Charles Novia on Tiwa's Savage's Sexy Music Video: "In Nigeria,a married woman should evoke respect for values"

 

Yesterday, Charles Novia gave his blunt opinion on Tiwa's "Controversial Wanted Video". He is not backing down and he has elaborated  in his new article published on his website 

My tweets on Tiwa’s new video were my personal opinions. And most times, my personal thoughts could be the voice of a silent, quivering majority or a hemlock to the dense, obtuse and dim-witted minority.

The latter best describes proponents of the video who have been screaming to high heavens that there is nothing wrong with the video. Indeed, there is nothing wrong go them. How can anything be wrong to those set of people? Those kind of people who dress up and go to Church on Sundays and come out all holier-than-thou but have selective obedience to the teachings of their faith? Those kind of people, a new and lost generation mostly, who were born into a world of seamless and acceptable sexual laxities and swallow anything the mainstream American pop media spit out at them without even thinking for themselves?

Truth be told, as we all know, Nigeria is now very sick. It is not only the politicians and the militicians who are sick. The whole bloody citizenry is sick. I am in my early forties. I come from a generation grappling with the last vestiges of a sane and moral coda in a world fast disintegrating into factions of lewdness and psychophancy. My generation seems to be overawed by what is happening in today’s cultural dysfunctionality. Everyone just seem to look away. Hell no! Those of us who can speak out must speak out. I chose to. Not because I am holier than the other person but because there are STILL real and EXTANT moral rules in the world we live in today which must be left to stay for the world those I call the opposites try to rebuild.

If my voice will be the loudest and the last from that generation, then it will be. And I won’t back down in the face of impunity. What I say and will continue to say is a legacy of logic and thought I leave for the sane few and a pricking of dead conscience for the insane many.

And so, I must talk. I must ventilate. I must critique. Because someone has to do it. I do it not for pecuniary gains or for fame; I don’t need those. I have built a brand and body of work over the years which vindicates me. I critique because you don’t say it enough, so I have to say it more.
The Nigeria you dream about, that utopian Nigeria cannot come to pass if you trample all you hold sacred. Morality is an appendage of culture in progressive societies. Once that moral fibre is cut off, then your society goes to the dogs. A new society cannot be built without a cultural revolution. A change of the mindset. A mental re-orientation. Please someone should go and study China and how their cultural revolution has made them the world’s largest economy and the biggest world power presently or in a couple of years. Countries like China eschewed Western cultural imperialism and built their country on values peculiar and modelled to shape their future.

 What cultural values are we building? Nay, what moral values? Yes, some may argue that some ignominy abound in Nollywood as well. It does. And my voice is at the lowest decibel there when it does.

Artistes in Nigeria are the last bastion of hope in the skewed society. The power of our art in music and movies makes them the first line of believable role models in Nigeria. With music and movies which stir hearts and moves souls to action, the artiste is the person whom the common man and the starry-eyed kids are likely to believe in. Not the politicians. That is the power of tart.When you misuse those powers for immoral proclivities, then you have killed the moral future of millions of kids and conscionable people who look up to you. You have created a dysfunctional moral society in one fell swoop through your visual adventurism.

But alas! In Nigeria, most artistes do not care about that. It’s all lip service.

A woman marries and the next thing she is pushing a new visual sexual agenda for the kids and her supporters are egging her on by saying it’s her body or using a silly mantra that her husband likes it like that. The one which makes me chuckle is when some say she is an entertainer and her short-of-strip-dancing antics in the new video is all about entertaining you.

Tufiakwa!

I live in Africa. I am a Nigerian and last time I checked, my country still has laws against that. I will not subscribe to an infidel agenda even if any other person does. A married woman, no matter the career path she choses, in this part of the world should evoke respect and admiration for sterling values. Does that video evoke anything short of wanton abandon and wagging fingers? You decide.

But in these days of  anomie ,nothing really surprises me anymore.
What would really surprise me wears a hat. A long one.