these rotten experiences with either out of fear or being castigated as liars this cycle of abuse continues with little knowledge gained as how to tackle these matters until survivors of child sexual abuse and sexual assault in a trusted environment begin to talk about it.

Telling the story

I can only wonder what became of Billiamin and Rukayah who are representative of a wider injustice that has thrived through generations of silence, shame, exculpation, dereliction of responsibility and the pretence of the ideal in a messy and embarrassing household infraction.

That story and many others I have observed remain ones that have to be told eventually. How we tackle abuse in terms of the abuser and the victim still utilises the primitive and uncivilised in spite of enlightenment and knowledge, just to avoid shame and embarrassment. With it, we lay the foundation for more abusers to prey on vulnerable victims.

With hindsight, I cannot pass judgement on my parents, but there is no doubt that if such issues occur today, they must be much better handled than they were them. The abuser must face justice and the victim must have all the support they require to get beyond their ordeal. Too many damaged lives exist because nothing productive was done for the victim.

Nigeria: What Rape Victims Face in Court

Caught my eye

The headline was what got me as it appeared on one of my Twitter lists - Ex-Corp Member Weeps in Court When Asked to Show Her Private Part [1] – it was irresistible to my curiosity I had to view the circumstances of such an outrageous request.

A prominent traditional ruler had been accused of the rape of a 23-year old lady who was in youth service within the domain of the ruler.

The lady must have been caught in circumstances beyond her control when the lecherous ruler first attempted to gain carnal knowledge of her through the belittlement of throwing money at her which she rejected before he allegedly forced himself on her raping her.

Seeking justice

When she made a case of it, he offered her money not to make a scandal of it and considering the high thresholds of credibility needed to bring rape cases to court against quite influential members of the public, it must have been an ordeal to have gotten this far.

The story does not say when she was raped and the time that had elapsed between the alleged incident and when the case was heard in court but that is beside the point.

Beyond belief

What is quite shocking and brazen in its effrontery and insensitivity as the news story portends is that it says the monarch himself asked the victim to show her allegedly bruised private parts to confirm to the court that she had been raped.

It goes on to say the counsel for the respondent did on cross-examination of the witness demand, NOT ask, but demand that she expose her privates for the scrutiny of the judge, the present counsel and prosecution to ascertain the veracity of her claim.

Now, even if the court doubled as a gynaecological unit and the all the learned purveyors of the ways and means of the law were certified consultant gynaecologists, this request would have been utterly improper at best.

This direction of questioning after being overruled should have had the counsel sanctioned with the risk of contempt by reason of deliberately outraging public decency.

If the monarch had also spoken out in initiating this line of questioning, he should have been sternly cautioned but the news story offers no such detail.

Bad handling of a sensitive situation

In my opinion, the purpose of that line of questioning was no doubt geared towards first embarrassing the victim, then humiliating her in her quest for justice before seriously upsetting her that she might lose all her composure to the advantage of the defence.

I am concerned that the judge appeared to be a tad lackadaisical in dealing firmly with this affront to polite proceedings where the counsel should have for bringing the legal profession into disrepute risked disbarment.

However, the sadder picture exemplified in this case is the lack of courtesy and sensitivity to victims of rape in open court and the effrontery and brazenness of patriarchy at the plight of victimised women.

What victims face

Men of power and influence behave as if they have right and authority to demand and obtain sexual favours whilst being unable handle rejection or negation of their desires.

They believe if they have the physical means to overpower the woman, then they can have their way without consequence.

They expect that the shock and shame of being raped presents a barrier to prosecution as the victim has to wade through hurdles of location, situation, opportunity, motive, circumstance, believability and influence to start off the process of justice.

As society will probably first find fault with the victim before it considers the egregious criminality of the perpetrator.

What to do

There is every need to have stronger support networks for rape victims regardless of the probable cause and the availability of evidence necessary to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, all those accused of rape.

As another human-being and sadly of the male species, I have the fullest sympathy for the victim and I hope that those involved in this contemptible show of chauvinism too vile for expression are visited with opprobrium, shame, disgrace and obloquy as a deterrent to any other counsel who might think sailing close to the wind in rude discourse can be done with impunity and without dire consequences.

Source

[1] Ex-Corp Member Weeps in Court When Asked to Show Her Private Part - Nigeria DailyPost

11-year old Nigerian boy abandoned in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Aloysius Abacha in Bangladesh

Linkages and Coincidences

There has been some talk about Nigerians in Diaspora and it has excited a lot of commentary about safety and security – the whole topic makes an interesting read at Ayoke’s Exodus.

However, I now read that an 11-year old Nigerian who was purportedly traveling with an aunt called Rosemary was abandoned in Dhaka, Bangladesh en-route to London where the boy’s parents are supposedly resident.

It is uncanny, that the boy’s surname is Abacha which somehow relates to another topic on Ayoke’s Exodus about a tyrannical despotic dictator who ruled and ran Nigeria into the ground before his sudden death, apparently from sexual excess.

Obviously, we should assume, the young boy is in no way related to that rotten man; and even if he is, we should not visit the sins of his forebear on him.

How did he get there?

The mystery is how he ended up in the Dhaka International Airport terminal considering they cannot find video evidence of him arriving in the company of anyone.

If he were a stowaway, he would not have survived a long-haul flight at sub-zero high altitude from wherever he might have embarked to Dhaka, though that route does leave one suspicious of where he might have boarded if he was on his way to London.

A victim of trafficking?

On further analysis, one might wonder if the boy’s name is really Aloysius Abacha, and if it is and that name cannot be found on any of the flight records, under what assumed name was he traveling?

If he was registered under a presumed name, could he have potentially been a victim of child-trafficking, because, by now, the guardian should have notified authorities searching for him.

Conversely, an area which might draw brick-bats is, do the Bangladeshis have efficient and reliable records of passengers that pass through their international airports and do their recording devices record enough information to really ascertain who has been through the airport?

The boy arrived in Dhaka on Sunday and he is now in the care of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association, for his safety and being treated more like a victim of some unfortunate situation – many thanks, to the women.

At 11 years old, I would hope that he is articulate enough to give enough information leading to tracing his relations so that he can be re-united with his loved ones.

If known, contact please

If anyone recognizes this young man, I think it would be expedient and prudent to contact the BNWLA using the following information - Telephone: 88-02-8125866, 8123060, Fax : 88-02-8125866, bnwlaho@bnwla.org

Thanks!

When we were gay

Victimless probably; crime probably not

For a while, I have wondered about the issue of dealing with ‘victimless crimes’. Let me be clear about this, these are activities that occur consensually between people, probably in inappropriate places and are criminalised by a public morality because they do not represent what is the ‘norm’.

This is for all intents and purposes a very difficult subject that a blog cannot even begin to address.

One recalls that many years ago a world-renowned musician was caught importuning in a public convenience having been egged on by an agent provocateur member of law enforcement.

Using a public convenience in other members of the public might happen upon a situation that can cause disgust, distress and disdain is unfortunate, but it begs the question why adults of means and ways would do such things.

Then when the law serves to entrap people into criminality, I can find no words to express how appalling that is.

Good men lost for being themselves

This issue dare not speak its name, but one can only wonder how much more advanced our world would be if Alan Turing had not committed suicide in relation to his lifestyle whilst his professional life literally ended the Second World War by the work that broke German ciphers.

Probably Oscar Wilde, Joe Orton and Kit Marlowe a contemporary of Shakespeare might have gone on to do greater works than they have been acclaimed for. We have lost great men to the scourge of what society cannot seem to bear, moral conduct matters a lot, but to what extent the concern of other people about your private business?

There is a history to this talk, and not too far back in the 60s the worst thing anyone could be called was a bugger – it was a term of completely despicable import which supposedly equated practitioners with every unimaginable abomination of sexual activity, it could not be spoken in hushed tones less talked about.

Good men doing good things regardless

By and large, more can now speak up about a life, a love and a care that is hardly in the majority but is significant to those involved.

So watching Oprah earlier this evening, she was talking about all the charity work that makes changes to people’s lives, one of which was the rebuilding of a community in Sri Lanka where a member of her staff had lost a loved one and that person had returned home to America to get things moving to make a difference in that Sri Lankan community.

Women with jobs, houses and restaurants being rebuild, lives being put together again just because of a love that once before could dare not speak its name.

Wont see them in church

It still dare not speak in its name in many more places, as the church which is supposed to provide succour to all; privileged, deprived, depraved, destitute and all.

It selects those it would accommodate and rails like a screaming banshee against those who probably need it most, because they are probably more problematic to handle than easy social issues.

The greatest animosity now exists between them and the church and they distance themselves even further to be able to handle the conflicts of mind and purpose that has lead others like Justin Fashanu to commit suicide.

Sometimes the message from the church about reinforcing the virtues of good morality is founded on speaking more about ‘immorality’ than about the benefits of greater aspirations to holiness.

A business would not survive it is concentrated on managing debt than promoting its core business attributes.

Nigeria Un-Gay-ria

So, it was interesting amidst the crises that encompass Nigeria, most especially the oil conflicts, then the problems of the Presidency, the economy and corruption, they found ample time to rail against this abomination which is a Western sin.

Give me a big break here, the only difference between the West and Africa on this issue is they in the West can speak about it.

This ‘sin’ has been within mankind for so long, even some medicine men in the deepest darkest Africa to the townships of modern Africa have names that are as expressive as the activity itself with nothing left to the imagination.

We had names for these activities long before the West civilised us with the concept of acceptance, that level of hypocrisy is daunting if not amazing.

The internet reveals that many are who they are in Nigeria seeking the space to be themselves in a modern democracy and this is going to shut down by the moral police of the church and the Presidency.

Liberally gifting the illiberal

Between America and Nigeria we have had the most liberal church that has an ordained priest of that persuasion support, sponsor and equip the most illiberal church that wants to secede from the Anglican Communion because of this.

Methinks we have completely misplaced priorities on the vocation of the church which is to call people and not divide on the basis of not wanting to call in certain people.

Anyway, it is still a topic that whips up such deep emotions most especially amongst non-practitioners that it is laughable and amusing to see the vituperation that could almost accompany the stroke that precedes sudden death as disgust overwhelms their ability to really say how it does affect them – personally.

Love a homosexual, it might just change you or maybe just change your thinking.