There is value in public entertainment. But entertainment that endorses violence should not be admired or encouraged. The standoff that took place between Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu and Mrs. Ebelechukwu Obiano during the swearing in of Charles Chukwuma Soludo as governor of Anambra State last Thursday, March 17, 2022, has attracted diverse comments and fractured the Nigerian society. In the ensuing debate, everyone has expressed an opinion about the righteous or mischievous behaviour of the two fighters. I am not persuaded that demonstration of uncontrolled anger in a public place should be celebrated.
Many commentators have analysed the fracas and apportioned blames. Clearly, the public is split. As expected in this age of social media, no sooner were the two fighters separated from their tangled hold than the public domain was flooded with humorous videos that exaggerated the incident. 
People who were within earshot of the fight said Mrs. Obiano approached Mrs. Ojukwu with swagger and stooped to whisper some unprintable words that provoked Mrs. Ojukwu. Unfortunately, none of the videos circulating on social media captured the audio of the exchange that preceded the now infamous slap unleashed by Mrs. Ojukwu. Who touched whom first? Who threw the first punch? These and other questions remain unanswered and may never be answered.
In deconstructing the event, it is critical to keep in mind that none of the videos on social media showed clearly how close or distant Mrs. Obiano was from Mrs. Ojukwu. None of the videos revealed what was said and by whom. The absence of incontrovertible video evidence has exposed the distorted analysis of the incident that was recorded haphazardly on mobile phones and presented in a frenetic manner on social media.
Days after the public display of infantile bravado by the two women, we know little or nothing about what triggered the fistfight. What we know, however, is that, in this age of digital technology, live coverage of an unexpected event is bound to be embellished or tainted with vague details. While many people took their mobile phones to the venue of the inauguration, they were unprepared for the fight of the decade that unfolded swiftly and briefly during the swearing-in ceremony.
The brawl was not captured clearly and accurately, or with greater depth because it happened so quickly. The fight was unforeseen, unpredicted, unexpected and, therefore, left no space for timely recording of the event.
No matter how anyone examined the incident, the punch-up was dishonourable. The drama demonstrated lack of maturity. The idea that two supposedly high-profile women would launder their clothes in a public laundromat shocked the entire nation. Their behaviour did not measure up to public expectations, given their social status and the high positions of influence they held. Maturity, we must remember, is the ability to remain calm in the face of provocation. Unfortunately, by fighting openly in the public, the two women failed to show any measure of maturity, wisdom, responsibility and good judgment.
The quarrel was disruptive. It distracted public attention from the inauguration. More important, it overshadowed the speech carefully prepared by Governor-elect Soludo to be delivered to the people of Anambra State. If Mrs. Obiano and Mrs. Ojukwu had long-running quarrels or issues to settle, they should have taken their squabbles to a private and quiet venue with enough room for boxing, kicking, biting, hair pulling and yelling.
The official venue decorated for the inauguration of a governor is not a spot reserved for amateur boxers and wrestlers. How unfortunate life could be. Soludo’s voice was swallowed by the scuffle. No one heard Soludo’s promises clearly. No one heard him read out his carefully prepared speech containing his revolutionary programme of development that he planned for Anambra State.
The scuffle between Mrs. Obiano and Mrs. Ojukwu in a public forum contained all the high drama, tension and angry exchanges you would not expect from women with such public profile. The women turned the inauguration of Soludo into a tragedy but it was not a disaster Soludo anticipated to arise on his special day. In fact, as soon as the fight broke out, Soludo became a secondary entity, no longer the primary object of admiration many people had come to see and cheer.
Mrs. Obiano and Mrs. Ojukwu snatched the gold medal from Soludo and left him gasping for breath. They took away the bouquet of flowers that was prepared to honour and decorate Soludo and tossed the flowers onto the ground. What a misfortune of extraordinary proportions.
The public came to be entertained in marvellous ways but they saw entertainment of a different kind. Rather than talk about the preparedness of Soludo and his government, public discussion switched to titillating talk about the swiftness of the slap that Mrs. Ojukwu landed on Mrs. Obiano’s heavily powdered face. Rather than debate serious issues of governance that awaited Soludo’s government, people spoke in sotto voce about the disgraceful fight between two prominent Igbo women and how their behaviour undermined the official inauguration of Soludo.
Life is unpredictable. No one, not even Soludo, could predict or envisage how the special day would evolve. As a news value, conflict has high significance. The conflict between Mrs. Obiano and Mrs. Ojukwu attracted audience interest. In that conflict, everyone became a spectator. Unfortunately for connoisseurs of public fights, the punch-up between Mrs. Obiano and Mrs. Ojukwu did not last. It ended as quickly as it started.
Social media analysis of the scuffle between Mrs. Obiano and Mrs. Ojukwu was undeniably one-sided, skewed, prejudicial, and incomplete. In fact, award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said “to tell only one part of a story is essentially to lie. A story is true only when it is complete.” She cautioned about the “danger of a single story.”
It is the narrowmindedness exhibited in social media analysis of the fight in Awka that upended the official ceremony meant to signal the first day of Soludo’s government.
Social media narrative of the unfortunate incident contained so many inaccuracies and misrepresentations, even though most of the videos were produced and intended to entertain in humorous ways. Those misrepresentations symbolise distortions of a fight that took place in a public domain but lacked supporting evidence. The distorted accounts misrepresented Mrs. Ojukwu’s character, Mrs. Obiano’s tempestuous anger, and the two women’s lifestyles, social values and ethical principles.
Sadly, the prejudiced “single stories” being spread about the moral character of Mrs. Ojukwu and Mrs. Obiano will influence perceptions people have about the two women. Truth, as we know it, is always what the narrator or historian says it is. But that does not validate the account presented by clumsy and unskilled historians.
The fight between Mrs. Obiano and Mrs. Ojukwu has brought to the forefront troubling sentiments people hold about women. The discussion and debate that arose after the fight has become gendered. But I would argue the tension and explosion of anger between the two women had nothing to do with their gender.
At the heart of the debate over the disappointing behaviour of the two women is not their gender but lack of tolerance, the perception that less privileged people have no voice and should not express themselves openly. It is also about arrogance of power, self-importance, social status and the contemptuous and primitive belief that only a governor’s wife is entitled to attend public events to be seen, worshipped and venerated in our society. That implies that women who are not married to governors are irrelevant.
This is a good time for a radical shift in our mindset.