Can someone please help? One of Nigeria’s fiercest and one of my favourite female human rights crusaders, Ms Aisha Yesufu, is going romantic and may suffer the fate of abandoning the turf she seems best created for by her creator to manifest in. As an activist or human rights crusader, Aisha is sincere, consistent, nationalistic and well-focused. She is not tribalistic. She is not sectarian. She is not regional. She speaks for Nigeria against those who do not wish Nigeria well.
Well, that is what some of us see in this fiery young woman whose religious belief does not seem to look welcomingly of her engagement but she powers on nevertheless. And which makes her activism the more intriguing. Unlike many of her kind who receive money or other forms of gratification to speak for certain persons/ideologies and some national issues, Aisha courageously says what is right and fair.
What, then, is cooking in the feminist world that has compelled Aisha to now want to veer into the strange field of an Agony Aunty where she will be advising confused or unsure females who are growing out of age and not getting the men they need to get to make their lives complete and comfortable?
Well, the other day Aisha was quoted as saying that she would like to advise young women who are fast growing out of the marriage age to have the courage to go out there and toast the men they fancy rather than wait and be pinning away. If Mohammed cannot go to the mountain, let the mountain go to Mohammed.
Let me tell Aisha that from this little I have heard from her on the romantic front, she will be a very bad, dangerous and unsuccessful romantic advisor and may hurt more women than she intends to help them. From the little I know of God’s protocol for our existence on earth, I do not think that it is right for women to take the direct initiative in the dating game. They will be made games of if they venture into this dangerous endeavour/field Aisha wants to lead them into and the few who try may curse her and not commend her for leading them that way.
God created women and made them operate by indirection. She is to desire something earnestly but behave as if she does not terribly desire it. It is then and only then that she now gets it. Any other way such as a ‘’frontal confrontation’’ which Aisha and many other feminists seem to favour, will make her lose it all. Well, the hint Aisha has dropped is consistent with her feminist and human rights advocacy. The Aishas of this world believe that what a man can do, a woman can also do even better. But in the loving game, the protocol is different. In it, the man is designed as the hunter and it is best for the female to wait to be ‘hunted’,‘killed’ or ‘gamed’. While waiting, she is to do those things that a female is supposed to do so that the hunter can see her and gun for her!
The honest mistake which Aisha and other feminist crusaders are making is to think that women are not getting the patronage of men they need because women are not taking the initiative or are not courageous and persistent enough. The truth of the matter is that some of the kind of young women we are seeing these days were not created for marriage. Perhaps, they are just born to be libbers; to be ‘liberated’ and live a life of a successful liberated single. That is all. They exist to serve themselves and their needs. They are not meant to be taken and husbanded. They are rude, loud and terribly disagreeable. They respect no one and do not think they were created to be junior partners in a relationship with men who are supposed to be their lords and masters like in the days of Father Abraham when Sarah, his partner used such an endearing, flattering and submissive address for her husband.
Perhaps, the greatest undoing for the girls of this generation is their unwillingness to say ‘’thank you’’ for any favour or efforts you make for them. Their entitlement syndrome is what is scarring many men away from them. As they grow older and older and having tasted so many men, they are not ready to become submissive and acceptable to many men. Asking them, therefore, to go and ‘confront’ men and declare their ‘manifestoes’ will advance no greater/better course but further drive many self-respecting men away.
One of the rudest shocks which the first batch of Aisha’s bold trainees will face is the rejection and mockeries which some of them will face in the hands of men. It is not easy to mount a rostrum and make a declaration of love. I am a man ordained by God to carry out that task and I can tell you that it is not easy at all as many of my fellow men will confess. Can Aisha’s trainees, with women’s soft, tender and easily breakable hearts, be able to face rejection if their declaration is unrequited? Will many not commit suicide as a result of their failures and subsequent feeling of unworthiness when they fail as, surely, they will?
Many world renowned male poets and writers, such as the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare and the romantic poet Percy Bershey Shelley, have written about the pains of unrequited love. Does Aisha want a coterie of female poets to join that eminent rank? Well, for her as a feminist, her cause of ‘advancing’ women will be fulfilled if the female victims of love join the ranks of its lamentators too. After all, what a man can suffer, women can suffer it even more adoringly! But as a practical solver of societal ills, she will be a monumental failure.
As a child of God and one ordained to lead many misled children to him, I have an advice that will not fail women or men who desire to be in a marital, fulfilling union. And that advice is not complicated at all. It is called the prayer of marriage. It did not fail me in my time and some of those I have had the privilege of counseling and it will not fail anyone who wants a genuine union of marriage. The prayer of marriage is one that God answers the quickest. It never fails at all. Any male or female who has come of age and is prepared to be coupled should just go into prayer and ask God the type of man or woman he or she wants. Tell him from the sincerity of your heart what kind of person exactly you want and God will give him or her to you.
When you do that, drop every effort on your part to get the person you want by your own clever devices. And God will surprise you. Of course God will not listen to your prayer if you do not believe and walk in his ways. But before you go to God, try and do great work on yourself. As we say in my church, it is the responsibility of a man to find a woman while it is the responsibility of a woman to be ‘findable’. Your conduct must be agreeable and findable before any man can find you!
