Odolaye Aremu

Teni Makanaki is trending. I got a bit curious like every other reasonable person and decided to investigate the antecedent of the brouhaha.

Then I encountered a video of her in some oversized pantsuit at a National shindig. She rocked a pair of tinted, orange retro shades. She wore a pair of white chunky sneakers – a fashion trend at the present time. I own a pair myself. For a girl, Teni walks awkwardly like a tomboy. And for her fluid razzmatazz on songs or on records and her electric gregariousness on musical videos, I saw a girl not too alive in such official crowd. She may be a shy one too. But most importantly she had no clue.

Sometimes, it so happens that the liveliest one on TV, in real life -could be the shyest, most awkward one.

She continue on to walk up to Dakudaji in the designated white circle, and spun around to hold her ‘package’ together with Dakudaji for a photo-op. The photo-op was over in less than a second, then she briskly disengaged from that invincible entanglement, and simply moved the fuck on in that tomboyish silliness.

And in that instant Dakudaji seemingly caught a pitiful image of a long-suffering lover boy, unceremoniously abandoned at the dance floor. He stood dead in the middle of that white circle, like a giant bullet in a large target circle in a shooting range. His forlorn posture was for the ages. His supporters angrily read meanings to the moment – as if Makanaki used the award (purportedly granted posthumously to the memory of her father) – to make a political and rebellious statement.

I truthfully wouldn’t heap a load of blame on Teni. I saw nothing particularly wrong with her behavior but with our national culture of unpreparedness and lack of etiquette. I thought we used to have at one time in the past – such office within the Executive arm of govt?

Now what stops the Federal Govt in preparing recipients of National awards in the appropriate ways to appear before the President to accept such honors several weeks, months before the event?

I read it somewhere, several years ago that before the office of the late Queen Of England bestow Knighthoods or others alike upon recipients, they were usually subjected to weeks, if not months of proper presentations, conduct, formalities and etiquettes of appearing before the Queen.

Let’s stop coloring every individual situations with nonsensical vituperations and let’s tell ourselves the truth. What I saw was not individual rudeness but another wholesome display of the Nigerian anyhowness. And it is a worrisome pandemic!

Àwọn wèrè o kuku pàpà bumi ni…