Alexandria Nwabueze

The following article contains a group of words containing a coherent thought on matters pertaining to Nigerian behaviour. I remember that night like it was last night. Truthfully, it was. Pitch black in all its glory. Not a sound could be heard for hours, and I was in a dreamless state, unwilling to rejoin the waking world and its responsibilities. Out of nowhere, it jolted me. I didn’t know the time, it could’ve been 2am, 3am or midnight. I’m a directionless being even wide awake.  The sound began as a piercing scream. I recognized its origin instantly, it stemmed from the house right next to ours. Normally, these kinds of sounds aren’t odd or new, it has dawned on us neighbours that the mother in the house’s mode of discipline is the strong use of hand or whip. And although I am uncomfortable with it generally, I pass it off as just another morning with the wailings of Uju. But this time was different. It pierced, it stirred, it troubled me. It was a male voice, and I heard nothing from the doer of this action, but the recipient was loud and terrifying. It began with shouts and yells, obviously a reaction from the faint whip sounds. Actually, I didn’t know what was causing the shouts. It was dark and silent and I couldn’t make out the source of the wails, maybe that’s what troubled me the most. That the sound seemed origin-less. Nonetheless, the shouts pierced through me. I felt my empathy rise as the sounds got louder. I had never been a fan of the African mode of discipline, especially when it happens in the middle of the night. It made a plausible argument for insanity and absurdity, but I assure you, no one is ready for that conversation. Back to the sounds of hades’ victim, the shouts accelerated and travelled. I recall a small passageway which served as a porch for the house. It occurred to me that the wailer was being chased down, and eventually cornered. His shouts turned to screams, which was when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, my brother wake up and turn his head toward the sound. Soon after he went back to sleep. He was only 14 and could sleep through a blizzard maybe. I realized that it bothered me how there was a single stirring from anyone. Noise polluting the silent night and my fellow Nigerians didn’t move an inch. The culture of abuse disguised as discipline ran deep and has been so a long time.  After 5 minutes or so, the sound died down. I tried to picture the poor soul. He was curled up at the edge of the passageway, tending to the pain and his wounds. Soft pants were all I heard afterwards, but I couldn’t go back to sleep. Not yet. I was annoyed. Annoyed that a human being was beaten up like a thief and no one inquired. Because it didn’t affect them, or he deserved it. The cycle of abuse was endless. I hated myself for not being able to do anything either. Now I’m typing this at 7am in the morning. There’s gospel music playing out of the scene of the crime. I hear the mother, most likely the culprit, singing along, her conscience probably clean and proud of herself.  I’ve heard no child sounds yet, which is unusual, but I wouldn’t blame them for being silent after the events of the night before. The culture of instilling fear into children at young ages and swearing they turn out well. Spoiler alert – they never do. This takes me back to a few days ago. My phone screen brightly lit against my face, navigating between my texts and twitter, sorry – X. the discourse of the day on +234 twitter centered around a celebrity wedding. The maid of honour, specifically. He was male, and incels and misogynists alike expressed their disdain for the concepts. No worry though, they were drowned out by the hardcore scum male population that threw a hissy fit over the sight of the man of honour in tears as his best friend got married. They swore that he was mourning the sex that they probably never had, and they contradicted themselves by calling his crying ‘feminine’.  Between tweets about WWE and AEW alike on my feed, the discourse trickled down into their problem with effeminate men and gay men alike. They accused the man of honour of being gay and swore they’d prefer their likely nonexistent children to mechanics and agberos, rather than the probability of them kissing someone of the same gender. They boasted of the violence they’d commit to ensure their boys remain ‘masculine’. One user mentioned being interested in breaking bottles on his son’s head when he got to 10 years to build his tear threshold, and got over 13 thousand likes. Another, a patriarchy princess, boasted of the methods her husband used to revert her effeminate son, praising the random squats and excessive gym memberships and kitchen bans her husband undertook. Saviors of mankind, or feminists, expressed their concern for the son and mentioned that the methods would only make their son a good liar, rather than a changed person. Warning her to enjoy his time with her son now, they were sure that eventually, they’d live out their days in a home for the elderly and never see their son again. As I spectate in the social media debacle, and the events of the night before, one thing is certain to me. There is an unhealthy obsession with conservative culture within Nigerians and Africans alike, a culture that irks me from within, as they cosplay as servants of God, while in reality they couldn’t be further from what the teachings of their Lord and savior spread. The religious psychosis, coupled with their ability to pick and choose what kind of religious teachings they want to align themselves with, would make … Read more