What is good for President Macron is good for C.J. Nwachukwu
As unusual as it was, even by European standards, nobody doubted that French President, Emmanuel Macron (39), and his 64-year-old short-dress fashionista, Brigitte Trogneux, shared genuine love when he won the Presidency earlier this year. Instead, we were consumed with the admirable reality that Cupid could flaunt love beyond age.
Here in these columns, I wrote how a controversial Ghanaian marriage counsellor had condemned the union. Counsellor Lutterodt warned: “What is wrong is wrong even if the right people are doing it, and what is right is right even if the wrong people are doing it.” The counsellor had blamed President Macron’s love for his former teacher on bad parenting. He also described Brigitte as a bad person for sidestepping moral bounds to love a man of her daughter’s age. There is 25 years between them.
Facebook marriage
My uncle was full of praise for Macron and his wife: “As for white people, they know how to love in a very unselfish way; if this had happened in Ghana, nobody will understand. Their parents would never approve of it.” His subsequent narrative was a biting criticism of the hypocrisy of the black race and our native inability to love people for who they are, except when we have something to gain.
Perhaps, my uncle was right after all. The Macron-Trogneux love story may not fit into the plot of many stories in our villages. C.J. Nwachukwu, 27, a Nigerian, has fallen in love and gone ahead to wed his 72-year-old lover and the world cannot understand. He has been described as a tomboy while his marriage has been called a scam. Suddenly, the world has decided to look at marriage through the prism of morality and ‘age sense’ and concluded that C.J is too young to love the grandma of six for genuine reasons.
The reason is simple. The 72-year-old is white and lives in Britain while C.J. Nwachukwu lives in Nigeria. They met on Facebook after C.J. sent her a friend request. In less than three months, the friendship had blossomed into love and C.J. popped the question, and she gladly accepted. She flew down to Nigeria for the wedding, the first time they would meet each other face-to-face.
What’s love got to do with it?
Now, the British immigration system is refusing C.J. visa to join Angela in Britain, after the grandma had sunk in more than £20,000 in wedding and visa expenses. Britain does not trust C.J.’s intentions and suspect the African may only be using the unsuspecting and emotionally vulnerable old woman as entry point to Britain.
“Could you be loved?,” legendary Bob Marley was the first to ask? Did C.J. Nwachukwu’s parents and friends approve of his marriage to a grandma 45 years his senior? If Angela was the same age as Mama Nkechi next door, would C.J. so proudly pose for photographs in a wedding suit? Is he not ever thinking of having children?
Angela already has children, who are 50, 47 and 43 years. Her last child is some 16 years older than her husband C.J. Well, if President Macron didn’t want any children from Brigitte and nobody found anything wrong with it, then what is good for Macron is good for Nwachukwu. Let’s hope C.J has a secret love child somewhere in Abeokuta. Otherwise, it is very callous on the part of C.J’s parents to terminate their son’s lineage by pushing him into the cold wrinkly arms of a desperate white granny.
A besotted Angela said: “CJ is the most caring man any woman would want to be with. He makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. I know in my heart we belong together and we won’t stop fighting until we can be together as husband and wife. We won’t let this break us.” She is now trying to have C.J. join her in the UK on student visa, to study for a Master’s degree in computing.
No bliss, just tears
Our fears are that when C.J. comes to the UK, he would abandon the old lady, as has been the story of many British ladies who found love abroad. Julie Dag’s story is still fresh on the minds of Britain. Two years ago, she sponsored a local musician she met in The Gambia to join her in the UK. Three months into his stay in Julie’s apartment, he bolted. It was all a plan to escape the hard life in Africa. It is a familiar script.
C.J. may have a different script but his greedy and shameless brothers have already broken too many white hearts. In Canada, local media widely publicised the story of a white Canadian who walked the streets of Ottawa with a door strapped to her back, protesting how immigrants used marriage as an open door to enter Canada.
The disturbing reality is that white ladies (not all of them) who court love abroad may have failed to find good options in their countries. Would Angela have believed C.J.’s intentions if he was the white boy next door? In many ways, Angela is emotionally enslaving the black boy, in the certain assurance that he would fall for the big bait-British citizenship. The same is true for 70-year-old white men who marry 23-year-old black girls. British citizenship cannot compensate for the loss of self these victims suffer.
Situational irony
Nwachukwu’s love project with Angela would still have made news if she had met him in the UK. But it will be a different kind of news which would have fitted well into the plot of another familiar story. C.J. is an illegal immigrant or his visa was running out and wanted to regularise his stay by marrying anything British, just to remain in Britain.
What’s in this marriage for C.J? Well, at least, Macron became President. C.J. studied Engineering in a Nigerian university and has since then been trying his luck at what the gods could offer. If the gods offered Angela at the click of a computer mouse, then C.J. must make the wrinkles count and love away, whether he gets to live in Britain or remain in Lagos. After all, ‘na bros don find oyibo’. Love na love, abi? C.J Othello.
C.J. is no tomboy; he is a Nigerian with a good head on his shoulders. He may also have a sense of humour; the kind of humour that Angela is certainly not playing to. Otherwise, we have a case of situational irony here. And it is C.J. who appears to be in a situation now. The gods are not to blame.
Tissues of the Issues
…with Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin
