NIGERIA as an entity is a great lamba. And so con artists treating Nigerians to fabulous stories isn’t remarkable. Nigerians expect to be lied to. A certain prophet who executes WWE fantasies while claiming to conduct deliverance sessions recently boasted that the little respite in the exchange rate arose from his spiritual intervention. However, things took a new turn last week when the founder of Madonna University, Okija, Anambra State, Reverend Father Emmanuel Edeh, stunned the world. Hear him: “Girls who enter the university as virgins graduate as virgins. Tell me any other university in the whole world that can maintain this. That is why people from London, America, England, Germany–when I meet them, they will say Father, we want to marry a girl who is a virgin. And the only way to do that is to come to Madonna University.”
O se! Lucifer, the father of lies, must be having himself a hearty laugh at this declaration! And so must the politicians and Yahoo Boys who have done nasty things with Madonna’s ladies. How did the Reverend Gentleman determine the virginity of Madonna’s ladies? Did he or the school check them out? Things would be quite rough for the cleric if the army of disgruntled men married to Madonna’s graduates lay hold on him! In any case, Nigerians would recall the popular comedian, Nedu Wazobia, documenting how his relationship crashed during his Madonna University days. Apparently, his girlfriend, a student of the same university, was a generous giver. Among the myriad of reactions, Bidemi Edward, a self-confessed alumnus of the institution, declared that she was no maiden when she graduated. Even if Edward had not volunteered this piece of intelligence, it would still have been impossible not to recoil at Father Edeh’s audacity. The issue he raises is not researchable. You see, in research methodology, one of the first things every scholar must bear in mind is that of non-researchable questions, by which we mean the kind of research that would not produce outcomes that are valid and replicable. It’s like asking who enjoys intimacy more between men and women.
Age and status confer the right to address sexual issues. But why would a man sworn to celibacy make prurient declarations? Well, intense sexual discourse has characterised priests sworn to celibacy for millennia. The sexual suppression of priests often finds expression in the harsh handling of perceived sinners and abiding interest in sexual matters. Priests have a swell time listening to fornicators and adulterers. If they have to teach reproduction in a biology class, they give graphic details. Of course, priests watch erotica and engage in self-drive. In Kunle Afolayan’s October 1st, we have this nasty utterance by the rapist Rev Father Dowling: “Aderopo, it’s time for your prayers.” Prayer of course means sexual violation.
In the November 23, 2012 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, the author, Desmond Zwar, recalls interviews with certain priests on handling sexual desire. One said: “I’m 45 and I do have sexual longings. What do I do about it? I acknowledge them first of all. I don’t pretend they’re not there. I don’t try and drive them away. I ask what my body is trying to tell me – my body is telling me I’m still a normal male. But there’s a message from God as well.” Of course, the proper thing is to dump the gown and marry–and clerics tend to be particularly adept at selecting beautiful women—but that’s beside the point.
A certain Father X who spoke to the Los Angeles Times’ Steve Lopes offers a pragmatic suggestion: “Celibacy ought to be an option, not a requirement, especially given the shortage of priests in the United States.” Questioned about an alleged relationship with a woman, Father X said: “There were several relationships. Four serious ones.” What a truthful priest! The following is from the June 14, 2002 edition of the Chicago Tribune: “Many priests either repress their sexuality and perilously arrest their psycho-sexual development at considerable risk to themselves and others, or they act out their sexuality in ways that are less forthright and honorable.” Exactly.
In exemplifying this scenario, I can find, on a literary plane, no better example than Father Drumont in Mongo Beti’s The poor Christ of Bomba. In this novel, the church confiscates people’s wives (to be) and confines them in the sixa, a building where premarital training in Christian wifehood is supposed to take place. The Father Superior, Rev Drumont, thinks he has civilized the ladies, but as he discovers towards the end of the novel, his entire religion has actually been a joke. For not only have the supposedly chaste ladies of the six been involved in orgies, they are actually STD-ridden. The report by Dr. Arnaud, the doctor mandated to examine the ladies, is damming: “I must tell you that as soon as I announced I was going to examine them one by one, fifteen of the girls ran away…I took the flight as evidence of their venereal condition…I was left with thirty seven…of these thirty seven, only eight are entirely clear…Among the remaining twenty-nine, there is general infection, though it varies in degree and in kind. To begin with, two of them have gonorrhea.” (p.201).
Like Father Drumont’s sixa, it would be quite unusual if Madonna University didn’t have its fair share of deviance. Universities pass through students. Indeed, certain lecturers literally lay a siege to students’ bodies. We inhabit a society in which even marriage is under threat and there are no boundaries: a newly wedded wife, Amina Abashe, has allegedly poured boiling water on her husband, Shehu Abdullahi, following a disagreement over her frequent phone calls with other men in Kontagora LGA of Niger State. Amina had actually attempted to stab her hubby to death. Former Chelsea star, Geremi Njitap, has just filed for divorce after finding out that his beloved twins, nurtured in 12 years of marriage, aren’t actually his.
Here’s a submission from a report titled “Stemming ‘hook up’ in varsities” and published in the October 28, 2021 edition of The Nation: “Gone are the days when young ladies hung out on highways, bars, and clubs, awaiting men to engage them sexually, either for money or other needs. Youths, especially students, now book appointments with the opposite sex, lecturers, politicians, and others in the comfort of their homes. Due to the increasing number of young women engaging in such practice, there has emerged a new job. ‘Hook up Managers’ scout for ladies and connect them with men on demand.”
The noble Reverend should wake up and smell the coffee.
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