Ehn ehn, what’s wrong with Big-Manism?

So for the past few days, I have been seeing the same ol' regular hypocritical comments and faces all over social media regarding the picture above and how Nigeria is a useless country with useless and lazy leaders  and  bla bla bla bla….they went on and on.

You know in Naija, we can flog and hammer on an issue like witches and wizards or until someone uses their palms to decorate our “Inspector Karounwi” faces.

Now, I am fully aware I have written on big-man-ism before and it’s better  I mention it now because I know some monitoring spirits will go and consult their oracles via my blog to drag out the harmless write-up and be quick to mention that I am a hypocrite and other funny names we don’t stand in front of the mirror to call ourselves.

As I was saying jare, I have written on big-man-ism in the past on my blog and I came in from the angle of theft in politics and corruption and big men lauding their ill-gotten success and wealth over others.

But what I never harangued upon was the problem with being fawned upon if I am important and I have some cash to burn.

You see, in this our country, we invented hypocrisy and we like to show how knowledgeable we can be about certain topics or issues and since the advent of social media, the classes of society have and can now be merged as anyone can now add myself, Obama, Clinton, Hugh Jackman, Tiwa Savage, Don Jazzy, Wiz-kid, Paddy, Mike Adenuga and Dangote on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. 

Yes o, I am important too for those that don't know. Forbes has just not published the page where my name appears to be.

And when people add important people like myself included, people begin to check out our luxurious lives and personal stuff and somehow, some of their village people working on their destiny have been able to convince them that they know us deeply and personally.

If you like kill yourself, I am also as important as Dangote. If no one will blow my trumpet, I will jare.

Anyway, as I was saying, in Naija here, the average citizen is angry. And I am not talking about soft anger o. I am referring to deep seething anger, resentful anger, anger at everyone doing better than us, even if there is no proof that the person embezzled money or is into any shady deals. In short, for Naija, it is a sin for any other individual apart from us to be prospering more than us.(See my last blogpost on that one here) 

"Hian! How dare they! What do they have! What have they done! Are they mad! Who are their ancestors that they should be richer than us", thinks the mind of an angry envious person!

That mentality is now made worse since phones and internet service became cheap and available to every creation of the earth. Oh boy, now that people can view myself and every other wealthy person on-line and see how well we are doing, people's anger no longer has part 2 and many of them would not have passed the Hulk test as they will just become green once they are put to that test.

Which is why you would see an extremely lazy man with 3 housemaids, 4 personal assistants, two body guards look at that picture above and curse GEJ. 

And my question is ehn ehn, what is wrong with that picture? What is wrong with big-man-ism?

How many of these men wash the dishes in their house themselves?How many of these women can boast of not having at least a maid in the house after marriage? Forget all those nonsense stories of “I was born hardworking and I want to cater for my husband myself”. That is just a broke-a**e woman with trust issues talking.

No one can put a tag on comfortability. If many of us can afford it, we would not lift a finger. What am I even saying, many of us would not even use a neuron or a synapse in our brain for any thought if we could afford it. Let’s wake up and stop pretending and keep the hypocritical faces in our rooms.

This is Naija, a home of ego centricity, a place where men and women are not equal, either at the work place or in marriage, a place where a woman’s success is tied to whether she’s married or single and the number of kids she has given birth to, a place where we send younger people to get us stuff and not go ourselves just because in Africa, we lay emphasis on seniority. 

Big-man-ism exists in every area of our lives in Nigeria as many of the critics on social media seem to be having selective amnesia about this. But to help some of ye screaming lot gain some part of your memories back, I will be asking some questions and you can be providing the answers. At least, in the confinement of your phone, you don’t have to lie to yourself now, abi?

1)      How many of you grew up with maids? (For those that could not afford it, this question is not directed at you)

2)      How maHHow many of us have parents that had drivers, gate-man, wash-man, gardener at some point while we were growing up? (This is also not directed at people that couldn't afford it.)

3)      How many How many of us send our younger ones to the kitchen, market, salon, a friend’s house to pick up something, not because we have broken legs but because we grew up in homes that emphasized on the importance of respecting an elder sibling? (If you are an only child, kindly skip this question)

4)      How manyHow many of us send out office assistants to buy us one thing or the other once we get to the office? (Unemployed citizens need not answer this qweshion)

5)      How manHow How many people, especially the men, wash their cars themselves? (Legedeze men need not apply)

6)      How manHow many people, when greeted by a younger one in public who struggles to carry our bags or loads when we come back from a destination, blatantly refuse? (stingy people need not comment)

7)      How manHow mHHow many people go to the market to shop for lots of stuff and carry their bags single-handedly to the car one after the other? (Online shoppers such as myself shouldn't bother to comment. Your case is worse)

8)      How many HHow How many people have actually bent down to pick up something that fell from our hands without looking around to see which younger person is around to pick it up?(Pregnant women need not answer. We totally understand!)

9)      And HAnd the very last and most important, how many of all ye critics would allow your rich parent/husband/wife/sibling to carry any load that is heavier than a 1000 naira bill without screaming like a banshee to your maid/gateman/driver in a loud voice, “Will you come hia and collect this load fast and stop strolling like a layabout, come on, carry that load, idiat!”

Sounds familiar, huh? I thought as much!

Don’t get it twisted people, this is Nigeria,  not obodo oyibo, not America. What is acceptable in America isn't accepted here, like homosexuality, remember? And what is accepted here isn't accepted in America, like polygamy.

And ironically, though we want our own Bayelsa warrior, father of many, a whole leader from an oyel producing state, husband to our very own Dame Patience, a whole GCFR, to carry his bag himself because Obama and one other leader I cannot even recognise did that, yet our own Tiwa Savage decided to emulate Rihanna & Beyonce’s video style and we brought out our thunderous hypocritical mouths and ears and faces like that Charles Novia that produces unoriginal & unrealistic  movies to say she is unoriginal and a copycat and this is not America.

I have a question for you lot condemning GEJ in the picture above. Is this America? Is GEJ Obama? Are you from USA? If you love that country that much, why are you not over dia washing toilets & taking care of old people?

Let’s get our s**ts acts together and stop acting with double standards, choosing to accept or reject westernisation at a convenient time and situation when it suits our confused minds.

This is Africa! This is Naija, the ego centric country of show, since the beginning of time that is older than Schnapps. 

Stop the silly comparison! Enough of picking up random pictures from the internet and doing Pic Story to compare. Oil, Water & Milk cannot mix. None is better as they have different but essential uses.

Here in this country, big men DO NOT and CANNOT carry their bags themselves. Our forefather taught us better than that! Except you want them to turn in their graves! Abeg Free Jona o. He is already dealing with being tagged as a failed president across the world. Abeg, let's not add this one that we are not even practising in our homes to the issue at hand.

This angry writer is out of here.