I have read so much bashing of this young lady and, I think it should stop for the judicial process to take its course. Don’t get me wrong, she deserves every inch of punishment meted out to her for the crime she committed. But, I think as a society we must share of the blame of what we see happening. You are blaming her for lying to her parents to hook up while most of you were raising funds for BBNaija contestants who were having live sex on TV! Some of those folks are now your new found celebrities! Don’t condemn Chidinma for hustling. She hasn’t done anything we don’t approve. And, can we condemn the big man making do with a young blood – isn’t it our way?
The environment of youth has become so difficult now – brash, corrupted. There is little or no support system for majority young persons as we have before. To compound that, young persons are exploited at every corner, especially young girls. For instance, the relationship she was in with the TV man is basically an exploitative one, she even complained the man has not been that helpful. This may be true as I saw a video of Chidinma in her beer kiosk trying to patch up. Any intergenerational sex is nothing but exploitation. Of course murder is not the answer for any frustrations she may have felt and she will have to pay for that, no matter what. But then, it may have been easy for her to kill because of the value we now attach to life. Life don’t mean much to us again, while young persons have become more desperate and unthinking. Bring drug use into the mix! What do you have? With so many now relying on drugs for that self assurance and the false sense of security they crave, aside from drug use now being a fad! She will face her day in court, no doubt, but, this is not just about Chidinma. It is about millions of young persons who are confused, confounded and finding it difficult to define their place and space with no certain route in place.
Sadly, we will continue to see more of these types of incidences, because the rot is so deep, while we are mainly a reactionary lot who hardly systematically responds to socials problems.
The losers are the family of the late CEO, especially his children. Most of us are walking in the shadows of death anyway. Very few can truly stand tall without blemish. But, we must sit up as a society and ask ourselves questions and act. Part of what we must do however, is to not blame victims of our indiscretions – young ladies as Chidinma, who we have unmindfully groomed as pretty monsters.
