Lip Balm on a Cracked Truth.
The room in here is chill. The AC hums a lullaby. Everything seems fine until my lips raise a protest carrying dry, cracked, unsatisfied signs on placards. I reach for my chapstick, the quick fix. It glides on smooth, it shines, but the reflection in the mirror tells a deeper truth, it wasn’t moisture my lips needed; it was water. I needed hydration from within. And this, somehow, is the way we handle our societal wounds. Recently, Nigeria’s online space buzzes again with stories of a man of influence accused of violence against his much younger wife. The timelines split open with fury, pity, hashtags, snide stuff and a thousand think pieces. Some shout “end child marriage!”, others whisper about the dangers of age gaps, while a few dissect drug use and power imbalance. But most of it feels like chapstick on dry lips. We are soothing the surface, not addressing the dehydration beneath. Because at the root of this story is not just one man’s violence or one woman’s pain , it speaks of a...