Only Weak and Badly Brought Up Men Find Time to Answer Women
By Rev. Olu Martins
“A man that is with honour and knows it not is like a beast that perishes – Psalm 49:20
As much as I have tried, I can’t understand this madness we call politics in Nigeria. Politics has made us pass off everything as a game. We have lost our sense of morality and sanity because we want to win elections. As far as we are concerned, nothing else matters more than winning even if we lose the next generation, we don’t care.
All my life I was taught to overlook the opposite sex as the weaker vessel. It didn’t matter if they were sisters, classmates or neighbors, my father taught me to always respect them and make excuses for them.
I soon saw the value of those time tested lessons from my dad about respecting the women folk and making excuses for them when I got married. Sometimes women can really be annoying and my wife is no exception but because I was well brought up by a civilized futuristic father I would often just pick up my keys and drive out of the house anytime my wife “received” one of those “anointings” to annoy me. No much exchange of words of shouting, I just walk away.
My children have never quite seen me raise my voice at my wife or heard both of us throw tantrums at each other not because we haven’t had sharp differences that almost snowballed into shouting bouts but because we are both intentional about what we teach our children especially as it regards honoring the women as the weaker vessel irrespective of their misdemeanor.
Fortunately cultures the world over have also embraced the God ordained, biblical perspective of respect and understanding for women when the Holy book asked us to live with women with understanding. Don’t try to understand women, just understand that you can’t understand women.
This is why no matter what ensued between a male driving and a female driving, there would hardly be any justification to see the man holding his end about whose fault it is that the accident or incident happened. Passersby would just ask the man in this case to forget about the whole thing, afterall na woman they would say.
So you can imagine my shock when I listened to comrade Adams Oshiomole take time to reply to the wife of the governor of Edo State. If I had any modicum of respect for Adams Oshiomole before, it all flew away through my toilet window not because we are on different sides of a political divide but because as a man he threw caution completely to the wind in his desperate attempt to always be heard especially because no one has directed any statement at him.
I am more appalled because this is the second time in one lifetime that a man of his age and standing can completely go off the radar of moral propriety to completely vilify the women folk. Firstly it was the “go and die” widow scenario years ago as a sitting governor and now as a sitting Senator it is the mockery of a woman who hasn’t had a child yet in the name of campaigning.
Now I am forced to review the statement of his reunited godson Phillip Shaibu when he said his political godfather may have mental health challenges. Honestly speaking when Phillip first made that statement that Oshiomole may have mental illness I was angry at him but today I am forced to review what he said because truth be told afterall “many are mad but only few are naked”.
Now this is a man whose official is seventy because for all you care he may be up to seventy five. If at that age you still can’t take control of your tongue and your words, I can only imagine how he may have damaged colleagues, friends and even family members with his tongue.
Nothing can be more gruesome than to be married to a man whose tongue is rough and uncontrollable. Nothing kills a woman more than living with a man that doesn’t gauge his words before he says what he wants to say. To have such a man as a husband or a father is to constantly live in fear and trepidation and when it is prolonged it becomes cancer to the body that ultimately kills you before your time.
If you can speak to a woman that isn’t under you in that manner in the name of election, I shudder in fear just to think about what such a character will say to his wife especially at an earlier time when he was much younger and didn’t have what makes for absolute comfort like he has today.
Rev Olu Martins is the Lead Pastor, Hillcity Christian Center and the Deputy Director General (Media and Publicity) of the Asue/Ogie Campaign Management Council.
