DEVIANT SEX AND MORE SEX IN HIGH PLACES

The whole story of many big names and their sexual deviance tells us two things. As Geoffrey Chaucer asked rhetorically, "who is so foolish as a man in love?" The 2nd point is that our leaders are not bigger than the people they govern. That, sex and power intermingle is not ununusual. Women used it to prostrate men. Men deploy it to conquer women. If it is true in the alleged Obj case, who used it? Did one use it to get contracts, or did the other use it for animal satisfaction?
But, if the story of Gbenga Obasanjo ( son of former president Olusegun Obasanjo) is true, it would have happened to a man who cannot be described as a hero. In that case, Obj’s narrative would have been a double jeopardy and double tragedy.

As Einstein once said, "imagination is more important than knowledge."

But, it is even more fascinating when the public thinks of the act as deviant; an old man in sexual lockdown with his son’s wife, or a man moaning with a minor or underage, or a president swooning with an intern.

We are impatient with the fact, so we want to make the facts ourselves. That is the problem with editors handling alleged sexual peccadilloes of an ex-president. It is no more a story of a dysfunctional family. We know that. Yet, why does it fascinate us as if we have not heard such stories before?

Gbenga Obasanjo referred to the matter of contracts. But we have dwelled lightly on that, in spite of our so-called love for due process and anti-corruption. We seem to be more fascinated with the so-called corruption of the flesh. In this case, we are all victims of vanity. Our imaginations have convicted us.

But no need to feel bad about that. People in public life, asserted Richard Nixon during his own crisis, must live in a fishbowl. Every society, every epoch has that collective guilt. Societies often live the lives of their leaders, vicariously.
But, not often does deviance meet sex in high places. That is why our imagination seizes the opportunity and runs with it. Nor is it new.

Those with fine memories will remember the story of Jennifer Madike and police chief Oyakhilome, and all the allegations of sex and drugs. The newspapers and courts and public were less drawn to the morality than the nitty-gritty of body touching body. Others wanted to know who else the woman’s lover was.

Allow me digress a little jare, that was exactly the case with President Clinton and Monica Lewsinsky. Newspapers of record tried to elevate the story. But at bottom, no reader could escape their lurid appetite for sexual details. People wanted to understand what bimbo eruptions meant, What was blow job, or stained gown.
They became metaphors for imaginations cursed to roam. Even when Clinton became president, there was a famous interview with a young female who praised his physical gifts. Said the vision: "Now, we have a president I can imagine making love to." That young lady could have been Monica Lewinsnky. In spite of the condemnation, most Americans did not want to impeach the man out of office.

The British have been known for their conservative proclivities. But, recently a minister resigned for a tryst with a secretary.
In the United States, we have had a lot of stories of sex in high places concerning presidents. John F. Kennedy, called Camelot, was a soul of sexual restlessness. A comedian argued they should have called him came a lot. His wife, Jackie, once said she walked into his office after a young woman left. His clothes were rumpled. The press knew of his tendencies. So did the secret service. They organized the meetings.

Yet, his relationship with Marylyn Monroe, which was public, was downplayed by the press. It was part of the society being complicit in the attitude of sexual deviance. The society, on its puritan high horse, thought adultery was deviant. But it closed its eyes when it materialized before them.

In Nigerian society, it is common knowledge that sex of this nature is known and hardly ever reported. Not to talk of making a person resign.
We must learn that, society has progressed from the days of Franklyn Roosevelt, who had adulterous liaisons across the country. It would be a scandal today. His wife, Eleanor, was a famous lesbian, who had remorseless dalliance with a reporter in Washington.

The French are more hypocritical about it. Sarkozy’s messy marriage has blemished the majesty of the country’s leadership and injected a little Hollywood tincture with his new girl friend. But if he has a secret lover, the French newspapers are not supposed to announce it. Few years ago, an unknown lover of Francois Mitterrand materialized during his funeral. It was only then that the media officially acknowledged it.
But these men, Roosevelt, his wife, Eleanor, Mitterand, all did well for civilization. What would the world have looked like without these men and woman, especially if they were plucked out of office by sex scandals?

Talking of being ahead of their times, the world began with incest. Abel was believed to have married his sister. At a later point, incest became unlawful. Some cultures though still condone incest. But, not the Yorubas, to the best of my knowledge.

A Rockefeller with a high political ambition is believed to have died in his office in the middle of a sexual act. Martin Luther King Jr. was noted for his heavy sexual appetite, and some elements in the media wanted to despoil his legacy.

Nor has literature absconded from treating matters of deviant sex. We cannot forget the immortal novel on sex in the 20th century, Lolita by Vladimir Nobokov. It was a story of an older man cavorting with an underage girl. The Russian novelist, with poetic license and unfeigned imagination, took the two protagonists all over the United States.
Critics and friends attest to the fact that Kafka ( the man who turned into an insect) had an incestuous affection for his sister. Hitler, who had German blood like Kafka, also had a sexual liaison with his niece.

The crux of the matter : There is an affidavit sworn to by Olugbenga Obasanjo, obviously a reply to one sworn to by his estranged wife, Mojisola, for dissolution of their marriage in the High Court of Lagos State in the Ikeja Judicial Division. It was dated January 11, 2008. Gbenga provides 50 reasons why he believes that the marriage should be annulled. Three of the reasons stand out like a sore thumb as follows:

1. “That, the respondent (Mojisola Oluyemisi) confided in him severally while they were living together that she had been sexually abused and defiled by her (own) father, Otunba Alex Onabanjo on several occasions.
2. That, he knows for a fact that the respondent committed adultery with and had intimate sexual relationship with his own father, General Olusegun Obasanjo, due to her greed to curry favours and contracts from him in his capacity as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
3. That, the sexual relationship of the respondent with her own father, Otunba Alex Onabanjo and his father General Olusegun Obasanjo has brought him great pains and psychological trauma and is the primary reason for the breakdown of his marriage with the respondent”.

It should be noted that many other depositions flow from the major three listed above.

In Yoruba land, and indeed many other lands, this is an abomination. It rarely happens, if ever. And if it does, it is never made the subject of public discourse. It is a family secret discussed in hush tones. The subject will remain a secret for ever! Why did Gbenga break this tradition?
If Alex Onabanjo had had an incestuous relationship with Mojisola, why had Gbenga been a party to the cover-up? Why had he not divorced her earlier on this ground? If Obasanjo had had an incestuous relationship with his own daughter-in-law, why had he remained quiet until now? Why is he the victim twice over of this bizarre sexual perversion of the two major male characters in his life? Too many questions begging for clean answers.

Those who want a public comment on this issue do not know the enormity of the charge in Yoruba land. What is he supposed to say? “I did not do it”? Obasanjo loves his son and will probably not want anything terrible to happen to him. The veracity of the charge will remain a secret for ever. It is the word of a pervert and sadistic son against the silence of an even more pervert and sadistic father.

But with his affidavit, the son has hanged his father forever. He might have hanged himself forever, too. He hanged his father as a randy, adulterous, septuagenarian goon. He hanged himself as a feckless cuckold. The gallows is not a physical one. Neither of them is failing from a noose in Kirikiri or even the hottest part of hell. They have been hanged in the imagination of the public. That is the potent point of the story.