Well, I have tagged them on Twitter. I just decided to bring my view here too for the good people of Nairaland.


I came across a disturbing rather than informing tweet about a certain self-acclaimed first woman in Nigeria to be a mechanic. If Sandra Aguebor is the first Nigerian woman mechanic, it doesn’t put food on my table. If she’s not, it doesn’t either. However, it’s a welcoming news that women are looking into territories carved for men.

That being said, the title of the post goes thus: Nigeria’s first female mechanic provides a way out of prostitution for Nigerian women. Many people who reacted with disgust didn’t open the link to read the context in which the post was written. The self-acclaimed first female mechanic has been training women who were former sex workers and victims of sex/child trafficking in Benin. That is the context.

Firstly, as quoted by Aljazeera, Sandra said, “…My Nigeria is the first to produce first woman mechanics in Africa…” Sandra mentioned ‘Africa’. Did Aljazeera know of any other women/woman mechanic in any other place in Africa that made them to limit what she said to ‘Nigeria’ in their tweet? If Aljazeera English knows of any other woman mechanic in Africa, how can they be sure she’s the first in Nigeria? Well, that is not an issue. I can also claim I’m the first man to design a detachable roof but my designs and ideas were stolen by a rich mogul. Nobody is going to verify.

Secondly, Sandra works with former sex workers and turns to them to great women. It is really commendable, however, if the reporter of her news is naïve, should the editor too be? I am sure the editor knows the power of semantics and pragmatics. If not, I am recommending a semantics and pragmatics lesson for the editor. There are ways you construct some words to mean a thing but in the process those words may mean a thousand things to listeners and readers. It is the job of the writer to fine tune his/her words to mean what he/she actually means. From my perspective, the editor is an appalling, awful, dreadful, rotten, abysmal, horrendous and calculative, mischievous individual who knows the controversy the title would generate yet went ahead to approve it for posting. This is the same way Reuters said Ebola was ravaging West Africa in 2014. I had to demand Reuters to reconstruct the tweet to state the exact places Ebola was ravaging. I’m appalled by the way foreign media puts news forward about Africa. It is a calculated effort to dent the image of Africa. I have a clip titled ‘Children of Africa’ on my laptop. These kids are kids from extremely impoverished parts of Kenya, wearing tattered clothes and malnourished; attending bamboo schools. You can imagine this imagery and utterly false image of African children.

Dear, Aljazeera, Nigerian women are successful women through decent means of livelihoods. We have teachers, nurses, engineers (which makes me question Aljazeera and their kangaroo statement about a recent individual claiming to be first), bloggers, lawyers, lecturers, administrators and many more. The direct interpretation of the tweet is that ALL NIGERIAN WOMEN ARE PROSTITUTES. If Aljazeera with its standard can put forward such tweet, it’s a disgrace to their identity and a sign of decline in quality. Now that Aljazeera English has our attention, it will be of a professional etiquette to delete, reconstruct the tweet and using Twitter’s 140 characters to apologise for this disgusting rather than informing tweet.

Abeg abeg abeg!

You guys should take a chill pill!! Most Nigerians just like follow follow, I'm certain most of those who reacted to the tweet from aljazeera didn't even bother to read the write up!

The woman trains former sex workers, that's just what it means! Must you guys include pettiness to everything?!

Of course we know not all Nigerian women are prostitutes, read the story, commend the woman and move on! Nigerian women have careers, successful! from Alakija to linda to the finance minister!

It is just a frigging article!