IGBO TRADERS AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT; BEYOND THE WICKED LIES.

As written by Charles Ogbu

Social media is such a useful platform to correct many societal ills. But the irony of it is that it can equally be used to deliberately propagate a devilish falsehood against a people  under the guise of correcting societal ills.

It is not debatable that most Nigerian markets are dominated by Igbo traders. It is equally not a lie that most of these Igbo traders employ different tactics to sell their wares. Some of these tactics of theirs include dragging customers to come see their wares. In the case of Igbo traders who sell clothes, especially women's wear, dragging ladies passing through their shops to come buy their wares is one of those tactics.

Clauses such as:

"My colour, see your size here", "Blackie, I have the one wey go match this your colour" etc are freely used by these Igbo traders, all in a bid to get these ladies who they see as prospective customers to patronize them.

Touching or dragging people, man or woman, in a bid to get them to patronize you is wrong.

There are cases where Igbo traders deliberately touch ladies just passing in front of their shops, with talks like, "Olobo, how far?" etc.

It is not exactly wrong to interpret these unauthorized touching and dragging as sexual harassment because there are chances that in the course of these encounters, sensitive body parts of these female 'prospective customers' could be encroached upon.

In a nutshell, saying that some Igbo traders harrass ladies in the course of trying to sell their goods is not entirely false. I repeat, the practice of touching or dragging people to come buy your wares should be discouraged.

But, creating the impression that Igbo traders deliberately set out to touch women's sensitive body parts like boobs, waists, vagina etc and even beat up those who dare protest right there in front of their own shops, is nothing short of a demonic lie from a devilish mind. This is you trying to hide under the guise of fighting a societal ill to settle your personal score with Igbo traders/men.

Clauses like:

"Igbo traders chook hands for women's nyansh"

 "Igbo traders are beasts, these guys are animals, they nearly raped me for Ariria market yesterday"

"They touch your breast and if you complain, they beat you up right in front of their shops" etc

are nothing but lies borne out of hate-induced envy of the success of the Igbo man and a foolish desire to settle some personal scores with some Igbo men or even both.

If you believe that an Igbo trader who comes to the market to sell his goods will be criminally stupid enough to start chooking his hands in the vagina of a prospective female customer or a lady passing through his shop, you are either a bumbling buffoon who has expired indomie in place of brain or you are simply a vindictive insecure daughter of Eve looking for a chance to get back at Igbo men for injuries suffered from a failed relationship/marriage.

Either way, you are a 1st class idiot hoping to hide behind correcting societal ills to pursue a vendetta against Igbo men.

Most importantly, you are part of the societal ills that need to be fought. Your bigoted mindset and inability to separate your petty emotions and quest for vendetta from a genuine effort to correct a societal problem make you a problem more worrisome than the one you purport to want to solve.

We must learn to separate issues.

Just so you all know I am not just ranting, I Charles Ogbu, am challenging any woman who claim she knows a place where Igbo traders chook hands for women nyansh or beat them up right there in front of their shops to come forward. Just point me to the exact place where you experienced such. And watch me go through the market Line union to gift you with justice. If its in Lagos, I am in lagos right about now. And some of the leaders of these traders are right here. This is not a case of "he touched my breasts, he dragged me, he touched my bumbum" etc. I already acknowledged that awkward situations such as these could arise in some circumstances and I made it clear they should be condemned and discouraged.

What i find criminally offensive is the attempt by some persons to hide behind 'fighting harassment of women by Igbo traders' to carry out their personal grudges against Igbo traders/men.