Bobrisky has been in public glare for quite a while, but more compellingly following her imprisonment for six months two weeks ago. Her life has been controversial and so, predictably, her imprisonment. A trans-gender, she has been an editor’s good copy and delight for what many consider as her defiance in life, charting her own course as she deems fit. In her own words, on her Instagram page, she posted in October last year and as reported by this newspaper, The Guardian: “Immediately I got mature enough to differentiate between my right and left, I told myself I wanted to be a woman (in caps for emphasis). There is nothing bad about being a man. But I see myself doing better in life as a woman.”

So, in 2019, she jetted out, headed for Dubai to go under the knives to transform from a man into a woman. The risks of the surgeries made her to give herself the name Bobrisky. Again, in her own words: “Ever since I started transitioning into a woman I gave myself this name Bobrisky because I took a lot of risk going under several knives to be a woman today. I’m a successful woman today with so much fame, houses, cars etc.”

Bobrisky is well educated. She was born as a boy on 31 August, 1992, at Ebute Metta, Lagos, and appropriately christened Idris Olanrewaju Okuneye. He grew up there before going to King’s College. He graduated from the University of Lagos with a Bachelor of Science (BSc.) degree in accounting. Before he went to transform into a woman, he had this ardent longing for a sex change and he set out as a transvestite, that is, a person who enjoys being in the attire of the opposite sex. Dark skinned, she went for creams to change her complexion. She then took to establishing a cosmetic firm, marketing skin-lightening products. She has also been more known as an internet influencer, a platform which gives her considerable following of both admirers and as expected, stern critics. The enterprise fetches her a lot of money. She is into some other businesses. She also moves in high social circles where some billionaires find her glamorous and adorable.

To the chagrin of the world, on 12 April, this year, Bobrisky found her sensational world crashing down at the gates of a jail house. There was outrage with commentators arguing that as a first offender, she should have been given an option of fine. She did not also waste the time of the court seeking adjournments. The counter argument has been that a fine option is discretionary on the part of the judge. Bobrisky was charged on April 5 of Naira currency mutilation. The prosecution accused her of spraying N400, 000 at an event in Lekki. Video clips of two other instances she sprayed N20, 000 at Ikorodu and Oniru, Victoria Island were shown, all to which she admitted she was guilty. Justice Abimbola Awogboro of the Federal High Court announcing his verdict said: “The act of mutilating the Naira notes has become a menace which has continued to damage the country’s image. Enough of people mutilating and tampering with our currencies. It has to stop. This will serve as a deterrent to others.” She herself has pleaded within the last few days that she should be let off with a fine of N200, 000 which she is ready to pay immediately.

The interest of this column is not so much in the nauseating age-long cultural practice of money spraying in the land. The matter, distasteful a practice no doubt it was and has been–throwing away N400, 000 mindlessly at a go just like that– it merely scratches the surface considering what unfolded in the saga.

During the trial, Justice Awogboro did ask Bobrisky about his gender–whether she was a man or a woman to which she responded that he was a man. Five years ago when he transformed into a woman, he had said he cleared off all the physical features associated with a man. This should suggest to us that despite his vaunted trans-gender status she is going through an internal struggle with himself—outwardly a woman, inwardly a man. It is at this point we should recognise the need for us to overwhelm him with love and prayerful thoughts that he may overcome in the struggle with himself. His condition thus invites us into deep introspection. The condition demands even more from him—unceasing reflection in the closet the Ikoyi Correctional Centre is affording him: Who am I? Man, know thyself! Self-knowledge was demanded in ancient Greece, and so the Temple of Apollo at Delphi carried the inscription: “Know thyself.” Herbert Vollmann says in his book, A Gate Opens: “Man certainly needs the courage to be prepared to make unpleasant discoveries in the contemplation of himself…Self-knowledge is the first step to improvement.

“ If the improvement towards what is good continues, it leads towards dropping of faults and unswervingly to severance of evil threads of fate.”

Idris Okuneye was privileged to attend reputable institutions, King’s College and the University of Lagos, Akoka. He read accountancy. He had a promising future spread out for him. He must consider it strange that despite the beckoning of glitters in his life, the thoughts that kept assailing him were those urging him to change from being a man to transforming into a woman. Why were those thoughts banging on his soul? From where were they coming? Answers he must find to them.

Some years ago, a survey was reportedly carried out in one of the countries of Western Europe. And the question asked was: “If you were to come into the world once more, would you rather be a man or a woman?” The answers were predictably interesting: 61 per cent of the women respondents, acknowledging their sex, said they would want to come back and remain as women; 25 per cent would like to be men in the said reincarnation; while 13 per cent were undecided. Of the men, 88 per cent said they would like to return and live as males and only 8 per cent would elect to come next time as females. What lies behind a desire for a gender change?

In the enlightenment of higher knowledge available on earth today, it is revealed that as we left the Spiritual Realm embarking on our descent to this earth for our development, although we left as unconscious spirit germs, there was an inner, awakening urge which sought to incline towards a more delicate activity or to a coarser, positive working. If the urge increased in inclination towards the delicate, it was determined as female and it kept a part of the higher spiritual essence. (I refer to our descent to this vale of matter for our sojourn in the past tense because there are no new spirits coming to this earth). The female is thus enriched with higher spiritual make-up. If inclination of the urge leads towards coarser, positive tasting and activity, the spirit germ defines itself and it is so determined as male. Being male, it is gradually divested of the delicate and finer part of the higher spiritual part as it will inhibit its working. The female holding to her own is put in a situation that she is a firm link and channel of radiations and influences from higher and purer Light Realm, indeed, Paradise. She is thus blessed with richer intuitive and perceptive faculties to sense the Will of God at all times and in every situation so she can guide man. The urge that triggers the inclination becomes a resolution to be either a female or male. That first resolution of the spirit germ, we learn from higher knowledge, is decisive and fundamental for its whole existence, not just for life on earth but the entire existence. It is once and for all! No matter the changes that may have occurred, the spirit itself always remains what it had originally chosen at the start of its wandering through Creation. It is bound to that one single and decisive free will.

This special spiritual enrichment for women accounts for their charms which impact fully as from puberty upwards. The charms are to arrest the male folks and turn their gaze upwards to the Light. However, out of ignorance and the so palpable decline of woman, the role of the charms p is perverted; they are used today only to seduce.

Standing as she does half a step higher than man even psychically, and by virtue of her make-up, she is able to absorb the rays of power and she thus becomes the store house of power from On High. She mediates the rays to the dense men thus passing strength to them for use in their coarse activities. She pulls them up; she dispenses to them, spreading beauty, ennobling the environment and directing affairs to a glorious end. Nature has endowed woman with a finer essence which her body mirrors so that in the ensuing homogeneity with the finer and purer currents of life, she may easily link up with these forces, and absorbing from them, mediate strength to her menfolk, who being coarse and alien to these forces cannot reach out to them on their own. All women carry these abilities. They are inherent in their essence from the very beginning. Man senses some power emanating from woman, and he the sturdier one feels drawn to protect this inexplicable treasure, for balance in reciprocity.

As I once explained, man, through science has encountered this overwhelming power in nature but has been unable to relate it to the nature of female species in whatever form at all levels of being. In the tiny atom, a storehouse of power, the nucleus holds the active-prone electrons together in orbiting the shells. In the gigantic solar system, the storehouse is the sun. The galaxies and the universes, too, have their own storehouses and so does humanity. And that storehouse is woman! For all species of life are subject to Law, the Will of the Creator which affects every species according to its nature. This is the storehouse which women want to abandon to become men. Men, too, seek to abandon their roles and become women as in the example of Bobrisky.

From trends observable in modern times, there will be more cases of men seeking to become women in the future. They are already filing their applications in the psychic sphere with men plaiting their hair; some wear wigs; some wear ear rings; many in their thoughts or distorted conceptions either adopted voluntarily or received through upbringing. Since becoming a woman is nourished, in the next incarnation the man will have his longing answered according to the law that what a man strongly desires returns to him. Weakening their masculinity, they distort their souls. They are males inhabiting female bodies. In their reincarnation, they may be women; they assume only partially features of women to begin with. They are marked by distinctive characteristics such as narrow hips and aggressive disposition. Contrary to the accustomed naturally quiet posture of genuine women, they express strong opinions. Where the distortion is not yet complete, the person can come back as a bisexual person. She begins to wonder why she is different from other young girls and women.

However, the distortion is more prevalent among women. In modern times, women not fully aware of their roles in Creation and out of ignorance of the consequences, imitate men, seeking to share roles with them or even take over. From the words alone, it can be easily recognised that man is different from woman and each has its roles assigned by Nature. The aping is manifested in positive activities, diversion of energies to wrong and harmful pursuits, such as footballing; weight lifting; crane driving; excessive cultivation of the frontal brain which is the seat of the intellect. This has the effect of blocking the outflowing of their intuition. The craving for political power and kindred executive activities steel them. When genuine womanliness is repressed, the delicacy of perception measured in the sharpness of the sixth sense that it represents, is walled in and distorted by the intellect.

With the forced changes in roles, the distortion of the inner man begins and disequilibrium sets in. The threads of fate are woven in the tapestry of life; the woman concerned must reincarnate as a man. This is because after the suppression of the true womanliness, only the coarser spiritual elements prevail. In most cases the female body harbouring a distorted maie soul will have features that are distinctive such as narrow hips sliding towards the male structure. She could grow muscles.

Whether it is a man or a woman who is involved in the distortion of the soul, there is restlessness as neither feels welcome in the gathering of genuine men or genuine women as the case may be. The male in a female body, for example, finds that a genuine man is unable to feel happy in her vicinity. There can hardly be a harmonious and successful marriage between a genuine man and a distorted woman’s soul, and vice versa. A genuine man finds no understanding for a false woman.

The inexplicable urge from within to do something about the inability to fit joyously into any circle of friends or gathering or have a stable marriage union intensifies. Then, there is recourse to seeking public acknowledgement and renown to fill the gaps through various means and by all means. Some take very desperate and abhorrent steps!

The question remains for all drifting towards such unwholesome experiences: Who am I? Bobrisky upon deep reflection, grappling with seeking to find an answer to the all-important question may find the closet and experience the correctional facility affords him more of a blessing than a curse. The situation is reversible in the long run. It depends; as there is not much time left for all mankind, all of us to straighten our ways.

Having a firm volition for what is good and nursing no ill-will towards anyone is the first step in the quest for freedom from enchainment, inwardly and outwardly, as freedom within is freedom without. We should all lovingly wish Bobrisky well and help from Above, from the Throne of Grace. Above all, we should seek knowledge—knowledge that answers all questions of life and existence!