There is a group of friends we enjoy listening to as they discuss headline news in the morning. Let us hear from them as they follow the news online and offline. We have missed them!

Benson: Oga Moses, Oga Musa, good morning, how are you today?

Moses: I am well, thank you Oga Benson. Joe, Steven, good morning

Musa: Good morning to you all

Joe: Good morning my brothers, hope you had a good night

Steven: Good morning everyone. May today be good for us all

Benson: Oga Musa, Ramadan Kareem

Musa: Thank you, my brother. Are you fasting too during this Lent period?

Benson: No, my church does not follow the Lent fasts, we have our own fasting schedule as determined by our General Overseer. It is Oga Moses who is observing Lent

Moses: Yes, Lent is a blessing at a time like this when food is so expensive. At least I will have salvation in return for my hunger

Musa: Fasting during this period is hard, do you know the price of fruits now?

(Everyone sighs)

Moses: (Picks up a newspaper) ‘Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan accuses Senate President Godswill Akpabio of Sexual Harassment’

Benson: These women have come again with their problems. What is ‘Sexual Harassment’, where is the evidence? 

Moses: What do you mean where is the evidence? Is she to provide a sex tape or what? You sound like those who will ask a rape victim if there were witnesses. 

Joe: Not that kind of evidence. Something like text messages, recordings, photographs of expensive gifts, things like that.

Steven: It does not work like that my brother. Powerful people who harass women are also smart. It is their word against hers. Many things can be interpreted as sexual harassment. An insensitive joke, tickling the palms of a woman you are shaking hands with, giving certain kinds of looks. There are things that add up, but sometimes they can be difficult to prove.

Moses: Maybe the Lady should have done what these Gen Z girls do these days. Go and greet the man in his office with a hidden recorder and film him in action!

Musa: Haba! You cannot expect a married woman to do that. If it backfires, they will say she went to seduce him. There is already a Senator calling her all kinds of names, he seems obsessed with her. He is the one who said she has six children for six husbands, which is not true. He is the one who was asking, ‘Is she the most beautiful woman in Nigeria’? He even called her ‘Chocolate colour’!

Benson: Chocolate colour? I thought chocolate was dark, the lady na half-Oyinbo now.

Joe: Don’t mind the man. That is what happens when you go through school but school does not go through you. No wonder Dr Oby told him to ‘Shut up’!

Steven: Mba o, that one no good. You cannot go to someone’s house and tell him to ‘shut up’. Dr Oby is a great woman, but she was wrong on that one. She should have apologised.

Musa: I agree with you, but two wrongs do not make a right. All the Senator should have said is ‘I cannot shut up in my own place of work’. Instead, he went and fired a machine gun at a pidgeon. Haba, what came out of his mouth was too much now, to Dr Oby of all people. People should calm down please, children are seeing all these things.

Joe: Na that one pain you. See this one – INEC Receives Petition to Recall Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan

Steven: Are these people okay? How can they want to recall someone who went to represent them, who has been doing well, and because she has problems with them there, they want to recall her. Have they invited her to tell them what happened?

Benson: They are not interested, they have been paid to carry out this assignment.

Moses: Yes, and they have given good value for the money they received. Senator Natasha got around 100,000 votes to become Senator. Now, 250,000 people want her recalled. Where were the missing 150,000 on election day?

Joe: Hmmmmm. Women! Na woman be woman enemy o!

Musa: Abi o! See the woman presenting the so-called petition, leading a group carrying big Ghana must go bags. They all look like armed-robbers in a police line-up.

Steven: Yes, they are thieves in the real sense of the word. Shameless people.

Benson: All this one na arrangee. They wan remove the woman, replace her with the White Lion.

Joe: The Devil is a liar!

Musa: Since when did the Devil speak the truth. They should all stop hiding behind a finger. If accusations of such a serious nature have been made, let it be investigated fairly and independently. You cannot be a judge over your own matter.

Moses: I think fast don begin de worry Musa! Abeg, let us just dey look.

Benson: State of Emergency Declared in Rivers State – Governor Suspended, Military Administrator Appointed

Moses: Chai!! How is this possible? Na so dem dey drive Governor comot?

Steven: Na God catch am. When he was advised to tread carefully and make peace with his Godfather, he was huffing and puffing. Yoruba people say, ‘eni ti o juni lo le juni nu’, ‘Person whey big pass you fit make you disappear’. Look at him now. He has no yam and no knife. Most of his people will now be bowing for the Military Administrator.

Joe: How is that a good thing? Must a Godfather be so unforgiving? So, because you introduced me to my wife, you have to show me how to make love to her?

Musa: It is a lesson that you have to be careful in this life. If you eat from a hand when you are hungry, you cannot turn around and call it leprous. Why did you not spit out the food? They will all be alright. 

Benson: They should remember, every Godfather has a God!

Joe: And many of us have no yams and no knives!

(They all laugh)

Moses: Delta State College of Nursing Sciences queries student for being rude to First Lady

Musa: Why are they concerning themselves with what students are singing? Do they have nothing better to do?

Steven: For me, that is not the point. We should stop encouraging rude behaviour, let us tell each other the truth. The First Lady did not need to go there, she went there as a mother. Whether they like it or not, she is the mother of the nation at this moment.

Benson: That does not mean they should force students to sing and call her mother. If they don’t want to sing, they don’t want to sing.

Joe: I agree with Steven. I know young people are angry and expect more from their leaders, but that does not mean we should forgo important values such as respect for elders and those in authority. We should not support this kind of behaviour, it is bad. Do those nurses not pray to be a Minister  or someone important one day? How will they feel if they are treated like that?

Moses: What happens when those in authority do not earn our respect? 

Steven: That is no excuse for them to be insulted. If you are offended, wait till the next election cycle and let them know how you feel. This is nothing to do with whose party is in power. We should not be rude to people who are visitors, it is a tradition upheld in almost every culture in the world.

Musa: Steven is right. The anger of the young people is understandable, but this emerging culture of disrespect is something that is not good for the moral fabric of our society?

Joe: Our society still get fabric? How many yards remain?

(They all laugh)

Musa: Talking about moral fabric, see this one: Popular online influencer refuses to return borrowed expensive jewelry set.

Moses: How? Why would you borrow something and refuse to return it?

Steven: The gold jewelry she borrowed allegedly costs U$10,000

Joe: Yeepa!!! US10,000? And she has refused to return it? How long ago was this?

Musa: July 2024. She is still telling stories to the owner of the jewelry 

Steven: The gold set has ‘allegedly’ been pawned

Musa: As their online crowd were still trying to help them look into the matter, it turns out that the ‘borrower’ is ‘allegedly’ a chronic debtor who defaults at every turn.

Joe: If she is such a risk, why do they keep lending her things? Why go around borrowing personal items?

Musa: It is all to keep up appearances. My car is bigger than yours. My house is in Ikoyi, not Iyana Ipaja. My wig is Brazilian, not Chinese. My lace is from Austria, not Korea. My Gold is real, not cosmetic.

Steven: My bottom is from London, not Turkey!

Moses: That is why they get themselves into ‘Lamba for Lambo’ situations

Musa: What is ‘Lamba for Lambo’?

Joe: Musa, you don’t want to know

Steven: I want to know!

Moses: When a big girl asks a superstar for a Lamborghini in exchange for a trip to Jerusalem

Steven: Is that where the Holy Grail is? Even if it is there, it is not worth a Lamborghini!

Musa: And you wonder why young people are angry? There are people unemployed, working for a pittance, living with so much insecurity, hungry and desperate, and there are people carrying around U$10,000 gold jewelry and buying Lamborghinis! This life no balance at all.

(Everyone laughs)

Pedro (Owner of the newspaper stand) Guys, well done o! How many are you buying today, abi na only free reading?

The guys (Laughing) No, we will buy

(They all buy one newspaper each)

Moses: I can read the paper on my phone, but I do not want to miss my morning gist with you all. See you next time

The guys: Yes o!

Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a Gender Specialist, Policy Advocate and Writer. She is the Founder of Abovewhispers.com, an online community for women. She can be reached at BAF@abovewhispers.com