Please, if you can get this across to Chimamnda Ngozi Adichie, do so…

Tell her, I’ve itemised the following issues which continue to bedevil the girl child and womenfolk in her home country Nigeria.

Kindly inform her, that she will be doing humanity a very big favour and her soul a bigger favour if she ever takes up either of these.

But, if she can’t, would not, then, she should remain silent and write. Clearly, I’ve observed that her pen is smarter than her mouth!

Tell her:

1. That in many, many parts of Nigeria, Female Instruments Mutilation is still ongoing.

2. That 75% of girls in the north whether from poor or rich homes are not enrolled for formal education.

3. Tell her that the evil of property dispossession and deprivation is still prominent in countless parts of Igbo, Efik, Anang, Ibibio lands. Including her own state. That widows need her.

4. That in the universities and other tertiary institutions in her country, female students have assumed the status of “Highly Endangered Species” in the war against sexual harassment.

5. That Teenage pregnancy is now at an all time high in many parts of South-Southern Nigeria. This is informed by hunger, poverty, lack of sex education, formal education etc.

6. That slavery into marriage of the teenage girl child is rife in parts of Cross River, Adamawa, Kebbi, Zamfara etc.

Tell her these and many more. That they are the issues which set our souls burning and fill our eyes with water. Tell her it isn’t enough to sit with a cup of creamed coffee, croissant and air-conditioning environ 13 hours flight away from her country and talk of trivial and frivolous issues.

Tell Ngo baby, that life consists of genuine service to humanity than mere lexical or verbal registrations to perpetuate popularity and bid in futility to reordain conventions that cannot be reordained.

Tell Daa Ngozi.
Tell Aunty Chi.
Tell aunty Ngo, to be proactive. Not pro loquacious!

If she asks who has sent this message, tell her it’s a Poet who will look her eye to eye and call her “Female Writer”

Tell her it’s a countryman who hasn’t lost his humanity to the euphoria of popularity and senselessness of either male chauvinism or feminism.



Chisom Anokwu writes from Lagos

READ MORE HERE:


https://fullgist24.com/2018/08/please-you-can-get-this-across-chimamnda-ngozi-adichie.html