The whole of the country was transfixed as the first clips of Mr Bobrisky or should I say Ms Bobrisky hit the airwaves. The last time I saw such a huge conflagration of press men, cameras and flash bulbs was Michael Jackson arriving at the grammies.
Bob whose real name is Idris Okuneye has held Nigerians captive with his eccentric but I think well thought out marketing shenanigans. He has taken it far and beyond his predecessors – Area Fada and Denrele and created a visage that you can well not ignore.
He is annually the most googled Nigerian and arguably much more popular than our President. His lifestyle remains amazing and intriguing.
Near illiterate who clains to have had a tertiary education experience but failing to show in language and carriage, this person has built a money making machine that continues to defy our tradition and culture in a very bold and care free manner.
He has lived on the borderline, risking clamp down from a frenetic state of which I dare say would be scrambling through the law books seeking for a loophole to engage this apparition.
Nigeria is still a very traditional state throwing up a contradiction which Bobrisky has seized. The contradiction stems from a huge youth population that continues to embrace western culture in its entirety.
If we are going to be truthful, same sex relationships now pervades the sexual environment much more than we can care to imagine. It struggles with heterosexual relationships almost at par with the lesbian varient being more popular than the homosexual varient.
The law abrogating such liaisons not withstanding, the very powerful forces of cultural imperialism at the onset, with other mutating local forces like economic hardships, peer pressure, opening up of the information highway, sexual frustrations, health considerations amongst others has led to an explosion of these deviant sexual choices
But Bobrisky and his Ilk takes the cake. Either as a transgender, or homosexual or lesbian or even a sex change advocate, he comes at Nigerians and our youths with a confounding confusion that we all seem not to understand.
Scouring through the comment section of major blogs in research for this article, the writer was amazed at the strict divide between those for and those against his lifestyle amongst our youths
What is actually going for him in his support Base, is his lifestyle. His tendency to flaunt a rich lifestyle in the face of abject and mass poverty is a strong pull that a lot of youths really have no way to resist
On the other hand, you get those who curse him and who see him as Satan’s Ambassador to Nigeria and as a result would have nothing to do with his consulate.
In the midst of these, the Nigerian state moves in and picks him up first on charges of mutilating the Naira and money laundry charges which were quickly dropped as reported.
This incidence now opens a floodgate of national bullying.. Jokes, side steps, taunts all follow him. Are they putting him in a male cell or female, did he forget his breast at home and all sort.
The hullabaloo does not allow us see the need to ask the authorities why he was picked up for an offence that almost all of us have committed and still commit almost on a daily.
Only one man, Chidi Odinkalu the former Human Rights Czar who came up in his defence of which the Efcc retorted with a very arrogant and aggressive release.
As Bob was facing a judge, thousand of Nigerians were all over the country committing the same offence making one wonder what exactly is going on.
He faces six months in prison or a N50, 000 fine. Please note that an actress had been convicted for same offence in the recent past, but this Bob’s own is more confusing than can be explained.
Will it be safe to draw a line bwteen this incident and the young man ‘Very Dark Man’ who has been shouting that the police authorities have been colluding and infact been cavorting in bed with Bobrisky. A mission that saw him spend some days in the cooler.
Is this arrest and 24 hour conviction – the fastest we have heard in our judicial journey an attempt to distract us from something or was it a genuine attempt at enforcing a law we all ignore.
Whatever the case is, we still have a more fundamental problem which is how to deal with a lifestyle and a sexual orientation that is growing in popularity despite our cultural levies being thrown up to stop or at best curb it.
Bobrisky is a glamorous rebel, I am not sure he is on a mission to mainstream his choices which is growing faster than the number of Redeemed Christian Churches – which is reputed to be the fastest growing in that sector – in the country or whether he is just having fun and living his life.
Whatever the case is, we are in trouble!
Thanks.
