I am BACK! Other matters: Disobedience to Google & Women-this, Women-that! - Ik Muo, PhD.

 

 Back to work, 6/5/21

Prof Pat Utomi is  global brand, a gentleman, a jolly goodfellow and a practical intellectual, always advocating  equity and fairness and the greatest good for the greatest number while  being conscious of his Catholic roots. But once in a while, he becomes a gang-leader,  and  a unique one at that because while other gangs consist of unknown members and operate in secret, his gang operates in the opendential (@ the Patito’s Gang TV Show). And whenever they returned from a brief break within the programme, he would announce with a mischievous glint: we are back! Even though I did not inform my readers before my ‘disappearance’, I want to make it up by apologizing and announcing that I am BACK. My last outing was on Maundy Thursday, ( Thursday before Easter when I wrote on ‘Basin Theology’), and by a stroke of luck, my reappearance    is miraculously occurring on the Thursday before Pentecost. I believe that  just like everything else, it is the Lords doing.

 My Oga at the office, Dr AO Ogunkoya, graciously approved a part of my leave and the motion was supported by the Oga at the very top, our own GO and as such I started my leave on 6/4/21, and decided to give the Lagos-Ogun axis, a long break. I had planned to ‘continue the continuous’ from wherever I would spend the leave but circumstances ‘Ko’warrant’. Initially, the infrastructure (light and connectivity) did not support my intention but even while that was surmountable, I got FULLY engaged with ‘other matters’, which took me away from  regular engagements. It does not mean that I was lazing about during my leave because beyond junketing all over the East( the UGM [Unknown Gun Men] notwithstanding), I managed to make some   intellectual inputs and outputs. I wrote a small BOOK, Before I Die, (40 pages only!) which unfortunately, is for restricted circulation. I also had another intellectual output, Entrepreneurshipin Practice: Cases, Challenges and Lessons, which  is now available on Amazon, since 14/5/21. Click here to view

Since I went ‘underground’, a lot has happened and continue to happen in the spheres of Coro, insecurity, with the emergence and ubiquity of UGM, economy, Irael and her frenemy, Palestine and the world of oddities.  As such, I don’t know where and how to start but somehow, I have to start somewhere so as to gradually return myself to the weekly writing mood. And I will start with two unrelated developments

On Saturday 8/5/25, I had a wedding engagement at Welcome Center at the Intl Airport Road, Lagos. I had been out of Lagos for the previous 6 weeks and having just returned from the cool and sane traffic climes of the East, I was wary of Lagos traffic. So I asked my daughter to consult  Google, the modern day ‘witches of Endor’ for me on the best route (traffic-wise) to take, and I was advised to go through Ire-Akari Estate. The ‘intracity’ routes in Ire-Akari Estate has gone terribly bad and the better, straight route through Mushin Road is a haven of traffic. I also wondered how to link Ajao-Estate to the other side of Airport Road and even after I was assured that it was a seamless affair, I was still not comfortable with the Ire-Akari route.  When I hit the road, I noticed that the trafficfrom Ago-Palace Way to Cele Bus-Stop was smooth. So, I scoffed at Google  and moved directly to the Apapa-Oshodi Express way, which led directly to Event-Center, through the Fashola Bridge.  But I still had some foreboding feeling about disobeying Oga-Google. However, when I got to the express way, it was FREE and I thanked God that I had made a wise choice by ignoring Google, saying, Google, ‘ntọọ’   and feeling good with myself.  I was thanking my stars, thinking that probably the holdup captured by Google had fizzled out, as it usually did in Lagos.

And then, it happened. When I got to the exit into International Airport Road, the contractor working on the road had blocked it with the type of wicked concrete  slabs that even  Sampson, in his last upsurge of raw strength, could not remove. I froze!  I could not move on reverse-gear, I could not do a U-Turn,   neither could I turn left nor right. Indeed there was no way out. Unfortunately, I had left my spiritual capabilities( as an onye-Muo) at home and as such, I could not fly! To cut the long story short, I had to go and do a detour at the ‘Anthony’ axis, several kilometers away, which took me more than an hour , more fuel, more anxiety and driving stress et al. Just because I dared google!  I have since apologized to Google,  pledged to always be ‘yours obediently’ ( nobody ordered me to apologise or to pledge my loyalty to Google) and I have become an unpaid apostle for Google, telling  anyone who cared to listen: Disobey Google at your own risk.

In the last two months, everyday had been a  mothers’ day all the way. It was either the Intl Womens’ day, or Mothers’ Day Celebration by the Anglican Church, Province of Nigeria, or celebration by different provinces of the Catholic Church (Lagos, Onitsha or Owerri) or by various Pentecostal groups.  Even the traditional worshippers are planning their own womens’ day! On Sunday, 16/5/21, on my way to our monthly CMO(Catholic Men Organisation) meeting, I tuned on to Nigerian Info 99.3 FM, my favourite station around 11am, it was linked to  a foreign station and  lo,  it was mothers’ day  special on Music Time Africa or something to that effect, with callers from Kenya, Ghana and South Africa. They even played the original ‘Sweet Mother’ by Nico Mbarga. Every caller recounted wonderful, sweet and supernatural things about their mothers, and assured them of undying, perpetual love. And I started wondering: Were those callers ‘manufactured’ by the women alone? Were the women the only parties to this ‘co-creation’ industry?

I ruminated on this matter, recalled other developments and then concluded that men, even with their manhood( apologies to Mama Patience), were in trouble. There are ministries, ministers, commissioners and departments of women affairs. There are women-focused programmes on the media and there 1001 NGOs on women affairs. There are syndicated emphasis on violence against women, (even when men are now increasingly on the receiving end of multidimensional violence from the ‘weaker sex’), girl child education, women entrepreneurship, for which banks have mapped out  unique products and mouthwatering sums,  poverty amongst women and impact of violence on women. Even the station in question (99.3 FM) has a special line for women and their presenters are mostly women( Sandra( my favourite), Wemimo, Joyce and they have just brought in Mrs Teke!).  The women would have gone on sex-strike if the station had dedicated a line to men! This women-girls business was so bad that in Anambra,  and indeed the East, where boys have all but disappeared from the classrooms, there are still programmes to encourage girl-child education.

Are you thinking what I am thinking? Have we become endangered species? What is the future of our sons? Have you noticed that it is now an offence for a woman to carry the baby ( they no de back pikins again!) if she was in company of the husband? Who remembered when the Father’s day, local, denominational or international, was held?  There is even NO international Fathers Day! Does it mean that we have add no special value to the society? After all, each of us carry within us and at all times, millions of children!  Not so long ago, one day was alleged  to be fathers’ day and I waited to savour the day but  nothing-nothing! I was the one  calling and reminding everyone ‘today na our day now’! There was no evidence that it was a fathers’ day and that was why I said that it was ‘alleged’ to be a fathers’ day. It was while ruminating over this that I received this message, which most of us would have received, via WhatsApp: Mothers’ day: Dady take us out; Fathers’ day: Daddy take us out; Children and Mummies Birthday: Dady take us out; Wedding anniversary, Childrens’day Sallah or Christmas holidays and every festive occasion: Dady Take us out.  So, Who will take daddy out( and when)?

 I had raised this issue with different women on different occasions and they responded that they were the ones hyping up and weaponizing these women day and allied matters, implying that we should fight our own fight. Men, should therefore wise-up. But before then, our society, right from the days of Adam & Eve, has always been a man-woman, father-mother , brother-sister affair. It is good that we always remember that so as not to encourage me go into gender recalibration surgeries! Serious; I no de laff!

 So, I am back and we shall take it up from here next week.  I will give you the full story, starting from my experience on the road and the road ‘managers’. Meanwhile, thanks to those who called in asking, where art thou?

Ik Muo, PhD. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye.08033026625