Facebook and Whatsapp have been buzzing like crazy since the release of the girl-Linda’s video by 3 other ladies (allegedly). This is a very unfortunate event, and clearly, we can all agree that Linda is a victim to these girls’ disheartening act of releasing that video, and also a victim of her own demise of even recording the video and sharing it with someone else. But what has happened has happened, so we can just keep praying for her. Today, Linda is not my concern, it is the “accused girls” I am interested in. These girls are also victims, just like many of us, they are victims to 3 major things we can all relate with; they are victims to bad friends, victims to the false power of social media and victims to anger.

The saying goes “show me your friends, and I will tell you who you are”. Whoever decided to click the send button and publish that video, didn’t do so only on her own accord, she had some serious empowerment from bad friends. She had been in possession of that video for a while, but what made it different this time was that she had many friends saying, “Yes, lets deal with Linda”, and all of a sudden, a decision she might have thought over twice, became a lot easier. A lot of us out there making comments about these girls have our own “bad friends” that encourage us to make wrong decisions too; like those friends that run to you when they hear someone say something about you, even though they never tell you what they said, or the friends that run to tell you they saw your boyfriend with so and so, encouraging you to go and fight the lady, but they didn’t attack the guy when they saw it happen, or the friends in associations who encourage you to fight every good decision that could make the organization grow, just because of their selfish gains. If there is one thing we should all take out of this, is to choose our friends wisely. Don’t be friends with someone who supports every wrong thing you do, good friends should rebuke you. If the Mekone girl only had one of her friends say “it’s not worth it, let’s not destroy her life, she is just another woman struggling like us to get by”, I think she would have reconsidered sharing that video on Facebook.

Secondly, these girls are victims to the false power of social media. We have become ruled by “likes” and opinions of people who don’t matter, so much so that we think every stupid decision we make will be met with likes and standing ovations. Also, we think social media is so powerful, we can ruin person’s life by posting something to get at them. Truth be told, for a minute it will trend, but in no time, it is forgotten, however, the guilt of actually attempting to ruin a person’s life lives on. Worst case, if it led them to taking their own lives, we will have to live with that decision. I just remembered, there was a video of a Nigerian lady and her janitor that was trending over Whatsapp last year, and today, how many people even remember it? But I can assure you, the person who initiated the circulation will probably never find peace for the pain they caused the victim. This is simply because our consciences carry more power of judgement than anyone on social media. Let’s be mindful of what we post and the things we “like” for we are indirectly encouraging such sadistic tendencies by giving some sick people the idea that will we welcome such despicable posts.

Finally, a lot of us are victims of our “uncontrolled anger.” From the audio that was released before the video was published, it is evident that the Linda girl made someone mad, but whoever that angry person is(who was speaking in the audio), she could have ignored what she heard and moved on. Anger has cause people to make the most stupid decisions, people have committed murders, people have lost relationships, and people have said offensive things they can never take back, all because they couldn’t control their anger. When we let anger get the best of us, it brings out the worst in us, and there is nothing we do or say in anger can ever have the right outcome. Whenever we feel like we have been pushed beyond our limits, let’s just stop and breathe. Then respond or react later.
These girls’ lives will never be the same, it will only get better from here, because they have learned their lessons the hard way, let’s use their lessons to educate ourselves too and be better citizens of the world.

By Lilly Mbinglo, USA