Psychology Of Kokomansion

                                         Psychology of Kokomansion

D’Banj has been denying any form of skirt-hunting in his Kokomansion show where he’s been warehousing a bevy of desperate ‘kokolettes’ who must either taste the D’Banj carrot or his celebrity status or both.

Well, it’s a free country. But denial, a form of maladjustment, is another piece of evidence to convince all his fans and diligent observers he’s got a whole lot of smut to cover.

I’m neither a fan of his – nor any of his chattering colleagues. Call them artistes if you like. But I’m a dutiful observer of anything Nigerian that comes under my radar. His harmonica piqued my interest when he first came on the scene in the late 90s. Likewise his articulation – unlike that braggart called Baale and a band of others who think they sing hiphop but speak is and was. Even those of them that speak English like a house on fire – Faze, Banky, Olu Maintain and MI – have lost their genius. They are either twisting Rihana’s Umbrella or featuring their mothers sanctifying their unholy albums, or just spouting gibberish. Others could be aping 50 Cents, Tupac and Shaggy.

Maybe I sound like a nihilist. I’m not. But I’ll be caught dead listening to any of them when I can always soak in Prophet Fela Anikulapo and his pot-inspired musings. Plus those vintage croons of Uwaifo, Olaiya, Roy Chicago, and so on.

Well. D Banj struck me, from his Why Me, Mo Bo Lowo Won, Oloun Ma Je etc., as paranoid and maladjusted. No hatred, please. He imagines he has legions of enemies; he always feels persecuted in spite of his Channels O, AMMA, and HIP-HOP World awards; he feels insecure. And again, like the late Wacko Jacko – I’m sure nobody called him toad when he was drooling on his mouth organ – D Banj has low self esteem because he thinks he doesn’t have much for his female fans to ogle. He feels he is ugly: Some people say I no fine. He might have even been secretly comparing his face with Soul E’s and Banky’s – the handsomest hip-hop faces in Nigeria . That’s why he needs to get appreciation, by suasion or extortion, especially from his female fans, to meet his self esteem need, as Abraham Maslow posits.

And the only way to convince himself he’s every lady’s man, a hunk, and a macho guy is by trumpeting his sexcapades – his highly demanded ‘kokomycine’, his randiness.

Couldn’t that drive – that self esteem need – have inspired a Kokomansion – a show involving a celebrity obsessed with his imagined ugly face now made the only knight in shining armour, and planted in a harem of ladies of diverse height, colour, thickness, curves and arcs, all scheming to seduce, solicit, charm, and possibly rape just one player?
Doesn’t that look like somebody who has the means and might is using a reality show to massage his erotic ego – to compensate for his ugly nose?

Psychologists have noted that mal-adjusted people have different modes of compen  sating for their needs. Some could be outrageous. Some could be tolerable. It’s very like D’Banj – smart, pro-active, and capitalistic – to have chosen the milder option.

Rather than go for plastic surgery, like MJ, to remould his supposedly ugly face, he’s chosen a subtle mode – harping on his own sexiness, screened by those Abacha’s goggles, and simulating an orgiastic nest feathered by some corporate hawks. There could have been no better rutting season for the Kokomaster!

Tunde Zubair, owner of HiTv, official medium of Kokomansion, once said the reality show is meant to project the African woman to the outside world. But to gauge the pulse of African women by manipulating a handful with fame and fortune so they can unleash their coquetry to cool the raging hormones of a sex neurotic is unscientific and, maybe, unfair. The Hawthorne effect – that the subjects could influence the result of an experiment – will definitely trivialise the reality of Kokomansion.

Besides, casting African women in this pristine, polygamous mould in which a wagon-load of women must readily lose themselves in the world of a single man portrays Africa as backward in this century.

The Kokomaster should be true to himself first, as Shakespeare advised. He should admit his insatiable need to balance his looks with his anticipated and social selves ; his need to convince his female fans he can earn their kisses and hugs in spite of his warts and all.

Though D’banj might not elope with any of the Kokolettes in the mansion, ultimately, he can be sure of gathering loads of lustful emotions and titillating sights that will inspire an hour-long album fully spiced with heroics and gutter language. That’s more money for Mo’Hits and D’banj.

For the Nigerian women – no pity. The thousands participating directly or indirectly are doing so by choice. It is just natural, as free moral agents, if they chose to be turned to fetishes needed to inflame the lust of a man struggling, secretly, with low self esteem.

Sigmud Freud should be stirring in his grave now. Kokomansion is again validating his psycho-sexual theory that all that man – say D’banj – thinks about is his libido even when he pretends to be doing the most altruistic thing, like showcasing the virtues of the African woman.

In the long run, Kokomansion will be proud of certain achievements. It will reveal to the whole wide world how Nigerian women desire to be herded, to be stereotyped, and seduced using hip-hop standards and gifts. The unrealistic show will also translate into greater possibilities for pimps, woman traffickers, and drug barons, especially as the economic meltdown lasts. And Nigeria should be better for it.

You and D'Banj, , , Dumbasses