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 system dehydrated of empathy, accountability, and real reform.


We’ve normalized power gaps disguised as love, arranged marriages dressed as blessings, and silences wrapped in culture. Our lips, society’s lips, have learned to smile through bruises, to glamorize submission, to swallow injustice in the name of respectability and wealth.


So when such cases surface, we don’t thirst for truth; we thirst for gossip. We spread takes, not solutions. We balm the surface with outrage but never drink the water of introspection. We leave our lips chapsticked just enough to not break into open wounds but never completely hydrated enough to not need a reapplication of our chapsticks.


The real work isn’t in canceling individuals, it is in confronting the invisible systems that made this story possible. What are those systems you ask? I’ll tell you in itemized terms:

  1. A culture that prizes male control over mutual respect.
  2. A political structure that protects power, not people.
  3. A society that raises women to endure instead of express. And
  4. A silence that thrives because truth is too inconvenient.


Until we start hydrating these dry spaces our homes, our market squares, our laws, our conversations will keep reaching for the chapstick of hashtags and headlines.


Because what a people needs is not only another viral debate. People need water, truth that flows, accountability that cleanses, and empathy that seeps deep into bones. As a community, healing cannot be cosmetic. It must be cellular and wholesome.


And maybe, just maybe, when we begin to drink honesty, not just apply outrage, we will finally stop mistaking shine for health.



~Conquer Igali. 20/10/2025

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