by Soma Oj.

It’s interesting to see how divided society is over the Kemen/TBoss business. By society, we mean the population that deposit their thoughts on Twitter and Instagram for us to sample. We say interesting because our own minds are made up: As long as TBoss continues to say that she was unaware of the events that happened in the ninth week of the #BBNaija show, the same events that got Kemen disqualified from the show and that now threaten to put him in the bad books of history as a sexual offender – Kemen remains suspect.

With this state of affairs, naturally, one would assume that any person – especially if such person is a public figure or a legal entity – will approach Kemen (and TBoss) with extreme caution. But being Nigerian, one knows not to expect too much from public figures or legal entities. Payporte confirmed this unfortunate lack of expectation when they – being one of the sponsors of the Big Brother show – decided to show off Kemen in the wake of his disqualification from the show for cheap, and frankly ill-formed notion of publicity. Because in 2017, it’s no longer just about getting publicity even if it’s bad, it’s also about trending and associating your brand with anything that is trending for as long (and as quickly and exclusively) as possible – for no larger purpose than to trend.

Yet, this is not a piece about marketing strategies. It’s a piece about society’s well-being. It’s a piece intended to address an apparent misnomer in our society – one that allows us to give permission to individuals to misbehave and continue to defend such misbehaviour because public figures and legal entities have either endorsed such misbehaviour or done nothing to condemn it.

This is where AY comes in. At his annual Easter show, AY Live which held last night, the Comedian not only dismissed the anger that a large portion of the society feels towards Kemen as a result of the incident that got him disqualified by daring to say: at least he did not kill anyone, he has also refused to reconsider his ill-informed stance by defending his actions this morning. The same lack of lack of judgement that has allowed him to continue to make movies without any trace of improvement.

Sadly, it’s not a lack of judgement that AY alone suffers from; it appears he’s only a mirror of a huge portion of society because there are so many people out there who see nothing wrong with his actions.

And while it’s perfectly healthy to have these kinds of divides in the society over issues such as this – in fact, it’s only an evidence of that important element of freedom – to think and openly express – there’s a problem in this instance. It seems as if this portion of society that continue to apologise on behalf of TBoss or even go as far as to condemn the rest of us for retaining our anger at Kemen are missing a few important things about this issue admist the cross shouting and “woke-talking” on social media.

Permit me.

So Kemen was caught on tape in the dead of the night doing what may or may not be categorised as sexual harassment. He appears to have been fingering a female housemate (TBoss) or at least he appears to have attempted to finger her under covers. When one adds the extra piece of detail that emerged later about him having checked the positioning of standby cameras in the house prior to his actions, it should not be a surprise that many of us have maintained that there’s too much of a chance that he really intended to assaut her. When you go further to input his earlier statements in the same house about a plan to drug and rape another female housemate (Gifty), there should be no element of surprise left at our outrage that all he went home with is a disqualification and nothing more.

To now endorse such a person while these issues remain unresolved, is not only an insult to a collective intelligence, it’s also a clear message about the ethos of the brand that has decided to endorse him.

About the issue of his apology.

I’d leave it submitting that what Kemen did the moment he got kicked out of the house, during his media chats and via his Instagram do not qualify as apologies but I would hate suggest that what this situation needs to go away is an apology. No, it;s not an issue of him being apologetic even though it would have helped a little for him to tender a genuine apology to his victim, publicly or privately.

But it really is not about apologies – nor is it particularly about Kemen and TBoss or BBNaija. It is about our attitude to this kind of behaviour. It is about the lack of consequence and the audacity of any thinking person to try to look away from, justify, or endorse this kind of behaviour.

What we have on our hands is a case of sexual harassment. To suggest that we move on from it when the message has not been sent yet that sexual assault, harassment and rape will not be condoned, justified, endorsed or excused in our society is an insult. To suggest that a mere apology will suffice for any of the acts on that spectrum is dangerous and that’s why anyone with any sense has not moved on from it. That’s why we won’t.

Kemen has presented himself to society as an offender and it will be silly of us to approach the determination of the issue as stated above in abstraction withouit dragging his name into it, anytime the matter comes up. Until another person puts his or herself in that position. And even then, his misery would only have found company.