SOAPY: LIFTING THE VEIL OFF EMERGENT SOCIAL STRUCTURES IN THE NIGERIAN SOCIETY

By Oluwatobi Peter

I was at Retro (SOC picnic) having fun when street banger "Soapy" by Afeez Fashola aka Naira Marley hits our ear drums, I turned and whispered into Favour's ear: "Isn't it strange that in Nigeria, you cannot talk about masturbation in public but make it into a song and you have their blessings?" Her lips curve into a smile and she replies "it is the same with sex". Something went off in my brain as I recalled.

Professor Oneyeonoru quoting Peter Ekeh "The emergent social structures which are neither indigenous to Africa nor imported from outside. They are peculiar social structure that developed from the space and time of colonialism with a logic of their own distinct sociological  entities with  remarkable complexity. Although they have similarities in the West and elsewhere, these emergent social structures have logic of their own and their peculiar situation in colonialism marks them out as distinct political and distinct political and sociological structures, sometimes of baffling complexity. They emerged to meet the societal needs that indigenous social structure and migrated social structure could not fulfill".

One thing that we should know about emergent social structures is that they are not easy to discern. Hence the dance move "soapy" and other songs like it show us that the lines the traditional values and the modern is blurred; and just like every emergent social structure, soapy (an evidence of emergent social structure) has a lot of traditional sprinkling which gives it that ultra-traditional appearance because it is voiced in Yoruba and the dance move has no foreign colouration or at least that was what the creator said when he was replying Kaffy. Now, whether masturbation is an exclusive export to the world is a story for another day. What is important here is to observe how the normative values (what the society considers good or bad) keeps changing like the weather such that when John speaks about masturbation, he is labeled an "omoburuku" (bad child) and when he displays  his moves to “Soapy”, he is labeled as "omo to mo ijo gan" (a good dancer). If I were John, the question that I would be asking is "why in the world would you cringe when I am about to tell you about my prose, when you are already reading my graphic novel on the same subject matter with great interest?"

According to Professor Lanre Olutayo, "Society dictates to us and we obey at all times consciously or unconsciously" but the question is this: is the society always right? What happens when a society does not know what is right and what is wrong? The answer is simply that Nigeria and other African societies have not been able to determine the limits of foreign values and attitudes that they  should accept and the extent to which they should hold onto their traditions, so they become like patients of multiple personality disorder.

I believe that the Nigerian society must recognise that we have to start having more open or public discussions on sex, sexuality, sex education (I could have put everything under sex education but I am stressing it because of our public fear of it) and rape for the better protection and growth of members of the society; since we are already singing and dancing about these topics, surely we won't die if we talk about them.