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BB Naija and erosion of our social values

By Afis Oladosu
09 February 2018   |   4:22 am
“Curses were pronounced on those among the Children of Israel who rejected Faith, by the tongue of David and of Jesus the son of Mary: because they disobeyed and persisted...

“Curses were pronounced on those among the Children of Israel who rejected Faith, by the tongue of David and of Jesus the son of Mary: because they disobeyed and persisted in excesses; They did not prevent one another from committing sins nor would they themselves stay away from them. Evil was what they had done (Quran 5: 78-79)

It was a couple of days ago when a message appeared on my decoder. It was from DSTB. Subscribers were put on notice that in a matter of days, their popular reality TV show would soon begin another series of programming for the ‘pleasure’ of the viewers. The BB Naija is a reality show so I learnt; it is conceived to ‘image’ the ‘reality’ of our lives to us as humans in more ways than we could ever imagine.

But before that message and long before the BBA became, in my estimation, another menace in the widening-gulf of immorality into which our society has descended, I had thought I was completely apprised of where we were as a society. I thought I knew that corruption had become the order of the day. I thought I knew that nowadays some women, young and old, are getting tired of being women and that where they chose to remain as women, sexual incontinence had become commonplace. I thought I knew that some women have redefined their identities; they have taken pleasure in their sexual objectification; that such women derive pleasure and happiness in being seen as tools of advertisement, in being seen as sexual playthings. I thought I knew that the new idols in town being worshipped by women are not statues anymore; rather the new idols in our cities today are women’s bodies and women are their main worshippers!

Brethren, I had thought that my reading is correct – that the insuperable odour of social hara-kiri that we witness on a daily basis is not delimited to the women folk only. I thought I was right to suggest that it was not only women who had descended into the abyss of Jahiliyyah; the abyss of ignorance. Rather there are men in our society presently who are tired of being men; men on their way to becoming women; men who are no longer men. These are men who constantly sought to be penetrated like women. These are men who lust after their own gender.

Dear sister, I thought I was right before that the moral abyss into which we have descended could be delimited to those iniquitous remits, crevices and undergrounds where fornication and adultery take place. I thought it is true that there are many marriageable ladies in our neighbourhood who have no suitors; that there are many young men who cannot afford the wedding the ring. I equally know that despite these inhibitions and challenges, men would always wanted to be men; women would always wanted to be women, particularly those who are, in American parlance, “straight”. Thus whenever marriage becomes impossible, extra-marital affairs become, for the faithless, excusable; whenever the society makes the lawful unlawful, that which is unlawful, for the spiritually vacuous, becomes lawful.

Now knowledge of the past, the experience of those who came before us, the people of Prophet Lut, Prophet Yunus and Prophet Salih (upon them be peace), teaches me that commission of sins may actually occasion lesser punishments than the one which are usually given to societies where such perversion of the divine will take place. In other words, the Quran teaches us that the most atrocious sin people may commit is for them to see evil and keep silent about it. Whenever a society feigns ignorance of the sins being committed by the evil ones within it, in our societies, then the punishment that would be meted out to them by the Almighty may be more damning than the ones that would be given to perpetrators of sins.

The above appears to be the story of most parents nowadays in our cities and towns. This is particularly true of the so-called elites of all religious persuasions. I refer to parents who see their daughters in gowns and garments which leave little or nothing to imagination and yet shrug it off; parents who watch their boys go out of their homes with ear rings, sagging trousers and yet offer no voice of rebuttal, rebuke or censure.

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