What does it mean to “oppress” another?

By Bagudu Mohammed

Social media today is flooded with content creators who deploy different techniques to manage impression, presentation and appeal. It is unclear whether there are more women who are content creators than men. What is not deniable, however, is that women, unlike men, have become the ultimate agents of advertisement, entertainment and fun-seeking.

Is it a mere coincidence that most of the women I have seen who are influential content creators and social media influencers are beautiful? If that does not make sense, let me reframe it. Is it a mere coincidence that most of the women who are highly celebrated actors in Nollywood and Kannywood are beautiful women?

The point is that I suspect those who recognize their gift for content creation, media or acting are those who have noticed their own strength of beauty and appeal and understood that visibility could pay. It suggests that even when the film or the content or the message itself is not sweet, there is still a chance that viewers will find more entertainment and meaning in watching the character herself, finding some emotional and almost intimate connection between the actor and the watcher.

One of the thriving arts of content creation, especially as it has become a very flourishing business for women, is the fact that most of these celebrities go into it with heavy makeup, stylish wears that sometimes deliberately expose their endowment, treasures that make viewers pay more attention to the character herself than even the content.

Just like films mostly use rented houses and rented affluence to act the role of big men and women, my suspicion is that our obsession with the right packaging may as well be the art of the content itself, by the way influencers take photos in beautiful locations, mansions and exotic cars to create the image of being comfortable and doing well, even when reality says otherwise.

Let us not forget that even though cosmetic surgery is not only for women, as men go to the extent of sometimes bleaching their skin, it is far more a common phenomenon among women to bleach their skin, enlarge their breasts and buttocks, parade huge makeups and shapes such as BBL which has become the new normal.

What do you think of a situation of a woman who is blessed with beauty, makes it more attractive through makeup, and acquires the skills of confidence to talk sensationally, almost seductively, while at the same time insisting that she is only marketing her message, not the messenger? And that you should be bold enough to be a man not to look or admire another woman.

Welcome to the world of oppress, that popular Nigerian slang for peppering, showing off, intimidating with soft power, a word that proves not only the rich or the powerful may be guilty.

It is difficult to understand the rationale why a woman would shake her body and buttocks and walk in a manner that is calculated to attract the opposite sex. It is difficult to see how banks and other corporate organizations, entertainers and airlines think of women as better marketers and those to be used in music videos to show their bodies or in films to sell desire.

According to the dictionary, to oppress means to treat someone unfairly and cruelly over a long time, especially by using power or authority, to keep someone down, not allow them freedom, to be wicked to them because you are stronger. It also has a second meaning, a feeling, when something weighs heavily on your mind and makes you feel sad, anxious or suffocated. The heat in the room began to oppress me.

In sociology, however, oppression is broader than cruelty. Erving Goffman’s theory of dramaturgy teaches us that life is a stage where we are constantly performing to manage impressions. Thorstein Veblen, as far back as 1899 in his Theory of the Leisure Class, called it conspicuous consumption, the act of displaying wealth not to use it but to prove you have it. Pierre Bourdieu would call it symbolic violence, where beauty, packaging and affluence become capital used to dominate those without it.

We all do it. We see a man who can barely eat and we bring out a bunch of money to show that we have in abundance even though it may not be ours. I have heard that some celebrities even go to the extent of hiring expensive clothes and cars for temporary packaging. We want to pose for a photo and the photographer tells you to show your expensive wristwatch as if the essence is to show off, not to check time.

This reflection comes from a Nigerian culture of parading inequity as a badge of honor or part of branding.

Ola of Lagos has sparked reactions after revealing that he still lives in rented apartments despite owning a house. He said paying as much as fifty million naira in annual rent keeps him uncomfortable and pushes him to work harder rather than becoming too relaxed. According to him, he deliberately avoids sleeping in a property he bought with his own money because he believes it could make him too comfortable. He said he currently lives in a beautiful estate but continues to pay rent, claiming that the financial pain motivates him to keep grinding harder. I have never slept in any house I bought with my own money, he confessed. If you do, you will become too relaxed. Despite being in a beautiful estate, I still live in rented apartments and pay rent. When I pay fifty million a year, I use that pain to keep grinding harder.

His claim has generated mixed reactions online, with some users describing the mindset as motivation while others questioned why anyone with a house would willingly spend millions on rent every year. One wrote, that is mad, when will you now liberate? Another said, this might be a goal but it is looking unrealistic, paying fifty million as rent when you have your own house. Another hailed it as a billionaire mindset, while another mocked, this one na slave for money, what kind of nonsense talk be this? One said, you will feel so relaxed when you sleep in your own house. Another fired, you dey crazy, you go prefer to waste fifty million yearly rent instead of staying in the house you bought and save that fifty million. Some simply do not believe him, make person confirm am, there is a myth in Nigeria that there is a way you get money to build a house, you are not allowed or cannot sleep in the house. It is a myth though.

But Ola is not alone. There are many people who like to display affluence of having more than they can use even as they cannot think about others. The news once carried it that many expensive houses in Abuja and even in almost all the towns have no occupants. The owner is abroad, not in town, or has built an expensive estate and put a rent so high that no one can afford it, yet they would prefer the house to remain unoccupied, paying for light, security and maintenance, than to bring the price down so that half bread is better than none. It is oppress, that show of I can afford to allow it to rot rather than give it out below the standard.

Dino Melaye has become popular for parading a fleet of exotic cars that only one person needs at a time. No matter how rich a person is, he can only use one house or one car at a time, sorry, one room or one apartment at a time. We do not really need many things to be plenty to oppress those who need them for basic survival. The irony is in the way waste and excess are being publicized for hype or attention as strength, while true greatness could be measured through positive impact, through moderation, selflessness, sacrifice and helping others.

The problem with Nigeria is the wide gap of inequalities. While only a few are privileged, they have it in excess to afford throwing away the leftovers while more than the majority lack the basic needs for survival. So we have now created a culture of fake life that both politicians, corporate organizations in marketing, and celebrities value as packaging, which is the ability to present a catching image of affluence, success and strength to win trust and at the same time frustrate those who do not have, to make them think less of themselves. Even traditional medicine healers use the logic of condemning a very expensive car to put drugs and loudspeaker to announce their healing power so that you think he is not a small desperate person but a successful one.

Politicians are the most challenged to create the false image of material possession and high affluence as an unwritten eligibility criterion to be suitable for elections, a pressure that forces some to lie or take loans and create false presentations. What we lose is moderation and the tendency to take advantage of others by creating an impression of having much to lavish without being able to meet every request for assistance.

The government as an institution is also guilty. I just stumbled on the caption, The N21bn residence nobody lives in and the cost of Nigeria’s priorities, Law and Society Magazine, published September 21, 2026. The report traces the fate of the new official Vice President’s residence in Abuja’s Three Arms Zone. Awarded in 2010 under President Goodluck Jonathan for seven billion naira, the project was abandoned for fourteen years and later revived and completed by FCT Minister Nyesom Wike at a revised cost of twenty-one billion naira. It was commissioned by President Bola Tinubu on June 7, 2024, who argued that completing inherited projects was better than wasting public funds.

However, more than two years after commissioning, Vice President Kashim Shettima still lives at the Akinola Aguda House within the Presidential Villa, with no public explanation for why he has not moved. A 2025 fact-check visit found no evidence of occupation, and claims of hidden CCTV cameras were debunked. The story notes the building still incurs security and maintenance costs, and places it within a larger pattern of high-cost public building renovations, including five billion naira for the VP’s Lagos residence and 40.62 billion naira for State House in 2024, at a time when World Bank data shows sixty-three percent of Nigerians live below the poverty line.

If these are not all systems of oppress, where both the strong and the weak like to take advantage of their strength or situation to affect the feelings of others, what are they? Michel Foucault in his work on power reminds us that oppression does not need a gun, it only needs a gaze that makes the other feel small, and in Nigeria we have perfected that gaze into an art form, into content, into governance, into lifestyle itself.

*Bagudu Mohammed* is the founder of Alternative Perspectives, a widely read commentary platform on social media, and writes a weekly newspaper column published every Monday on the back page of Peoples Daily.Web: https://alternativeperspective.onrender.com