Naijahusband vs Highlandblue: The Rejoinder

You might want to read this first.

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Good evening listeners and viewers at home. Good day Mr moderator, impartial panel of judges, esteemed co-debaters and members of the general public.

I am here to argue for the motion that Naijahusband and Highlandblue are one and the same. It is hoped that my appeal to your higher rational faculties will be as succint as it is comprehensive.

The fact that most people are what they tweet is among the most absurd arguments ever to grace this revered podium. It is easily demonstrated that most people live boring lives and come on Twitter to find expression for their otherwise inhibited selves. The appeal to anonymity is a strong one, giving lesser mortals the opportunity to freely express views that would be frowned upon based on their perceived social status. It is true that people may be their tweets but this persona has as much bearing on the projected real life characters of those behind the Twitter handles as the shadow of a man has on the colour of his apparel and the countenance of his visage.

What I am saying is, it is very possible for one person to hurriedly project a quiet, real life introvert for a few uncomfortable minutes as Naijahusband and then log into his other account to tweet freely without fear and favour, as Uncle Efe is wont to do.

The overwhelming similarities between Naijahusband and Highlandblue have already been alluded to by my opponent. I will attempt to reveal the holes in my opponent’s reasoning with a few considerations of common sense.

Uncle Efe once tweeted regularly about Woji traffic especially in his single days. However, such complaints have all but ceased in the last five months, suggesting he may have moved to some new traffic free location. Coincidentally, the time of this move coincides with the birth of the Naijahusband persona in the Twitterverse and the Blogosphere. Do you still stubbornly believe in coincidences? I urge you to reconsider.

The difference in writing style between Naijahusband and Highlandblue is not even present. Uncle Efe owns a blog he hardly writes on, often instead provoking others to write in special series that run almost the entire year while he chips in his quiet footnotes and advice with little interference. The gentleness of both Highlandblue and Naijahusband is another so-called coincidence. To further buttress this point, the few times Uncle Efe has written on other blog series, notably on the Naked Convos, his stories have been deep, reflective ones (citation, Colour Purple in the monologues, Banga Soup in the Pounded Yam series, and Envy in Sins of the Father.) The odd sprinkling of understated humour is a mark of Highlandblue and Naijahusband, visible to even the most inelegant students of literature. Besides, could it be that Highlandblue hardly writes on his blog because he fully applies his literary skills on Naijahusband?

My opponent alluded to the fact that Uncle Efe may be an avid computer game lover, a football enthusiast and a strongly masculine engager of men. This is her description of a handle that many people sometimes mistake as female! I challenge her to cite a single tweet of Uncle Efe or a single picture or screen shot of Uncle Efe’s so-called computer games. She will even be at pains to name his favorite football club in the Premier League! From all tweet indications, Uncle Efe loves Tinsel, Fashion Police, Masterchef and America’s Next Top Model, most likely due to the extreme pressure of the assertive Naijawife.

The clincher for my argument is the persona of Naijawife herself. Being an expressive and outspoken woman, she may be loathe to operate two Twitter accounts as her husband does, preferring instead to be true to her offline extrovert personality. After all, an already outspoken person in real life would not need to have an outspoken outlet in form of a second Twitter account. While we might meet Uncle Efe offline and find him to be a quiet smiling Naijahusband, it is almost certain Naijawife will have an offline personality exactly as her tweets portray. The fact that Uncle Efe hardly tweets about his wife, despite the fact that he is happily married, might just be because he is already tweeting about her, but in the name of Naijahusband!!!!

I hope with these few points of mine I have laid to rest the debate and proven to all and sundry that Uncle Efe and Naijahusband are one and the same person.

Thank you for listening.