I must begin by defining what or who a “mumu” is. A “Mumu” in Nigerian parlance, is a silly or foolish person. To expand further, a “mumu” is a person who performs acts that defy logic and common sense. It also refers to a person who is naive in social engagements.
“Mumus” are manifest in all spheres of society. We are quick to call people who get swindled in business dealings, cheated by employees or generally soft people “mumu”. The most remarkable form of “mumuism” occurs when it is induced by a member of the opposite sex.
Generally, people do not accept the “mumu” tag. No one agrees that he or she is a “mumu”. All “Naija” people are sharp guys and babes, so “nobody wan greesay he be mumu”1, but this changes when you meet that person.
A school thought posits that everybody has a “mumu button” which can be activated by that special person. It is also said that when you “fall in love” your “mumu button” is activated. The funny thing about it is that a person under the mumu spell never admits that he/she has been mumufied!
I have met some sharp chicks who have earned the reputation of being tough and mean with men in their social circle; their brothers, colleagues or friends. One guy comes along and she just loses it. A girl that doesn’t cook on a regular would become a super chef in that guy’s house. I have seen babes spending crazy money on a guy that hardly even notices them or travel ridiculous distances just to be with him. On the flip side, a guy’s mumu button once activated could be disastrous. Many people in Nigeria feel that if a guy spends obscene amounts of money on a girl, he is a mumu; but I believe that is not true in all cases. There are guys who are really loaded and spending such money is nothing to them. The disaster is when a “hard man” or “big boy” starts marking laundry attendance at a chic’s place on a regular like say“them dey pay am”2. I know guys weydey wash undies and jeans for bae!3 It is not easy o! Some of them are married men o! Like I mentioned earlier when your “mumu button” has been activated you won’t even know, it is your close friends that will point it out to you. To help out, I now give 5 symptoms to know when your “mumu button” has been activated.
- When you start thinking and actually believing that one girl/guy is an angel that can do no wrong.
- When you think that your life will end if he/she leaves you.
- When you find yourself spending time away from productive activities, hallucinating about that person.
- When you go against your principles and values without much stress.
- When your productivity starts to slowly decline with no natural cause
Love, they say is the key to unlocking the mumu button. Love is what makes grown men and women do things that they never thought they would do. What the heck is love anyway?
Read Where’s the Mass for Christ? – An Article by Edith Adhiambo Osiro, Kenya
Love has over the millennia been a subject and theme for musicians, artists, movie writers, storytellers, and everyday men, women, boys, and girls. Love has, through music and art invaded popular culture and has been artistically been described in a variety of ways; “love is strange”, “love is beautiful”, “love is wicked” it even has animalistic tendencies like “love floats like a butterfly”. In Nigeria, someone sang: your love dey turn me to mumu”. Some have given it a colourful notation as seen in “the colour of love is red”, love is like a rainbow, “I am blue cos I love you”. Parents tell their Children; “I love you”. The same do spouses whisper to each other. When a boy and a girl are often seen together, probably holding hands and showing some form of intimacy, society screams “they are lovers!” sometimes it can be assumed that they whisper; I love you to each other when they share stolen kisses in secret! In the modern world, love is always in the air!
So many love stories are found in all media, and there are those who say that love does not exist! Love seems to have taken the position of a hypothetical construct that no one can really understand or explain, but what exactly is love?
The word love stems from the old English word “lufu” meaning affection or friendliness, this, in turn, comes from the pre-Germanic “lubo”, Old Frisian “liaf” and gothic “liufs” meaning dear or beloved. Its meaning has also changed over the ages.
When a young 15th-century Bavarian boy told a lady,” I Lufu you”, its meaning is very different from when a 21st-centuryNaija boy or girl says “I love you”! It has progressed from a gentle “lufu” to a more amorous and erotic “love”!
That’s why falling in love in Nigeria these days is equivalent to letting go of your “mumu button”!
In Greek socio-philosophy, there are 3 major expressions of “love”; agape, philia and Eros. Agape is a holy and divine aspect of love that men show to the Supreme Being. It is unconditional and the type preached by most religions. Philia entails a fondness and loyalty to friends, family and to the community. Eros is the aspect of love that has to do with sensual desires; it is the root for the modern expression erotic. There is often a misconception in current thought that these three aspects of love are distinct and unrelated. This mentality stems from a vain Romance culture present in arts and literature. Even the nature of erotic love is generally misunderstood. However, the philosophers in the symposium posit that love is an intrinsically higher value than appetitive or physical desire. Physical desire, Plato notes, is held in common with the animal kingdom. In Plato’s opinion, Eros is held to be a common desire that seeks transcendental beauty- the particular beauty of an individual reminds us of the true beauty that exists in creation. From this, we can deduce that Eros within the enlightened Greek culture was not merely physical or sensual as we reduce it today. Aristotle in Nicomachean ethics writes that “things that cause friendship are doing kindness; doing them unasked and not proclaiming the fact when they are done”. He goes on to add that Love cannot emanate from people who are quarrelsome, gossips, aggressive in manner and personality and those who are unjust. The best characters, it follows, can produce the best kind of friendship and hence love. The most rational person, therefore, is the most capable of love. Hence the “mumu” syndrome or button cannot be equated with the essence of love.
References
- Nobody agrees he or she is a foolish person
- He was paid to do the job
- I know men who wash underwear and jeans for their girlfriends
