by Olukorede Yishau




Senate President Ahmad Lawan disappointed me on Wednesday. My heart is aching seriously from this disillusionment. I was excited for him when on Tuesday he was able to announce the principal officers of the Senate without rancour. That day I looked forward to the list of committee chairmen. And it was my hope that Lawan will create a new committee and name Senator Elisha Abbo as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Slapping.

But on Wednesday, Lawan did two major things: he announced Senator Dayo Adeyeye as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, and disappointingly set up a committee to probe Abbo, who ace comedian Ali Baba dubbed Abbo “Chairman, Senate Committee on Slapping and Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Human Rights”. I was not expecting Lawan to probe Abbo; I simply expected him to recognise his talent and use him appropriately by creating this special committee and making him the head.

I am sure you must by now know why Abbo deserves the honour of chairing this committee. The ‘notorious’ Premium Times on Tuesday published an exclusive video showing the Adamawa senator molesting the friend of an adult toy shop owner for daring to ask him to take it easy.

This obnoxious report was the handiwork of Samuel Ogundipe, who, I last week, recommended the need for his brain to be reset to factory setting because of his penchant for writing reports which always put men of power in a bad light. We were yet to get over Ogundipe’s ‘abominable’ report on Senator Ibikunle Amosun’s arms palaver, and he has pounced on another senator. I put it to Ogundipe that he is on a senators-lynching campaign! With this report, he has given men with loose tongues the tool to rubbish my generation. Just wait for me, Ogundipe, I am coming for you!

One of the most unfortunate comments I have read over the video footage of Abbo assaulting the woman faulted the campaign for young people to be given the chance to lead key sectors of the country. The commentator said with Abbo’s behaviour, young people have shown that they cannot be trusted with leadership position. This, for me, is a classic case of hasty generalisation. How on earth can an individual’s action be used to judge a whole generation? I blame Ogundipe, and today, I hereby make a case for a citizen arrest of this guy. His bosses should also be arrested and I will dedicate my salaries, for the next six months, as bounty for whoever carries out my instruction.

Abbo, like me, is 41; so you can understand my dilemma. The senator representing Adamawa North Senatorial District had not been sworn-in at the time the incident happened on May 11, according to the report. The day the probe panel was set up Abbo, who had promised a ‘robust response’ and had alleged that the shop owner doctored the video, apologised and said ‘to err is human’. The senator claims he has never been known or associated with such actions in the past. Well, we need to ask his women. In the CCTV footage, Abbo is seen beating the woman in the presence of an armed mobile police officer who accompanied him and three other women into the shop. Abbo, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is also seen sitting on a yellow power generator near the entrance of the shop. He is also captured making calls. The police officer is seen being spoken to by Abbo.

Enquiries by the defiant Premium Times showed that trouble started when one of the women who came into the shop with Abbo started vomiting and the shop owner complained. The ensuing arguments led to the beating of the shop owner’s friend. Now, let me remove the cap of a satirist and set the record straight: Abbo certainly does not represent my generation. He represents himself and it would be wrong to use his misdemeanour to judge my generation. On another note, Abbo’s action shows disrespect for womanhood. Abbo obviously is the type who will never agree that a woman is equal to him. He will never support a bill against domestic violence. Chances that he will support having more women in government are extremely slim. I can bet Abbo will see South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as a fool for forming a cabinet with half of its members being women. With people like Abbo, women will continue to be held down. With people like Abbo, a girl will repeatedly be told ‘and you are a girl o’ when she does things the society believes should not be done by a girl, or when she is refusing to do something that society has labelled chores for girls.

In Abbo’s home, girls must cook, wash clothes and keep the house clean. Boys, I believe in our dear senator’s home, will be watching television and playing games while waiting for the food to be served. Abbo reminds me of the world in Bisi Adjapon’s Of Women and Frogs, where boys and men get undue advantages just because of their gender. Esi, the heroine, rebels and is labelled a badly-behaved girl. Like many fathers in our society, her father, Edward, always sees a lady through her womanhood — her education counts less. He sees nothing wrong in Abena’s husband almost throwing her out of the window. All is well with Mansa’s husband pummelling her. To him, being a woman equals being the wrong one in any dispute with the man of the house.

Mansa and Abbo, to me, are one and the same! Men like Abbo will certainly fault Esi’s declaration: “I am the queen of my body”. Abbo must believe he owns any woman on earth for him to descend on a woman who he knows from nowhere like his slave! Abbo, I believe, belongs to that school of thought where every woman is seen as having used the ‘bottom power’ to attain the height. With men like Abbo, we will continue to see brilliant women and rubbish their records by attributing their rise to extraneous factors.

My final take: Now is the time to tell the likes of Abbo that we should give women equal opportunities; we should stop telling a girl to do all the chores while the boys play ludo, and we should, as husbands, support our wives to be the best they can be. They are our better halves and deserve to live their dreams. If they choose to be housewives, all well and good, but we should not force it on them. Each partner in a marriage deserves respect, which should be earned and not forced. No woman should be beaten by any man, and our law should punish the likes of Abbo.

Homeboiy:
But wetin the senator go buy for the shop


artificial pussy or sex doll

Kundagarten:
This Tinubu newspaper self.

If Abbo is chairman Senate committee on slapping, Omo Agege should be chairman senate committee on touts and hooligans.

inoki247:


Or Chairman on Mace stealing

Homeboiy:
But wetin the senator go buy for the shop


artificial pussy or sex doll