After the jokes, memes, comedy skits, and satire about Ms Bianca Ojukwu slapping the former first lady of Anambra State, Ebele Obiano, had settled, it dawns on you how much abuse is endemic to our Nigerian societies and forms a part of our socialisation processes. To be born a Nigerian is to be thrust into a daily war where a weapon of warfare is all shades of abuse. Growing up Nigerian is akin to surviving a war front—you are dodging one incidence of abuse or the other while learning to inflict as much of it as possible. Eventually, we become abuse magnets, lives pockmarked with spontaneous and elaborately planned abuses.
Ojukwu’s slap resounded across the whole place because such an action was incongruous to her social status and, of course, the receiver was a woman in power whom—at least judging from all the comments that attended the public tiff—everyone seems to hate. From the video of the incident that later surfaced, the manner Obiano also stood up to go confront Ojukwu did not endear her to anyone either and that explains why many people did not care she got slapped. Otherwise, the propensity to experience impulsive violence is banal in Nigeria. In a society full of stressed people, abuse cannot but be endemic. We are constantly angry and seeking ways to vent out frustrations. For some people, lashing out at others is how they deflect their own dehumanisation and momentarily experience some cheap thrill of power.
Virtually anyone can be a victim of such…
