By Sewe Ishola

Finally, the Lagos nightclub owner,  Mike Eze-Nwalie Nwogu, popularly known as Pretty Mike,  who put a couple of girls on a leash  has revealed the motivation behind his action.

In an exclusive interview with PUNCH, he said there is a mission behind action and was very much shocked at Nigerians’ reaction without hearing his side of the story.

See his version below:

“I have done it twice and let us not make it look as if it is something I have been doing all the time. The two times I have done it were weddings where I was part of the groomsmen which means that I have a personal relationship with the bride and groom. The overall reason I chose to do this was because of the mission statement behind it. It is just unfortunate how people are so quick to jump into conclusion without actually finding out what is going on. All they think is that it is an abuse, or a form of slavery or perverted thoughts.

For me, there is a mission statement. I would give you some examples to explain the mission statement behind my action. I would not call any names but I am sure we all know about an Emir that was given a 15-year-old as a wife. To me, that is putting women on a leash. We talk about traditional rulers that marry underage women, that is putting women on the leash. We talk about boyfriends and husbands that beat their spouses and abuse them physically, emotionally and spiritually, that is putting women on a leash. I needed to get the world’s attention first to be able to pass across my mission statement. It is all about women advocacy at the end of the day. It is all about empowering the women. These women have no voice. I refer to the girls I use as super heroes and we had to do something drastic in order to be heard and get the world’s attention. Now they are talking about it.

Yes, there are other ways I could have gone about it but there has to be a new way all the time. This is the era of social media and if I come up with a good write-up about women advocacy, nobody would pay attention to me. I would not even get up to ten ‘likes’. We are in the era of social media and if you pay close attention, something drastic has to happen to get the attention of people on social media. Most of the people that have become popular on social media did so by doing something drastic, different and unique.”