Police public relations officer, CSP Dolapo Badmus, took her time in an exclusive interview to discuss certain issues bedeviling the society.
In the interview, Dolapo Badmus touched on issues like domestic violence and baby mama trend. She also mentioned the three major things Yahoo boys spend their money on.
Excerpts below.
Q. With the level of exposure you’ve gotten, should your fans be expecting you to vie for political office?
Ahh… oh my God! You used the word fans. That’s quite humbling though. I thought fans should be used for entertainers. Well, if you say fans, I appreciate all of them that actually love Dolapo Badmus and what she stands for. If you are now asking me if I’m vying for political office, that’s a tough one to answer right now. But I’ll say I’m concentrating on the job of securing lives and property now, and what I’m dealing with now has to do with the Nigeria police Force. So, maybe we’ll leave every other thing till when I’m done with the Nigeria Police Force.
Q. If you come across a Yahoo Boy and you ask him why he’s into what he’s doing, most of them often give this justification: They say the white people that they are defrauding right now, their ancestors enslaved our forefathers, so what they are doing right now is like paying them back. Is that a good justification?
Well, I don’t know from which history books they’ve read that the white people defrauded their forefathers. But history will tell you that it is even the black people that sold black people into slavery. If the white people had come and the black people resisted it, they won’t have had their field day. This slavery became a form of entrepreneurship for some set of black people and they gathered some other black people to sell into slavery. If you ask me, it has to some extent been a good one for us because we wouldn’t have had black Americans and we wouldn’t have had British that are black. So, thinking about that, I think it’s a no, no for me and I want our younger ones to stop thinking that way and start thinking positively. Rather than saying ‘Oh, they stole from our forefathers and we want to get back from them. It’s not giving us a good image abroad.
Q. Most people often say once a Yahoo boy with ill-gotten wealth has invested in a business that is employing Nigerians, such a yahoo boy should be left alone. Do you think that should be allowed?
Maybe I should ask you ‘How many Yahoo boys have you seen invested in large business?’’ I will tell you from our statistics that most of these boys, when they get money… let me tell you three major things they do. The first thing they do is to buy vehicle that in less than 3 or 4 months they have to sell. If they don’t get any other fraudulent money to maintain the car, they will have to sell it at a very ridiculous price. Secondly, they club. All they do is to go to club, buy champagne, pay like one million, two million in the club so that people will know that they have arrived. Is that investment? And the third one is that, maybe perhaps, they go for the slay queens, buy bags and weavons for them. Which out of all of that is investment? So, we shouldn’t hide behind one finger and keep lying to ourselves. Yahoo has nothing to do with progress. It brings about retardation.
Q. Most young girls these days, they think the best way to a secured future is by getting pregnant for a prominent person then ending up as his baby mama. What advise do you have for such girls?
I don’t think it’s the best way to go. The fact that you have a baby for someone that is successful in his career does not determine that you are going to be successful. In fact most of them end up miserable and regretting going into that. My advice to younger girls is to be watchful and get serious about their life. There is nothing you think a successful career person achieved that you cannot achieve. All you need to do is to be hardworking, be dedicated, remain focused. And with God on your side, you can do whatever anybody you thin is a star has done and even surpass it.
Q. When domestic violence occurs between a couple, people often lay the whole blame on the man, but they are never concerned about what the woman might have done to lead to that. Why is it just always about the man?
Basically, there is no justification for being violent in a marriage. We don’t really want to encourage by saying ‘oh because she said you are stupid, you need to beat her to stupor’. There are one thousand and one ways of settling rancors without hitting each other. I think because of the feminism thing that is growing now, a lot of people tend to believe that when you are talk about domestic violence, you are only talking about the woman being protected. Some men are also being violated domestically. When we have such cases, we deal with them accordingly. I’ll like to let you know that with the Nigeria Police Force, we don’t think about women alone or men alone. We deal with both gender to sort out the issue with domestic violence. If a woman is violent in marriage, she will bear the brunt. But statistically, women go through domestic and sexual violence much more than men.
Q. Should divorce be the solution to a marriage that suffers domestic violence?
Why not? If the centre can no longer hold, separation is necessary. Because there is no point in staying in an abusive marriage which may invariably lead to loss of life. At times we advice separation. After some time, they might be able to bring themselves together again.
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