And Iyaloja Sets The Market on Fire

EXPRESSO BY STEVE OSUJI

The market supremo, better known as Iyaloja has her fancy office on a loft near the centre of the market. It’s the biggest market in the largest city in the land.  From that elevated perch, she can see pretty much what goes on in the buzzing  bazaar.

But she’s hardly ever at her desk. Almost never makes an appearance unless there’s a national or international event where she must speak. Ironically, the commercial hub is her estate, yet it’s beneath her dignity to be seen around it. Probably too smelly, too putrid.

 But her fixers and  dainty aides are ever present in their dozens, taking care of business. They note every penny accruing to Madam; ticking off   bank alerts streaming in furiously to dedicated bank accounts. Levies and dues from numerous markets – totalling tens of millions daily –  are recorded and annotated right there on the loft. Call it Iyaloja’s treasury centre.

Then one fateful day in early  November, Mama made a grand appearance. She showed up in glowing resplendence, the likes of which the market had never seen. The went raucous as she traipsed around key corners of the massive complex. Looking better than even the gentle morning sun, she could have descended straight from the moon going by the translucent texture and tone of her skin. Her sleeveless, midi, gold-plated  bodycon highlights an equally golden skin.

The entire arena is her globe and in a moment, she had appeared to the major stakeholders like a fleeting fairy, and presently, she vanished where she emanated from. It’s just as well because her presence aroused the market and a frenzied crowd was already trailing her.

No sooner had she disappeared than her dainty aides took charge. All the sectional leaders were summoned.

“Mama has graciously endorsed Gold Standard Body Cream,” a top aide announced, packs of the product on display.

“She’s not imposing it on anyone, but if you know her, she would always have a way of knowing any woman in this market who is not using the cream. “She may also be able to fathom which man hasn’t bought it for his wife or fiancé or even girlfriend or mistress.”

The aide announced with barely veiled pomposity, to the men and women gathered.

The top aide now standing at the balcony of the loft,  brandishes the cream.  She removes it from its pack for better display.

“Look at it,” she says, “isn’t it beautiful?”

“Wow, beautiful, wonderful,” the audience chorus.

“Mama is always ahead of her time!”

“Did you see her this morning?”

“The cream is made in her golden image!”

“Where can we get it to buy!”

The market leaders are talking all at once, making a bedlam.

Mama’s aide raises her arm, seeking silence.

She tells them that Gold Standard has not only been produced to Mama’s perfection, it has indeed, been produced in her image. She even dressed the part when she visited earlier in the day.

Gold Standard is available both in wholesale and retail in all Star Shops.  (These are Iyaloja’s personal shops run on her behalf by aides.)

These are in their dozens in all sections of the market.

In a few days, not only is every woman (and some men) applying Gold Standard Cream, almost everyone is stocking and retailing it.

It was selling like wild fire, in the mother market, and in many markets in the land. Mama’s cream is  the new buzz.

However, the story behind Gold Standard is that some business sharks had approached Mama with the million dollar idea and a sample of the cream. The plan is for Mama to make every denizen of her market purchase the cream.

Deal struck, dozens of containers were shipped in from the notorious far east country that could produce and ship any order in a flash!

The cream is basically concentrated hydroquinone but the pack and packaging says it’s full of  egg-yoke apparitions with milk ‘N’ honey nuggets…

By the end of November, the market has lightened up with shades of ‘yellow’. Mid December, the behemoth of a market has caught fire!

Iyaloja has virtually set the market on fire!

In the stalls across the dinghy labyrinth, Christmas has come early for all the women, it seems. Every woman proudly displays her ‘Mama colour!’ like a rare prize!

“My colour” rents the market at every turn where two or three women gather. They would compare their tones and texture and ‘whitenning’ progress!

‘This Christmas will memorialize us,’  they would boast!

By the third month, calamity has struck the large, bustling community. 

For many women, their skin, especially their faces have turned to parboiled meat of sort.

Ugly patches of black and bluish-green mark the facial map of all the women who had lavishly doused themselves with Gold Standard body cream.

Nobody seems to have any remedies as the skin conditions continue to deteriorate, morphing into lesions for many.

Mama seems to have disappeared, having made no appearance since the debacle.

She has travelled abroad to find remedy, her aides hint to those who cared to listen.

But the reality is that she has gone to Europe for her routine full body-bath. It’s a process of gradual Caucasification of her skin. The aim is to achieve a total denudation of her negroid origin.

The foregoing is  parody of course.

 Recall that it was World Skin Health Day recently (July 8) and the carnage that goes on among women and men over skin health were highlighted and addressed using that annual UN platform.

For most Nigerians and indeed African women, the skin has become a fetish – an altar for lifelong worship.

Like the women of the market, many damage  themselves through a lifetime of applying ‘whitening’ (toning) chemical substances on their skin.

From adolescent years, girls begin to apply these harmful body creams and continue till senior years when the residual effects of prolonged use begins to manifest.

Some of the outcomes are carcinogenic, meaning that cancer may result.

Yetunde Olumide, the first Nigerian professor of Dermatology and now first female professor emeritus of medicine spent her entire career teaching and preaching skin health among Nigerian women.

She shouted herself hoarse about the heedless use of harmful chemicals  by African women.

Prof. Olumide never got tired of telling women that mere petroleum jelly, shea butter and simple baby lotions are all that is required to keep the human skin beautiful.

All that  the African skin needs is protection from harsh weather conditions, especially, extreme sunshine. Any simple ‘vaseline’ applied lightly daily would do the magic for a lifetime.

But for most women, if a cream has no chemical substances and toning ingredients, it’s not good enough.

The multi-billion dollar cosmetics industry will  forever play on the insecurity of women, selling them harmful substances packaged milk, honey, butter, serum, aloe Vera and all such.

These are all superfluous and excess to the requirements of the human skin. All of these do more damage than good, especially to the textured African skin. These chemicals destroy the melanin-rich negroid skin, leaving it spare and coarse.

Beyond the skin, it’s about the entire vanity fair of African women: the quest for harmful and expensive long hairs, nails, lashes, lipsticks, make ups and more.

Over the ages, all of these have been proven to diminish, instead of adding value to women’s wellbeing.

When you hear women speak excitedly about ‘foundation’ you would think they are building mansions. But no way, it’s about the layers of  cosmetics required before the real makeup is applied.

 The women’s beauty regime has developed a rich lexicon of strange words and phrases. When you hear about highlighters, hydration, elasticity, tired texture, exfoliation, breakouts, ingredients, glow-enhancers, double-cleanse, undertones, beige nudes, bronzers, etc, these are not medical science registers. They are about the feminine skin.

For many women today, the skin,  (especially the face), hairs, nails, and indeed, every aspect of their body) has become some sort of fatal obsession. Half of their waking hours are spent tending them. And of course, a chunk of their earnings go into these ‘beauty regimen’.

It doesn’t matter the level of education or enlightenment. In fact, it seems as if the more educated women are, the more obdurate they become about abusing their skins. And the more expensive treats they indulge in including taking full body-baths.

But do all these harsh cosmetics,  unnatural long hairs and all, make our women more beautiful?  No. At least not from the perspective of the menfolk.

From experience, most men would prefer natural skin tone devoid of heavy cosmetics. Most men find long weaves offensive and superfluous. Most are more comfortable with short, simple, natural hair. The long eyelashes, loud lipstick and talon nails are a no for most men.

It’s no wonder many men don’t seem to notice elaborate hairdos on their partners. They don’t seem to signify beauty to them.

Beauty for most men is natural, unencumbered and something emanating from within more than without. This column will wager that many  men merely endure all of these for the sake of peace.

But most women insist they do it not for male attention but for their comfort and wellbeing. A woman must be a woman and indeed, look like a woman, many proclaim defiantly.

We guess it’s called feminine fancy, but what about the increasing health hazards?

LAST LINE:

SHOULD WE SET UP AN ELECTION OFFENCES TRIBUNAL?

It may seem that our current justice system does not have the capacity to bring election offenders to book. Perhaps we need a special police and  court system to tackle this growing menace.

Consider the last governorship election in Osun state.

It was reported that over 50 people died or were killed. The level of violence and malfeasance was unduly high. Yet no person or group of people are known to be facing prosecution.

A clear example is a certain Senator Ayo Fadaunsi who openly urged the supporters of the ruling APC to kill members of the ruling Accord party and their families as well. It was a most chilling incitement to genocide.

In an ordered society, such a fellow would remain in protective  detention until he is marched to jail.

Because we didn’t make an example of someone like the Senator, a local council chairman in Abuja has issued a quit order on any resident who wouldn’t vote for his ruling party. “Either you vote for us or you leave the Council.”

Apart from the system falling short and the police failing in their duties, the parties, especially the ruling APC must rein in their supporters. Parties must begin to suffer some consequences for the actions of their members too, the way football teams are fined for the bad behaviour of their fans.

Election should never be a do-or-die affair.##