What’s in an appearance?

William Shakespeare asked – what’s in a name, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Shakespeare shares the same initials with Kongi, but he is not a Naija and evidently, his sense of smell exposes a deep problem with the olfactory gland. So when Pastor Enoch Adeboye was heard giving new dress […]

William Shakespeare asked – what’s in a name, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Shakespeare shares the same initials with Kongi, but he is not a Naija and evidently, his sense of smell exposes a deep problem with the olfactory gland. So when Pastor Enoch Adeboye was heard giving new dress codes to his subordinates the laity should take Mama Peace’s advice and keep quiet. But some social media meddlesome interlopers went to town castigating the holy man and accusing him of ignoring the artistic impression of Jesus as depicted in religious calendars and Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of Christ.
Razor-shorn Adeboye hates beards as much as he hates terror and commands his pastors to emulate his dress sense even if its frozen in 1942. He commands his ‘daughters’ not to date jobless Joneses and orders his ‘sons’ not to wife any diva who fails her cookery by the book classes or prayer one hour class. If you’re thinking of attending the next edition of the Redemption Camp, visit your barber or in the alternative, pick an exception note from angel Gabriel – the GO has spoken!
Noted for his contrasting simplicity, compared to the bling-bling gods of men on the pulpit, Adeboye’s style in new shoots is a marked improvement and if his cheeks are scrawny, you dare not say so, except you’re Folu Adeboye. Such mistakes pitches you against heaven licensed prayer warriors with 90 days of dry fasting on their side. It’s none of my business but with these conditions, there may be a harvest of spinsters and bachelors stranded on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
Since I became dateable till now, there has not been a silver lining to the fog that beclouded my marital prospects. You still need a magnifying glass to see it. My wife is a great cook and would win an Olympic prayer session but I wouldn’t have married her for that. As a bachelor, I didn’t starve! It’s been a long time since I spotted an afro or dreadlocks. I am on that road where God is your barber and nature compensates alopecia with sprinkles of whites on your facial hair. I love me the transition and as elder JA Bright used to say my hair would not dye before me!
So, why did an ecclesiastical order generate so many furores on social media? Because it is where every sissy is a goliath behind the screen. Evidently, there has been a change in the law of sartorial elegance since Jesus walked among men and God does not do a thing except he first reveals it to his prophet. Excuse my Latin maxim – vox pastoral, vox dei.
Sharia law was the dividing line in Lugard’s contraption, but one bearded fogey made a political re-enactment of it in Zamfara, and then left the hallowed virgins of that state for an Egyptian bride. In the debate that followed, some southern governors threatened to declare a theocratic regime in retaliation! One religion obligates its adherents to pray five times daily, and to balance the equation; others spend government time in parking lots disturbing heaven’s quiet. In our silent religious wars, there’s usually a path where minds meet and the Naira is common denominator – those in doubt can switch on to the drama between Jubrin, a Muslim as he tackles Dogara, a Christian for the value of the padding.
Times, they are a changing! In post-colonial years, political heavyweights dropped their slave names in favour of meaningful local ones. Five decades later our children Anglicize or Arabize theirs. Some names have been miswritten calling them is as difficult as breaking a hacker’s code. Let’s hope the registrar of heaven uses DNA mapping to prevent heaven bound names being switched for hell or vice versa.
Let us thank God who, in his infinite mercies grants us side distractions in national tragi-comedies that are worth the price of the main show. We were watching the APC refereed circus in the House of Rebels now that Champagne Dino has mended fences with the wife of his leader. Congratulations Naija, Sai Mama has defied first wife haters by going to America. Imagine the modesty that makes a woman whose husband has command of eleven presidential jets to ride with the hoi polloi on a commercial flight to Washington.
But like all African dramas, in which audiences are participants, it is not Sai Mama’s modesty that interests the Naija. It is also not her infectious smile. It is unlikely to be the well-crafted speech set to beat Melania Dumb’s plagiarism of Michele’s plagiarized script, no it would be -her dressing.
There are puritans who pay no attention to the jaw dropping landing skirt suit or the resplendent lace; they would rather have Sai Mama defy Donald Dumb’s dream of an America where Muslims cannot thread by wearing the most concealing burqa. To wailers, her N40 million-hand bag breaks a record in economic doublespeak. It is distractions like this that make me conclude that if Shakespeare had lived here, he would have forgotten the rose and ponder – what’s in an appearance!