Nollywood actor, Jim Iyke, has stirred debate after declaring that single mothers cannot raise boys into proper men without the involvement of a male figure.
The actor, speaking in a recent interview with Okay 101.7 FM in Accra, Ghana, argued that women are not “built” to raise men on their own and require a male influence in the process of bringing up a boy child.
“A woman can’t raise a man. You can’t, you’re not built for it. A single mother cannot raise a man properly.
“You need a male influence, go get your brother that’s doing well or your father or even any man that you trust.
“There has to be a male presence in it,” he said in the interview, which has since gone viral on the internet.
He added that while women are naturally nurturing, this quality alone is insufficient for instilling discipline and resilience in a boy.
“Because women are naturally built to nurture, to love. And then what you’re going to raise is a very weak man?
“He is going to be everything like the men that left you.
“You need somebody that would discipline him, tell him ‘No’ as often times as possible, and put him in the grind,” he said.
To illustrate his point, Iyke narrated an incident involving his four-year-old son during a family holiday on a beach in the south of France.
According to him, the boy was bullied by his peers, who are white and refused to let him leave with his own football after outplaying him.
“My son is a horrible footballer. I don’t know what gave him the idea because he’s half black, he can’t play football.
“So they dribbled the hell out of my son. He got sick of being dribbled, and he went to grab the ball. It was his ball.
“Now the white kids don’t want him to leave with the ball. There was a scuffle,” the actor recounted