What is Your View?

Twice this week, I tuned in to Your View on TVC. If you’re not Nigerian, ‘Your View’ is a popular weekday talk show where a group of women share their perspectives on trending issues in the country, from politics and parenting to migration and mental health. The show has been on for several years, and though I only watch occasionally, there are some women whose voices I particularly enjoy. Some for their wisdom, others for how effortlessly they make me laugh.

This week, however, I noticed something about the key host that I hadn’t paid attention to before. Curious, I went back to skim a few older episodes to see if my observation was consistent. And it was – she has a pattern of rarely, if ever, holding a clear stance.

In fairness, one can argue that as the show’s moderator, she’s meant to keep the peace and tease out multiple sides of the conversation. But something about her style made me uncomfortable. I wondered if it was less about maintaining a balance and more about her unwillingness to own a position. She would often skirt around her views, attempting to empathise with and appease all sides without ever being forthright about what she believed.

For example, in one episode they were discussing infidelity in marriages, and her comment was something like – “I understand, really. Men are not biologically designed for monogamy. Though I also agree that you can’t just be sleeping around.” Now, this might sound diplomatic (if one can even say so), but if you listen closely (in my opinion), nothing was said. It was a muddled attempt at reconciling two opposing thoughts without clarity or conviction. I would rather that she clearly articulate what view she holds on the issue, acknowledge the views of others, and they can collectively probe each other’s ‘whys’.

I also thought – is it possible she doesn’t even realise she comes across that way? The show is called Your View, after all. The title itself assumes that you have one.

And this brings me to the real question: What is your view?

It doesn’t have to be popular. It doesn’t have to be polished. It doesn’t even have to be correct, after all, opinions can change. But the point is: it should be yours until it evolves, and then evolves again.

How many of us truly hold views about anything? How many of us consciously develop our perspective about the things we encounter and experience in life, in our faith walk, in politics, or in the society we belong to? How many of us slow down to ponder, to question, to study before arriving at what we believe and why? Or are we just resigned to echoing opinions until they start to sound like us?

Many of us say things, believe things, practice things simply because they were passed down to us – we have never taken the time to ask – why do I have this view about money? Is it what I believe or am I just blindly imbibing what has always hovered around me? Why do I always feel the need to pick a side or sit on the fence? Could I possibly come up with a new side to this, if I take the time to think about it without the burden of appeasing or aligning with a side?

In Nigeria, this ‘echo effect’ shows up often in many different ways, including in:

• Politics, where people support candidates based on nothing but “That’s who my people are voting for.” “That who our pastor has endorsed”. Some may reel out track records of an aspirant, but they are often surface-level summaries found on social media, as opposed to deep study and informed conviction.
• Religion, where people follow and defend doctrines they’ve never studied, and hold on to inherited interpretations because that’s so much easier than personally knowing what the scriptures say.
• Gender conversations, where everyone is a feminist because Chimamanda said so, yet many have never even read the book. Or where men hold strong views about women’s bodies that they did not learn from women themselves.

The ability to form an independent perspective is a sign of maturity. It means you are thinking, not just copy-pasting what sounds brilliant or correct.

Just to be clear, I am not saying be rigid with your views. Holding a view also means you are willing to rethink it, to learn and unlearn in the face of new knowledge or fresh insight. That’s humility. True wisdom allows room for correction.

So let me ask you again – what is your view?

You don’t have to shout it. But you should know it.
You don’t have to win debates. But you should be able to articulate your stance, even if just to yourself.
It doesn’t have to be correct, but you should be willing to allow it to evolve.

So next time you encounter a trending topic, or even a personal dilemma, I beg you to pause. Ask yourself – what do I think about this? Why do I think it? And am I willing to grow from here?

Your view matters. But first, you must know it.