Saint Obi, a popular actor in Nigeria recently passed away, and one of his colleagues and friends wrote an article indicating that the problems in his marriage led to his death. According to him, his crime was marrying a woman that is richer than him. This forced him to leave the movie industry and look for a better-paying job just to measure up.
According to his friends, his wife’s brothers call him a gold-digger and his wife does nothing about it. At some point, he was attacked and injured so badly that he needed to procure a gun for self-defense. Saint was not a poor man by all means, but his wife was richer than him.
He was frustrated with the divorce and had his kids taken away from him. This was too much for him to take but he kept quiet and suffered in silence. He was not talking to anyone. Who will listen to him if he says his children were taken from him? Won’t other men mock him for marrying a man richer than him instead? Is it a crime for a woman to be richer than a man in a romantic relationship?
In this sick society, it is a crime for men to have needs or ask for help from women. It is an even worse crime for men to express emotions. It starts when kids are growing. When a boy falls, people around him laugh and tell him to stand up. If he does not, he gets beaten. If it is a girl, people rush to help her get back up and treat her wounds. This marks the beginning of emotional negligence for him.
If a boy gets into a fight with a girl and gets beaten, his parents will flog him and mock him for being weak. As for the girl, everyone, including her parents and his, hails her as a strong girl. This explains why some men get maltreated emotionally and even beaten by their wives and they cannot complain – no one will believe them. In fact, they will be mocked.
If a boy cries out of a room saying a woman raped him, no one will believe him. Many people, including the men around, will laugh at him and say he should enjoy it. If a girl is in the same situation, people rally around her and beat the man involved to a pulp. Men have been reduced to stones, or better still, woods without emotions and concerning which expressing vulnerability or seeking help is a crime.
When a man complains about things he does not want to a woman who intentionally does it, he is considered a nag.
When he needs help and asks his romantic partner, he is considered a lazy man.
When he cries because he is hurt, they say he is a weak man.
A responsible man in Nigeria is a walking ATM; he is a man that makes money, regardless of how it is made, gives all to women whether or not they ask for it, and demand nothing in return from them. After all, ATMs do not have needs; they either dispense money or they are useless.
To be admired & wanted by many Nigerian women, a man has to give all his money to them and never demand anything from them. He must not ask for their financial support even if he is dying of hunger after giving them all he has. If he asks for their financial support, he is considered irresponsible & lazy.
When a Nigerian man is as vocal as Soul’e Rhymez about his sexual needs in a romantic relationship, he is considered a sex addict & bedeviled for trying to lead the godly prostitution-inclined women, who will never date or marry a man unless he has money, to hell.
Being accused of sex addiction is not fun, and it is worse when you are compared to the devil just for expressing sexual needs within the premises of a romantic relationship. So, men learn to make most women believe that they do not need sex just to be accepted by them. This does not end well for both parties.
When a Nigerian man is prudent with his money, he is broke-shamed by both men and women & made to realize that he is unfit to be called a man or be accepted by a woman. He is induced into spending the money that would have been enough to secure his future on women that does not give a hook about him. Many men fall into the trap; no thanks to systemized sex starvation.
All these, and many more box men into a corner and make it hard for them to express their needs. This is one of the reasons men suffer and die in silence; it explains why we often lose men like Saint Obi before their times.
Men need to start speaking up for themselves and stop fighting each other for the attention of some good-looking for nothing women that are worth less than some useless knick-knacks which no one will buy except out of pity. It is time that men placed some values on themselves and refuse to be limited to ATMs. Until this happens, men will keep dying in silence thinking they are strong.
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