Now my personal opinion on Bobrisky by Dr. Greg (a Rambo)

Every society has its established customs and standards of acceptable behavior. Their cultures and norms took decades and centuries to form, and once formed it takes decades and centuries for them to disappear.

The age of the internet and social media has brought the world closer and cultures of one society become easily enmeshed with the cultures of other societies. Just as religion was used to spread the cultures of the more powerful societies to the weaker societies, technology is today being used to spread the western cultures to the weaker countries of Africa. Indeed, the African cultures are being rapidly overwhelmed by the influence of foreign cultures.

Naturally, societies and cultures will try to resist external influences. But as history has repeatedly shown, the culture that is backed with superior military power, more advanced technology and greater economic power will prevail over the cultures of those of the weaker powers. It is not a matter of which culture is superior. There is nothing like superior or inferior culture. It is all a matter of power and effectiveness. The creation myth in the book of Genesis is not superior to the legend of Odudua, which is Yoruba equivalent of Genesis. But the Yorubas lacked the means of getting other cultures to accept their creation myth. In fact, they lacked the power to retain their own myth and save it from those who came with the Bible and Koran.

It is against that historical background that we must analyze the role of Bobrisky and the role of the Nigerian police and officials. You must accept that both are agents of history or the instruments through which the historical process of clashes of cultures manifest in this instance. To understand this, you must first stop being emotional about it. Understand that the individuals involved now are mere vessels through which something greater is taking place. When Bobrisky began to experiment with dressing like the opposite sex, he wouldn’t have known it would take him so far. And nobody in government knew he could become famous in the process.

The problem in culture clashes is that the new culture is always impatient. It comes in a little too early and the old culture lingers a little too long. Bobrisky is guilty of arriving too early on the stage and the Nigerian authorities are guilty of taking too long to accommodate the new. Bobrisky will fight with the weapon of his constitutional right to be different in his personal and private life. Your rights to dignity and privacy include your right to dress as you like. And the authority will come armed with the laws that are used to regulate culture, customs and morality.

The surprising thing, however, is that the Nigerian authorities have refused to identify the specific laws that Bobrisky violated. The closest they came to that was that his planned birthday party would amount to breach of peace because “those offended by his lifestyle might object to his party”. Quite a lame excuse! Why didn’t they offer to provide security to Bobrisky then? Instead of using clear legal basis to pursue, Bobrisky, they are inciting public outrage against Bobrisky. That means that the government is using mob and jungle justice against Bobrisky.

Did you get that? Did you try to think about that or did you just get emotional and react emotionally? Why didn’t they arrest him? Because they have no particular offence they could point to. Why did they not charge him to court? The same thing. So, they decided to mobilize a jungle justice squad and a culture and morality police force against him.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is not an offence for a man to dress like a woman and it is not an offence for a woman to dress like a man. (But the police occasionally arrest women in Abuja for dressing in trousers (ie like men) same allegation against Bobrisky). It is not a crime for a man to wear wig or for a lady to have low cut. None of those things done by Bobrisky is a crime. They tried to link him to homosexuality. But they have no evidence. All they have are innuendos. The police carefully avoided arresting Bobrisky because they knew he will sue them successfully.

By the way, why is the Nigerian police selective in law enforcement? Aren’t they supposed to enforce all the laws? What about the law against kidnapping? What about the laws against terrorism and banditry? They left those and chose the soft target. The same police that are so eager to protect your culture is not interested in protecting your lives? And you are falling for that, just like a zombie. Good luck.

Bobrisky should be commended for his courage in risking public outrage to express himself differently. He is also a talented entertainer. We just hope his sense of timing would not get him into more trouble.