Written by Blessing Otobo
Nafisa Yar’adua marries a man fit to be her father, a man already married to three wives. What is she thinking?
Why would a young 21-year-old girl who has not seen much about life, subject her self to a life style of a fourth wife? A girl that could affect great difference in Nigeria and in the world by inspiring other girls her age and still can, chooses a man, thirty years her senior- when she is not a disfavored or an insignificant citizen of her country.
Why would the parents of Nafisa allow her to marry a man fit to be her father if not for selfish reasons best know them alone. That Yaguda is a governor does not guarantee their daughter a safe or secured haven. And why in this 21st century of enlightenment, would Nigerians continue to tolorate a man married to more than one wife rule as a Governor or a President?
If Nafisa is a pauper and has no family ties to the President of Nigeria, as a daughter, if Nafisa is said to be a girl whose taste is strictly for the high-enders, then it would be all right to say that she is a girl that knows what she wants and goes for it. In this scenario, that is not the case. Nafisa is a girl with golden opportunities, a girl who could use the platform as the president’s daughter to make noble and visible changes that would affect millions positively- no, instead, she chooses to be a fourth wife, a pleasure girl, a tool for procreation.
What is the moral lesion here? That a parent, a mother would rather see her daughter marry a man fit to be her father, a man already married to three wives, just so the status quo of the rich dating and marrying the rich is maintained and secured. How about the girl going out to be a scholar, a scientist, a prolific writer, an inventor, a girl that makes significant difference in her country. Oh, no, she chooses rather to be relegated to the status befitted to her gender- a procreator.
Who knows, she is probably a virgin, and now, she must give of her precious self to a married man, a man that may have deflowered many girls her age or even younger. I probably cannot marry Governor Yaguda, even if I am in my late thirties and not married. Yes, with all the money, status, and as handsome as he is perceived to be. The exception is, if I am cognitively impaired and have a very low self-esteem and I cannot make a living for myself because I am an old hag, only then can I think of such, that is marrying a man with three wives.
I am sure the Governor is a nice man, but morally, I think, he failed. I understand that his religion makes a provision for a man to marry up to four wives. Perhaps in the same religion there should be a provision for a woman to marry more than one husband. I think life should be balanced- where all are given equal opportunity to express their desires.
I just cannot imagine why a fine girl such as Nafisa would choose to marry a man that is thirty years older than she is, one married to three wives, than being a single, self-recognized woman. Honestly, why be a second, third or fourth wife, when she knows that when she wants him, she cannot have him at the time she wants him, because she must wait her turn to have him. Why chose such a torturous life, and yet, this is supposedly a president’s daughter, one who could command the likes of Will Smiths’, singles princes and the likes of the most intellectual minds from around the world to seek her hand in marriage.
Frankly, it baffles me that a fine girl like Nafisa should consign her self to the low end of becoming a fourth wife, not even the first wife, as she is young, beautiful and the daughter of the president of Nigeria.
Why should a president, a supposed man of integrity, and his wife, the first lady, regardless of religion subject their daughter to a married man, just so to maintain the status quo of the elite? What an elite? There are honorable Moslem men that marry just to one woman based on principles.
If he the President has been regarded as a worthy man of principle, this present decision making of allowing his daughter to be a fourth wife has so completely tarnish it for me- not that my opinion is taken into account. But as a concerned Nigerian citizen, and a woman, this is unflattering. The reason being that, the president and his wife, the first lady should set some moral standard, a tenet, about how the choices one makes can affect the collective consciousness of the masses-especially the likes of vulnerable girls who have been taken advantages of by married men..
This is perhasp why the country is so dysfunctional, why the system is so chaotic, and why policies that could drive the country progressively is not functioning properly. The reason is this, some of the minds that direct policies are not a cognitively functioning mind. Take for instance, the premise that a functioning body of the society; a female can only be valued, appreciated only if she is married, and to a man that is three times a husband. Such premise is faulty and it is bound to perpetuate chaos- regardless of how dressed up the reasoning may be.
Here is a man, a president of one of the largest oil producing country in the world, a man of high caliber, instilling in his offspring, his female child, never to aspire to be the best in the world, but rather should subjugate herself to becoming the fourth wife of a man already married with multiple children.
This is particularly the kind of thinking that has plunged Nigeria, and would continue to plunge her further into thoughtless unproductive country unless she begins to think and teach right. Some of the variables that have prompted the inconsistency in the Nigerian culture are these, that in order to be counted as a worthy citizen, you must align your self with those that has accumulated material and elusive political status- not of those making visible productive and cognitive changes that impact lives positively.
The idea that one must continue to live a false and elusive life style as the one paraded by Governor Yaguda and President Yar’adua’s last month, in Abuja and in Katsina State, is the thinking that must be pruned out of our deep psychology, it must be purged out of our consciousness, if we are to operate as a whole functioning system. With such blatant display of mediocrity, it would take centuries for Nigeria to achieve the status of a developed country.
I cannot imagine myself allowing my daughter to marry a married man, as his fourth wife. I will send her to a psychiatric hospital to be evaluated and treated for traumatic stress- especially if I am the first lady of Nigeria.
I cannot imagine president Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama giving out one of their precious grown up daughters to a married governor of the states just so they are in the safe circle of the elite.
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