Beauty, the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. How true this aphorism is can be seen from the different ways we react when we see a thing of beauty, particularly a woman. Most men drool over a beautiful woman. Those specially crafted by God earn our compliments because whether we like it or not they are irresistible, be they men or women.
As much as we appreciate beauty, we are not always in one accord in picking a thing of beauty. What is beautiful to one may not be beautiful to the other. Some will see an ugly woman and scream ”what a beauty” to the amazement of onlookers. Others may see an acclaimed beauty like Miss World and not take a second look at her. What do you make of that? Can we then say that a woman chosen as the most beautiful woman in the world is not pretty?
She is, at least to those who chose her, but to other beholders, she may not get a second look. This is why beauty pageants are always dogged by controversies, with the panellists and members of the audience disagreeing, in most cases, on whoever is eventually picked as winner. But no matter how a woman looks, her head will swell to hear a man say to her ”you are beautiful”.
Though those three words look simple and ordinary, they have a magnetic effect on women. Many women are known to have taken offence because they do not get such compliments from their men even after taking all the time in the world to look nice for them. Some men do not know how to sweet talk their women to get them, speaking figuratively, eating out of their hands. And women, no matter how hard hearted they may be, want to hear words that will make their heads spin. It is an age-long practice to appreciate a thing of beauty. There is nothing bad in telling a woman that she is beautiful even if you know she is not. Such compliment is the first step to opening up conversation with her in order to know her better.
Many men have hit the bull’s eye with that opening line as they have gone to build a lifelong relationship with those complimented women. For trying to use that line on a female cadet officer, a man almost paid with his life, according to a video now trending on social media. He was beaten black and blue sometime in 2014 in Kaduna by the woman and his four male colleagues. They recorded the show of shame on their phone from where it found its way to social media.
This beauty was not impressed by the compliment of her beholder. And her colleagues, who in this instant can be referred to as beasts because of the way they behaved, descended on the man. The Beast in the fairy tale titled Beauty and the Beast did not behave like that. The Beast appreciated the beauty of Beauty, the last daughter of the widowed wealthy merchant, that it fell ill when Beauty was away from their home in the forest for long. In that tale, we saw the power of love and care, which turned the Beast into a charming, handsome prince.
But in this true life story, the female cadet officer did not appreciate the language of love. She seems to understand only the power of force, which could be linked to her military training. Does military training preclude a woman from accepting such compliment as ”you are beautiful”? Is there any harm in telling a female cadet officer that she is beautiful? Was that the first time the officer is being told she is beautiful? Was that why the compliment sounded strange to her? Does it not show that something is wrong with her if she can flare up over such innocuous compliment? Does she have the temperament for the military job she is being trained for?
Who knows the kind of training our cadets are receiving these days. Last December, two Air Force cadets also displayed the beast in them when they locked a porter in the trunk of their car for breaking the windscreen. It was not an intentional act by the porter, but the cadets did not see it as such. They decided to teach the “bloody civilian” a lesson by first dragging him on the ground after which they dumped him in their car trunk. Their plan was to take him to the Air Force Base at Ikeja, Lagos, where he would have seen hell.
He was saved from these power-drunk cadets by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, who was passing by Mile 12 market, where the incident occurred. The governor directed the police to take over the case. It will be interesting to know what has become of the matter. Have the cadets undergone orderly room trial for public misconduct? When will the police charge them to court for conspiracy, assault occasioning body harm and disturbing public peace? It is when these cadets are tried for their disgraceful public conduct that they will know that their uniform does not confer on them the power to misbehave and terrorise civilians at will.
The military is an hallowed institution and those who wish to join it must be levelheaded people that will not abuse its might. What is bad in telling a female cadet officer ”you are beautiful”? Even if she is not beautiful, that should not lead to a quarrel. By her training she should have acknowledged the compliment by simply saying ”thank you” and go her way; or better still she should have kept quiet and moved on. But to now descend on the man with her colleagues, cursing and swearing, is barbaric. It is unbecoming for military cadets to use foul words like “Am I beautiful? Idiot. Describe me, how beautiful am I? This bastard is not responding. See this idiot. Squat down…”
It is a shame that these cadets are the future of our military. What will they turn to when they become officers? Brutes? The military will be failing in its duty if it does not re-orientate these cadets before they become terrors. The military, whether of now or of the future, must be people-oriented and should not be constituted by officers who run on short fuse.
NATION
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