Moses:
Masculinity is difficult to translate and convert to local idioms. I have no Yoruba word for it, other than the generic okunrin. Tons of qualifiers follow, and in your usage, the more masculine you are, the more they double or triple the okunrin as in:
Okunrin meji
Okunrin mefa
Our biggest warlord, Adedibu, at the height of his power, was described as
Half the city of Ibadan
One man!
And women qualify as well:
He-like
Obinrin bi okunrin
At the lowest end of the spectrum is a man who cannot feed his wife and children and who, in desperation, knows the concubine of his wife. People actually know the concubines of their wives!!
Alas! concubinage, as in keeping mistresses, is not treated as negative as literature tends to portray it. In Ibadan where I come from, we, in our being okunrin, don't keep mistresses: we only have fiancé!!!
TF
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 2:38 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Nigerian Masculinity from Murtala to Buhari
Oga Falola,
Interesting! So I guess Babangida is in. Not only is he in, going by your postulation, he may even be a better representative of Nigerian manhood than Murtala, Idiagbon, and Abacha.
Question: Is there a counterbalancing narrative of masculinity in Yoruba society that celebrates the opposites of cunningness--reliability, firmness, loyalty, principled predictability, etc?
On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 1:08 PM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Moses:
Nigerian masculine discourse says that a "real man" should keep his word and declare an unflinching position on any issue
TF's response: This goes against the culture of politics in most societies. For instance, the name given to the Yoruba is around "cunning". A popular saying
Those with double speech live in Ibadan
Those with four live at Oyo
If you do not have 18 ways of saying one thing
You cannot live in the city of Ilorin
You cannot know what an Oyo means in a sentence!
Same ideas in Fulani, Wolof. Etc. culture.
I think the problem in the analysis is the very concept itself, translated to local uses and idioms, it also means laziness, cowardice, poverty, etc.
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2023 at 12:58 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Nigerian Masculinity from Murtala to BuhariGloria,
I too love the concept of "political masculinity" and that is precisely what I was trying to delineate. The term captures the nexus of political leadership styles, as you call it, and popular narratives of masculinity.
How do we read evolving popular masculine imaginaries from the different leadership styles of Nigerian leaders? What types of popular narratives of masculinity are produced to approximate how those leadership styles project and represent a particular performance of masculinity? And how do leaders' styles, gestures, and the spoken and unspoken cues they give off normalize, popularize, and change notions of masculine honor, masculine pride, masculine integrity, masculine self-fashioning?
These are the questions I sought to raise and tentatively tackle in my experiential reflection.
Is there a connection between the leadership styles in question and the popular tropes of masculinity that are attached to or read into them? Sometimes there is, but sometimes the connection is hard to see and the masculine constructs radically contradict the facts of the leader's conducts and utterances or are at best poor, sensationalized caricatures of the leader's actual persona. But that in itself is quite interesting to me--the fact that Nigerian boys and men imagine and refract their masculinity through actual or fictive invocations of a leader's alleged repertoire.
As I indicated, this is something that I myself experienced growing up in Nigeria. Not all of these masculine idioms emanated from political leaders or political arenas. As I discussed in the essay, some of our representative masculine enactments came from Hollywood movies.
Also, not all Nigerian leaders have had narratives of admirable and exemplary masculinity woven around their leadership style. You'll notice that I omitted Babangida from my list. As I told a member of this list who reached out to me privately about the essay, I couldn't think of or remember any public discourse connecting Babangida's "leadership style" or public persona to masculine idioms. All I remember is his ubiquitous association with cunningness, cameleonic shiftiness, and Maradonic deceptiveness. These qualities, as I remember, were not explicitly framed in masculine terms or understood as masculine attributes. And they were not advanced as qualities to be emulated but rather as traits to be avoided.
Babangida was understood to be too shifty and unreliable to "be a man." While there is virtue, in the Nigerian masculine imagination, in being mysterious, unapproachable, and a bit inscrutable, the same code of manhood also says that a man should be resolute, firm, and tethered to clear principles that guide his conduct. Babangida was considered too unprincipled, too ambivalent, and too much of a deliberate Machiavellian waffler.
Nigerian masculine discourse says that a "real man" should keep his word and declare an unflinching position on any issue, but popular narratives of Babangida portray him as a man who could not be trusted, whose word was not his bond but a weapon in his vast arsenal of deception. He was portrayed as not being loyal to anything or anyone, whereas Nigerian discourses of masculinity put much stock in a man being loyal to some core principles and to the ethos of friendship and shared masculine experience.
But like I indicated, this essay was purely a fleeting experiential reflection, based on what I observed and heard growing up and coming of age in Nigeria. It's not a product of any prolonged or systematic reflection or research. Therefore, it's possible that I'm reading too much into what you call "leadership styles" or that my extrapolations on how the cited leaders' styles informed corresponding and non-corresponding popular discourses of masculinity is a stretch.
Perhaps someone needs to take this reflection in a more rigorous, systematic, and theoretical direction. My hypotheses and analytical extrapolations can be tested, and I volunteer to be one of the "informants" and interlocutors for a scholar/researcher who undertakes this task.
On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 10:17 AM Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com> wrote:
"Political masculinity!"
Nice idea.
On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 08:16 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Frankly speaking, this discourse by
Moses Ochonu seems to fit more
accurately in a discussion on
leadership styles than masculinity.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2023 4:23 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Nigerian Masculinity from Murtala to Buhari
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Re . Consider the Julius Caesar of fiction, Mark Antony.s eulogy concluding with
"His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!""
is of course about Marcus Brutus…at least none of his countrymen accused him of " sadism"
We have been crying about Nigeria descending into further anarchy, with each new wave of ransom kidnapping whilst neither the current government nor any of the hopefuls vying to be the country's next president can assure even themselves of being able to return the country to normalcy and the rule of law ( and order). Up to now with the free and fair elections barely 45 days from now, no one wants to declare a state of emergency or martial law or to announce new security measures that would establish full sovereignty over the various pockets of anarchy in the country, in order to conduct a free and fair election, everywhere…
Heaven help us all
It's much more stupefying to know that at the moment Haiti is without a government without a government : Haiti left with no elected government officials as it spirals towards anarchy
On Tuesday, 10 January 2023 at 14:53:30 UTC+1 Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, to say to them:
"Speak to the children of Israel, saying: These are the creatures that you may eat among all the animals on earth: Any animal that has a cloven hoof that is completely split into double hooves, and which brings up its cud that one you may eat. But these you shall not eat among those that bring up the cud and those that have a cloven hoof: the camel, because it brings up its cud, but does not have a [completely] cloven hoof; it is unclean for you. And the hyrax, because it brings up its cud, but will not have a [completely] cloven hoof; it is unclean for you; And the hare, because it brings up its cud, but does not have a [completely] cloven hoof; it is unclean for you; And the pig, because it has a cloven hoof that is completely split, but will not regurgitate its cud; it is unclean for you. You shall not eat of their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you." (Vayikra/ Leviticus 11: 1 - 8 )
Stone Chumash note: The Yiddish idiom chazer fissel describes a hypocrite as a "pig's foot" because a pig tends to lie on the ground with its feet forward, displaying its cloven hooves, as if to deceive onlookers into thinking it is kosher"
As per the definition that Professor Ocgonu would like to enhance, there has been no dearth of very masculine He-men in the political arena: Jerry Rawlings, popularly known as Junior Jesus, because he came twice), Sani Abacha, Thomas Sankara, Jonas Savimbi, in the movies we've had the likes of John Wayne
In Nigeria, what's the problem? The main problem is that Brother Buhari has been prevented from putting his best intentions for the nation into action, prevented from doing so by a very contrary senate. A dictator that had the military fully behind him would have simply thrown uncooperative senators into prison - good riddance, and the downtrodden of the nation would have breathed a collective sigh of relief…
In all honesty, nobody, not even the most ardent of critics can rightfully accuse Brother Buhari of being a hypocrite - that is , of pretence, of saying one thing and doing the opposite, without providing any supporting evidence of the alleged transgressions. Of course on the campaign trail, would-be presidents make all sorts of heavenly promises, as Swedish Language expert Baba Kadiri can attest, in Swedish it's usually termed " valfläsk ", appropriately translated as pork barrel politics - of which even the most apparently otherwise righteous/pious/kosher and halal politicians( politricksters) have to plead guilty ( some call it diplomacy, others refer to it as pious dissimulation, and part of the game ( I asked my friend from Pakistan, Aki, why do you sell al-cohol? He told me : " My Brother, it is part of the jihad: I sell al-cohol to weaken the kuffar"
Now, apart from vilification and bearing false witness against thy neighbour, in this instance, what exactly is the quality of the criticism/critique and of the self-righteous critic himself? Why is he not on the frontline, in the trenches, fighting Boko Haram, ransom kidnappers and pernicious corruption, instead of taking potshots at Brother Buhari?
Consider the Julius Caesar of fiction:
"This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
On Monday, 9 January 2023 at 20:14:54 UTC+1 MEOc...@gmail.com wrote:
NIGERIAN MASCULINITY FROM MURTALA TO BUHARI
By Moses E. Ochonu
As someone who is uncomfortable with the mechanical, uncritical transposition of Western social taxonomies on African societies, I've never fully bought into the notion that Nigerian maleness can be accurately characterized with terms such as "masculinity" and "toxic masculinity," at least not in their derivative Western conceptual meanings.
Nonetheless, as an African male who was raised in Nigeria and who has now had a chance to reflect on his experience and upbringing in what we conveniently call African patriarchal culture, I think there is such a thing as masculinity in the Nigerian society in which grew up. I hasten to add that it has its distinct characteristics. Some of these markers of Nigerian masculinity may conform to Western frames; others may not. This masculinity is also not one thing. It's many things housed in one convenient analytical rubric. It is not stable. It shifts and takes on new connotations.
Here are my experiential reflections and apocryphal evidence of what I identify as Nigerian masculinity and its many topologies.
When I was coming of age in the 1980s, there were still noticeable residues of what I would call the Murtala masculinity.
This notion of masculinity is associated with late Nigerian Head of State, Murtala Mohammed. Murtala was reputed to be a Nigerian man's man, a no-nonsense ruler and decisive authoritarian. When we were growing up as boys, we were taught informally (it was at least subtly suggested to us by popular idioms of the day) to emulate Murtala, to grow up to be like Murtala—to be decisive and strong-willed.
The popular, romantic, oversimplified, and sanitized perception of Murtala was that he was an authoritarian ruler but that his authoritarianism was for nationalist ends. Therefore, to be a real man in the mold of Murtala, one had to be an authoritarian leader in any sector or station of life one found oneself. The only caveat was that the intent should be altruistic or noble, not selfish. This was how to be a man in that Murtala masculine imagination that overlapped a bit with my upbringing in the 1980s. This iteration of masculinity had a remarkable persistence, given that Murtala was killed in a 1976 attempted coup.
But the masculine ideology that had the most direct and poignant impact on me was the one I call Idiagbon masculinity. Tunde Idiagbon was the deputy to General Buhari when the latter was head of state from 1983 to 1985. There were many popular tropes and anecdotes about Idiagbon, most of them invented to express how the public perceived Idiagbon's political persona. Idiagbon was a stern, tough-talking, and dour man whose public appearances and pronouncements created a mystique of him as a mean-spirited, cheerless, take-no-prisoner military officer.
As a boy at that time, I remember hearing stories, almost certainly made up, about what Idiagbon supposedly said. One popular one was that he had said that a real man only smiles twice a year. No one could point to where, when, or how Idiagbon said it, but this alleged statement of his traveled and circulated widely in Nigeria, and many men, young and old, repeated this statement admiringly, advancing and recommending it as a quotidian philosophy of how to be a real man, as a model of masculinity and masculine integrity. We young boys wanted to grow up to be like Idiagbon, to be "tough" like him, and to be feared for our stern demeanor. We wanted to be emotionless like Idiagbon, to constantly keep people around us confused and fearful with a poker face like Idiagbon. Idiagbon, for a time, was our masculine idol.
Throughout secondary school, Idiagbon was the avatar of Nigerian masculinity for us.
Then Abacha happened to Nigeria. Abacha was a vile, brutal, murderous dictator who destroyed all norms of governance and civility that even his military predecessors grudgingly preserved. He was also mean. I don't remember Abacha being explicitly put on the pedestal of masculinity, but there was, in addition to popular narratives of his evils, a subliminal, secondary discourse of Abacha as a tough, decisive man. This secondary, almost adulatory narrative of Abacha's masculinity percolated and permeated the social environment of the 1990s when we were in the university.
Abacha was not recommended as a model of masculinity per se, but there were aspects of Abacha's persona that were vernacularized as being compatible with, if not necessary for, being a real man. His defiance, singlemindedness, dark-goggled mystique, and vindictive streak were portrayed as necessary aspects of tough Nigerian masculinity. It was subtly suggested that in a society in which a man confronts many challenges and enemies, a man gets ahead or stays ahead of his enemies and problems by adopting some of the aforementioned qualities of Abacha.
When we were in the university in the 1990s, most of us had watched the Godfather movies and that inaugurated for us a new performative regime of masculinity. Don Corleone and Michael Corleone instantly became our model of how to be a real man, our example of masculine vigor and honor. Most of us went through a Don Corleone phase in which we consciously tried to replicate the mannerisms of the Corleone patriarch and his successor-son, Michael.
It was both amusing and interesting to see some of my friends in the university and even during our youth service, being deliberately taciturn and sullen and frowning or looking serious all the time. It was strange to see formerly garrulous boys suddenly become more careful about what they said, how much they said, and how they said it. They wanted to be "men" of few words and to be decisive, stealthy, and inscrutable like Michael Corleone. They wanted to be a mystery, to keep their interlocutors guessing about their intentions and what they were up to.
That was our Michael Corleone masculinity phase. A real man, we came to believe, was someone who was cunning and softspoken but ruthless. Like Michael Corleone.
Is there a Buhari masculinity? Yes.
In Buhari's current political incarnation, he has transformed meanness into a template of statecraft. He measures his effectiveness as a leader not by how much compassion and comfort his policies or lack of them bring to citizens but by how much pain and suffering his policies are inflicting on Nigerians. It is an aspect of his political and personal character that was also on full display in his days as a military dictator.
Many Nigerian men were drawn to this Buhari persona. They admired his much-discussed righteous and jealous anger at well-off people, his unwillingness to display positive emotion, and his tough talking. This idea of a Buhari masculinity, marked by meanness, callous indifference, crusading anger, implacable bluster, and tough, even if impotent, talk, was one of the reasons Buhari won in 2015.
Nigerians, men and women, have since caught on to the fake, contrived, performative, and pretentious dimensions of this Buhari masculinity. Most Nigerians do not regard Buhari as a real man in the Idiagbon mythical mold because he has proved himself to be a weak, politically compromised, corrupt, and indecisive leader.
But there are still a few Nigerians who speak of Buhari's alleged uncompromisingly masculine toughness and how that is precisely why "they" have caused him to fail. By "they" these holdout Buharists mean the enemies of Buhari's masculine posture.
The truth is that for most Nigerians, Buhari's second coming has demystified him as a false Murtala and a false Idiagbon, as a pretend man's man. If he was previously seen as a model of masculinity, that image has since peeled away to reveal what many Nigerians see as qualities beneath a real man, qualities unworthy of true masculinity.
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