Nigeria Content Online

Our meteorologists
and climatologists must be busy revising school geography textbooks.
Based on present weather evidence, an ‘August break’, a mini-dry season
in the midst of the wet period, no longer exists. It’s currently
raining cats and dogs, with local flights regularly skidding off
runways when not cancelled. Passengers now carry prayer books in their
hand luggage. The alternative? Travel by road and risk death at a
police checkpoint. This August has also produced three curious tabloid
reports. A man was allegedly shot by security guards in Abuja for
stealing firewood. Ordinary firewood? But did ecologists not predict
conflicts around dwindling resources, such as water and forests?

I was not surprised
at the second story. A boy lost his life in Lagos after being mauled by
a dog. The poor kid died, not from his wounds, but as a result of
rabies. In the colonial days, Town Council trucks periodically went
round to pick up and kill stray dogs. Mad dogs roam our cities, and
have enjoyed undisturbed independence since 1960. The health
authorities appear to be ignorant of dangers posed by rabies. For
lessons to be learnt in Nigeria, lives must be lost.

The final story is
of the Sisyphean task embarked upon by the idle authorities in Abuja –
the war against prostitution. No nation has yet won that titanic
battle. If the law of the land forbids a profession, then the law must
be enforced. However, legislation impinging on moral, ethical and
religious issues is difficult to enforce.

In history, there
have been hundreds of years of self-deceit and hypocrisy over
prostitution. Kings and presidents are still occasionally caught with
their pants down. So, who exactly is a whore? Take the case of rampant
corporate prostitution in Nigerian banks. These organizations offer
attractive career prospects, and then pressurize female marketing staff
into “meeting targets.” In the process, the blackmailed young women end
up meeting lots of randy men, to the delight of the bank bosses. Why
men are never hired in these departments is anybody’s guess. “Sex
sells,” said the world’s No.1 female tennis player, Serena Williams,
when asked about fashion and sports.

Lawmakers in our
country are the guiltiest in encouraging what they legislate against.
Ask any university graduate where she’d like to serve as a Youth Corp
member, and the answer is Abuja. And where in Abuja? The National
Assembly. There’s money there.

Gender discrimination

A state governor
banquets by sending a fleet of buses to female hostels in the nearby
university and to the NYSC camp. Objective? To gather up girls, never
the boys! Just to eat, drink and dance? They are, of course, not
prostitutes; but no law stops them from collecting money in the morning
if amorous services are rendered.

If the FCT minister
sends out task forces to round-up mad dogs and sex workers, we will
have less incidence of rabies, no doubt; but prostitution will remain.
That age-old profession is driven by rich men. The Abuja authorities
must be very sure that the rights of citizens to movement and lawful
assembly are not abused during their raids. Besides, there is stark
gender discrimination in restricting the movement of women where men
can go anywhere and anytime.

Prostitution thrives in the richest nations as well, and is
therefore not just a symptom of poverty, as many believe. Jobs and
quality education will only ameliorate the situation. Countries like
Nigeria with a high percentage of unstable and large families; decayed
institutions and a copycat culture, easily destroy those pillars of
morality that discourage women from selling their bodies for sex.