The Priscilla Ojo-Juma Jux wedding jamboree

 Even when you have long concluded that this generation is mad, certain events happen that get you stupefied by the level of insanity. One of such is encapsulated in a news item this week proclaiming that “popular Nigerian brand influencer, Priscilla Ajoke Ojo, and her Tanzanian singer lover, Juma Jux, have ended their months-long wedding celebration with a grand finale in Tanzania.” Said the report in question: “The final leg of their love-filled festivities took place on Wednesday, marking the official close of their three-part wedding journey that began earlier this year in February.’ The couple had started their wedding journey with “a quiet family introduction in Tanzania”, and then came a civil ceremony in Lagos on Valentine’s Day that had Nollywood and other celebrities falling over themselves.

Then came another event called a wedding, at which Priscilla, daughter of Nollywood actress Iyabo Ojo, wedded like a princess, with the high and mighty, from governors to traditional rulers, present. That must have been in April. For weeks, news of the event dubbed “wedding of the year” by reason of the sheer display of affluence, which I admit to not watching, was literally everywhere. But then it emerged that yet another wedding was to take place in Tanzania, where the wedding festivities all began. And so our source story concluded: “As the couple closed their wedding chapter in Juma’s hometown, many say their union is a symbol of unity between Nigeria and Tanzania.” This is utterly ridiculous.

To be sure, a deep poverty of intellect lies at the heart of this obscene display. I doubt that this Juma jux and his wife actually have steady jobs that require rigour and presence. I am aware, of course, that in the community called Nollywood, weddings are an avenue for feuding bimbos to “pepper” (gain mental leverage/victory over) their adversaries. Celebrity weddings do more than titillate a poverty-stricken crowd; they also stamp unrealistic expectations in the mentality of the youth, and so it’s no surprise to see certain ladies declaring, in a country where the minimum wage is N70,000, that any man who won’t spend N50 million on a wedding should not bother to approach them for a relationship. That’s by the way.

Of course, big people stage lavish weddings. Ask Fatima, daughter of Aliko Dangote, and her husband Jamil Abubakar. Their wedding was a three-day affair in Kano, Abuja and Lagos. The wedding of Folorunsho Alakija’s son reportedly cost some £5m (N2.4bn); that of ex-President Ibrahim Babangida’s daughter featured many private jets, as did that of the daughter of former President Goodluck Jonathan, an occasion where guests reportedly received gold-plated iPhones. Khadija Uzhakhova and Said Gutseriev’s wedding held in Moscow cost $1 billion, and Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant spent nothing less than $600 million on their seven-month-long celebration that included private performances by Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and Katy Perry. You remember, of course, that Prince (now King) Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding cost British taxpayers some $48 million. Sometimes these celebrity marriages don’t last and at other times they do, but that’s not my point here. My point is that people that engage in lavish, month-long weddings have other people slaving for them in plantations.

The Yoruba, knowing the dangers that ostentation poses, say that when your yam gets cooked, you cover it with your hands while eating it. Nollywood can’t do without show-off. How on earth is anyone staging a semester-long wedding? No good woman encourages a man to waste money.  Think about it: pregnancy itself is 9 months, and then someone spends 7 months on a wedding? Like the Yoruba say, if you spend 20 years learning madness, when are you going to run stark naked into the market? Any woman who allows, encourages or exults in her daughter staging multiple weddings is stark, raving something. It shows a life ruled by ego, and lacking discipline. Listen: no youth that means to have a great future turns a wedding into a jamboree. If you have a business, say a restaurant, to run, just how can you be staging weddings for five months? Your workers will finish the business, playing ping-pong with your money! 

How do you go to different countries attending the same wedding? Is it an excursion or a vacation? If my relation is marrying in London, I suppose I can head straight to London, but he would never dare to tell me there is still another party in Paris! How can you be collecting different visas because of a wedding? Are you that jobless? I work in a newspaper. We work like horses and there is no editor in this country that does not have health challenges arising from the job, so how do we leave the job, attending the same wedding in different countries? Is it that we will not submit the news, tourism, business pages, etc? Who will now plan the front page?

If you are selling foodstuff and customers don’t see you for months, only to be told that you are busy getting married, you know you have lost that business. Think about it: if you are a lawyer, can you be ‘marrying’ for four months? That would be repugnant and contrary to common sense; in fact, illegal. If Juma Jux or whatever they call him belongs to a football club, the owners would have declared him surplus to requirements and terminated his contract long ago. That is an unserious person and if he is a soldier, he would no doubt have faced a court martial. In my days as a young Man O’ War officer, a character like that would not have lasted for five minutes on my parade. He is a very idle person.

When people spend months displaying affluence in this manner, they are either engaging in money laundering or preparing the ground for future poverty. Forget about all the romantic, you-are-my-African-queen nonsense. They say that this boy is a musician but now that I think of it, I doubt that he is a serious musician. Won’t he practise and rehearse? When you are ‘doing a wedding’ for six months, who will hire you to sing for them? Will your rivals not upstage you? Seriously, I think that a couple engaging in such show-offs lack parents who can offer them quality advice. Besides, in a world in which millions of people literally starve, how do you engage in such extravagant displays of affluence? If your wedding takes 10 months, how many months will your burial take when you die?

It is a terrible thing to throw wealth in people’s faces. It’s demonic and there’s something utterly narcissistic about it. How can a sensible (wo)man spend months marrying? Are they that jobless? Anyone staging a semester-long wedding has questions to answer.

READ ALSO: How I met my wife, Priscilla Ojo – Tanzanian singer, Juma Jux