‘Men are misunderstood, they need help’
Why did you decide to focus on men? Growing up, I had an absentee father who was there but not there. Around 1994 I had this idea to set up a network that will help men become responsible and understand issues of women and children. It has taken me quite a while to do this; […]
Why did you decide to focus on men?
Growing up, I had an absentee father who was there but not there. Around 1994 I had this idea to set up a network that will help men become responsible and understand issues of women and children. It has taken me quite a while to do this; to learn, grow and follow that passion. I love to sit down with men and have a conversation. In the course of our discussions we have redefined the meaning of manhood and we were able to see that men have issues which are not addressed. Through those conversations, I have discovered that men are highly misunderstood; men are not really formally and informally trained, and are victims of societal expectations.
There are lots of things wrong and we need help. Men would literally sit in front of me, break down and cry and tell me how they really feel. There are issues they cannot share or tell their wives or children. Men really need someone to sit down with and help them work through that process of rediscovering themselves, redefining what manhood should be, being able to take life one day at a time. We need to build communities around them that offer support.
Men are largely misunderstood, they are asking for help globally and they are not really getting it, because there is a perception that we don’t have emotions or needs, we don’t deserve to be helped. Men are perceived as wicked people without knowing what they do was for some reason.
We are not saying what they do is right, we are just saying whichever way a man acts, something is informing it. Get to the root of what is informing his behaviour, you will get to know why he is behaving that way. If he can change the information he has previously, you probably will get a different reaction.
What would you say is responsible for realities or perceptions about men?
I think what’s responsible is the fact that men don’t talk. Men hardly share their emotions, so people feel since he’s not talking, he must be okay. What’s happening is they have not created the environment that allows him to talk. If you create that environment, he will talk. Another issue is the way we have socialised boys this side of the world; men don’t have the maturity to be able to string their words together. When you tell children-a boy-not to cry, not to show emotions, you have shut down a process that would have allowed him to be able to learn how to express himself, talk; relate, listen. If you tell him at an age that he can’t show emotion, you lock up something in him. When he’s hurting or in pain, he can’t talk. It is not that he can’t feel pain; he just doesn’t express it, because that’s what he’s been told from a young age. The misconception is that he is okay or he is just being wicked. The challenge is that he can’t talk, even when he needs to.
How has this affected the menfolk in the society?
When you can’t share your emotions, what you would do is look for freedom in things that give you some form of release, a breather. That’s why you would find a lot of men would drink, use drugs, womanise, because they are looking for a release; there’s so much bottled up. What is bottled up is not going away but there is no space for it to find expression, so they indulge in substance abuse and all that to be able to find release. The challenge is that it just hurts you more. Most times, these things do more harm to your body and to your mind. There are lots of negatives – you begin to have men who start to have health issues-hypertension, cancer, drug abuse, STIs from multiple sexual partners – the system shuts down, they drop dead. They are not solving the problem, they are getting more because they don’t know the way out.
Is society unknowingly breeding men who will become a problem, misfits?
Society is informally breeding men who would grow to be unstable, not have successful relationships, men who would eventually snap or become perpetrators on intimate-partner violence. Society is not saying this is what we are doing, but by action of culture, tradition, we are actually building men who would have these issues. There’s fire on the mountain and we are not running.
What was your perception of the ‘Being a Man in Nigeria’ report?
It is like a workbook. I go to it time and time again to get facts, information, to get into the minds of men and women too. If you understand how somebody thinks, then you understand where they are going. What I see is the fact that because we have not created an environment where men can be taken through the process of manhood, they have a situation where men are just basically living from one stereotype to the other. We have very rigid stereotypes-very unrealistic expectations of manhood and the realities of what’s on ground. The expectations and realities are not the same thing, and the reinforcement of tradition, religion and culture makes things a lot of worse.
What do you think should be done to correct this anomaly in Nigeria?
I think we need to understand that we have a national emergency in our hands. I don’t think we have gotten to that point where we realise that men not raised properly as men, with the right values and orientation, are one of the major challenges we have in Nigeria. Men are natural leaders and if we are leading in so many sectors and we have mindsets that don’t allow us to move forward, that are hurting us, or don’t allow women to find expression or creating situation where there is a lot of stigma, it shows us that for us to be able to fix this country, we need to fix the men.
You will find men in larger numbers in perpetrating violence and corruption, and it is because of the orientation they have. In almost every vice, men are 70 to 80% of the people you will find guilty. What does that mean? We need to go back and reconfigure how men think, see themselves and how they are. Once you begin to do this, then you begin to heal the nation, because he marries with a better mindset, fathers, relates with other people, and is able to have a relationship with the woman (his wife or other women); you begin to find development, progress healing.