Secondhand smoking is said to be more harmful than primary smoking. In other words, passive smokers are said to be more vulnerable to health challenges than actual smokers. This is analogous to the effects of BBNaija on the rest of us. We suffer the consequences more than its actual actors. Participants of the BBNaija Show and its regular watchers have buried their moral sense to an unimaginable depth. To excavate their moral sense and successfully restore it needs heavenly intervention. Sermonizing and preaching to these advocates of nudity to eschew this animalistic vice might face serious limitations—it might not be effective. In addition, these people need our earnest prayers which I referred to as heavenly intervention.
BBNaija Reality Show’s participants, its followers, its subscribers, its advocates—and the nudity it stands for—are people who are happy to look up to pigs and dogs as role models. Role models are in most cases (if not all cases) better than those who look up to them. We now know what it means to take lower animals as role models. It means (among other stomach-turning meanings) rivalling pigs and dogs in shamelessness.
However, the consequence is that the rest of us are now (by default) living amongst dog-like and pig-like-humans. We meet in hospitals, attend the same schools, rub shoulders in markets, and in fact live in the same neighbourhoods. This is very painful.
More painful is the fact that it is herculean to help better the conditions of these nudists. For many of them are not in the know of their deplorable conditions. Worrying is the fact they are not nudists who practice nudism for reasons of health or religion but for the purpose of aggressively spreading immorality in all its facets.
But could one even be a nudist on religious or health ground? No, it is all lies and deceptions. It is a foolish attempt to shroud immorality deceptively with the shawl of health and religion.
It is melancholic to note that loud voices from different quarters were made and are made—calling upon the government—to ban this anti social and anti cultural show have rather made it more popular. Let’s even take away religion, BBNaija Show is against our indigenous cultures in Nigeria. That is why it always sounds funny to me when people allege that this government is trying to Islamize Nigeria. A government with Islamization agenda will not recline ravishingly to watch or allow people watch this nudity called BBNaija.
Now that the seeds planted by BBNaija have started sprouting, what evidence do you need to be convinced of their germination than the twerker of the University of Nigeria Nsuka (UNN) who twerked for 30k. I mean N30, 000. Do not think it is for the sake of money; many are of the opinion that it is for the sake of twerking. If you think we are not in trouble, you need to read some notes on the meaning of trouble. What makes the trouble troubling is the fact that she is a medical student. I pity lecturers in our higher institutions especially those who have to cope with twerking students.
Do not forget that the Sexual Harassment Bill passed by the National Assembly is primarily targeted at lecturers. Now that lecturers are to go to prison when they smile suspiciously at their female students as enshrined in the Sexual Harassment Bill, we can only turn to God of Mercy for protection against the seductiveness of twerking students.
Though students have ‘democratic’ right to twerk; this is one of the many ‘beauties’ of democracy. Nothing proves this more than the student’s assertion: “We all know that you cannot expel a student on the ground of twerking.” But when lecturers respond—consciously or unconsciously—to the twerking gestures, they shall be escorted to the gallows to spend the next 14 years. Something is wrong with the word ‘justice’ in Nigeria. When next you are asked to define justice, do not be in a hurry to do so. Ask if you were to give a dictionary definition or the Nigerian one. I hope our Senate shall soon pass the Twerking Harassment Bill so that we can all live in peace.
All said, something is fundamentally wrong with our ‘girls’ who think that that THING they nakedly twerk in the public is the only value left in them. By ‘girls’ here I mean our womenfolk whose genitalia has become free for all—irrespective of age and marital status. Only a ‘girl’ who lacks maturity will expose her nudity for public consumption.
While some argue it is a freedom of expression, some say it is a vigorous advertisement of an expired product. I am more inclined to the latter. For if what is being twerked is not expired, why the need for public display? But because we live in a society that is full of abnormalities, the expired twerked THING still goes for N30, 000. This is even if it is adjudged to be well twerked since it is a competition attended by the no-future-ambition audience.
We can see what befalls us. It is becoming a new normal for our ‘girls’ not to have any goods in stock but their ‘whatever it is called’. The only way to maintain relevance or to gain popularity, in their dirty thinking, is to make go viral what engages the lips of men—keeps them talking. I think it is high time responsible women launched campaign against this display of shamelessness.
One wonders if these ‘girls’ have mothers at home. One also wonders if our religious institutions—churches, synagogues, and mosques—still exist. One still wonders what goes wrong with our values. The ‘girl’ in question argues that twerking has nothing to do with her academic performance. This could be true; but it has a lot to do with her character. If UNN degrees—and those of other Nigerian higher institutions—are actually awarded only to those who are worthy, both in character and in learning, this girl, along with her ilk, does not deserve a degree certificate.
I have avoided mentioning her name hoping that she will turn over a new leaf. No doubt, she started on a wrong footing notwithstanding the fact that some devil advocates will continue to whisper to her: “you have not flouted any school’s rules nor have you acted unconstitutionally”. But man (oh! I am sorry, woman) by nature knows that it is virtuous to be different from pigs. We should also know that before our Creator, we shall be evidence against our evil deeds even if we present excuses (Q75: 14-15).
Now I realize how difficult it is to train a female child to be morally upright. The Prophet (SAW) said: “whoever takes care of two girls, he and I will enter Paradise like these two” and he gestured with his two fingers (Tirmidhi). That is, whoever trains two girls to become chaste, righteous, and responsible would be guaranteed Paradise. Such person, of course, must be responsible as well. Conversely, let’s just imagine (rather than mention) the fate of parents or guardians who train their daughters to be twerkers.
Ladies, stop thinking that the only way to be relevant is to market your THING by twerking it or releasing your s8x tapes to the public, you will end up de-marketing yourselves. If we are not conscious of Allah, are we not conscious of people’s judgment and our future? Anyway, the Prophet has said it all: “And if you do not feel ashamed, then do whatever you like” (Bukhari). May Allah restore our sanity.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
