29 May 2014 Apps are gradually taking over the Nigerian tech space and day after day, new apps are discovered for finance, business, agriculture and much more. What ever next? Well, an app to calculate your brideprice I guess.
Nigerians recently woke up to discover the app created by a company named Anakle. It asks a variety of questions ranging from skin colour to level of education and at the end, calculates how much you would supposedly be worth to a potential suitor. Along the way, the app takes a sly dig at the worlds current love for dark skin a la Lupita Nyong’o and also hints at the perception that women with PhD’s are seen to be too intimidating to men.
If you’re lucky, you end up with a top score of over a million naira with the tag – Exclusive Wife Material, if you end up around zero, the elders who calculate the score, tell you that they will fast on your behalf. Twitter buzzed with laughter for a few days as people calculated their brideprice and conversations turned to these ancient principles and their relevance to modern day marriage.
Magazine Cosmopolitan got hold of the story and, it seems they took a distinctly less amused view – Frank Kobola who wrote the article classed it sexist and horrifying and decided that it showed no respect to Nigerian women. He ended up linking the practice of paying brideprice to child marriage. Hmmm…did Nigerians agree? Apparently not…a stream of very strong comments followed the article on the Cosmopolitan page… and then the tweets began!
Some of the nicer ones? Amara Nwankpa said – Every Culture has its quirks. In Nigeria, we are mature enough to laugh at ourselves without developing a complex. Cosmopolitan, deal with it. @je_mc2 said, rather than remove the tractor of sexism/misogyny in their own eyes, Cosmpolitan is worried about the speck in the eyes of someone else.
What do you think guys? Simple, easy fun, sly cultural satire or a quiet nod to sexism. Share your opinons on www.facebook/elreports or tweet at us @elreports. Hashtag #BridepriceDrama