Senator Alhassan, are you there? Wife battering is going on!

Do you know it could be legal to beat your wife in Nigeria? Do you know it is legal to spank your child in Nigeria? If you didn’t know these laws exist, I have no doubt you wouldn’t have heard of all the ‘noise’ made by Wole Soyinka and Femi Falana about a proposed rape law in Nigeria. In the proposed law, it might not be a crime if you raped a victim older than 11-years old. I am not sure what has happened to that proposal recently.

Oh yes, these laws exist. I pity women. I wonder why they did not organize a peaceful protest last week while the world celebrated the International Women’s day. They should have organized a peaceful demonstration at the national assembly. After all, the great philosopher, Aristotle, supports this, especially when it is for a just course. In this article we shall examine the plight of women in Nigeria. However, since women have suffered a great deal in Nigeria, I will just restrict my discuss to some recent events. I will also use this opportunity to call on the minister of women affairs to say something. She must speak!

Just when it seemed like women would have a reprieve in Nigeria, the Senate dashed their hopes. Today, Senator Abiodun Olujimi, a Senator from Ekiti, presented a bill seeking gender parity and prohibition of violence against women. Expectedly, our Senators turned down the bill. If you looked at Senator Olujimi bills you will fall in love with her. The bill was timely. The bill seeks to give widows the right to inherit their husband’s properties and take custody of their children. This is just one facet of the bill. The sad thing about the whole story is that a similar bill of this nature was presented in the last Senate by Senator Chris Anyawu, but was summarily dismissed as well.

In the usual simplistic nature debates are handled in our Senate, Senator Ali Ndume tried to explain that we should be careful with bills that conflict with our traditional rites. Though, he saw some merits in Olujimi’s bill. He reminded us that in Igbo culture, the wife is a man’s personal property so we should be careful of some bills because it could be knotty in divorce cases. This is exactly what my neighbor who is a wife beater loves to hear.

Another Senator, Senator Sani Yerima, went on to educate us that the proposed bill was in conflict with Sharia laws. Please note that I will never support anything that is in conflict with Sharia because I want all Nigerians to live in peace and harmony. I do not think this bill is in conflict with Sharia. Can somebody educate me on this? Senator Yerima went on to say that the bill was in conflict with Nigerian laws. Really? Does the Senator know that the Supreme Court has ruled that women can now inherent properties in Igbo land? The quality of the debate in our Senate makes me miss the UK. Have you seen any parliamentary session in the UK?

Ike Ekweremadu stood for women in defending this bill but he was a lone voice. Distinguished Senator Ike Ekweremadu tried to educate his colleagues on the impact of treating our women with ‘care’, but he couldn’t convince them. Even though it is said that the way you know a civilized people is in the way they treat their ladies, our Senators didn’t care about this saying. In my view, somebody sounded like one man who told me in the ‘beer palour’, last week, that if you give a woman an inch she would park a car on it. This man told me he beats his wife regularly. Hear him, ‘’my wife dey fear me well well. She wan try?’’

This reminds me of the penal code of the north which gives the husband the right to beat his wife as a corrective measure as long as he does not cause grievous bodily harm. Spraining her arms might not be a grievous bodily harm, you know. Let me use this opportunity to advise married men. The day you raise your hand on your wife, would be the day you will lose her respect. There are other ways to deal with women, and I think our holy books know this. May be someone misinterpreted the good books. Misbehaviors such as ‘boxing’ your wife is definitely not one of the ways of disciplining her.

Since I promised not to take you through sad stories about women in Nigeria, I will only restrict myself to recent examples. To buttress how women are suffering, Tinubu’s daughter, the Iyaloja-general of Nigeria, had to cry out last week. She claims women have been abandoned. If you are a woman, you would take this seriously. Women are not only used and dumped in the political front, they are also used and dumped in relationships. I remember Senator Oluremi Tinubu has also cried out on the floor of the Senate concerning ‘women’s neglect in politics’.

I want to use this opportunity to call on Senator Aisha Alhassan to help her fellow women. She should not be afraid to take on her colleagues in the Senate. I have no doubt that Mama Peace would have taken on this challenge if she was still first lady. Mrs. Aisha Buhari should also not shy away from taking on the Senate. The Senators who would need to be carried along in this debate are Senator Adamu Aliero, Senator Ali Ndume, Senator Sani Yerima, and Senator Emmanuel Bwacha.

Some portions of Senator Olujimi’s bill need to be revisited. If a wife has been loyal to her husband, I don’t see why she should not automatically inherit her husband’s property even if she is illiterate.

For our Nigerian women, on your part, you have to let our ‘honourables’ know that it is in their best interest to give you the privileges and rights you deserve. However, you must promise that you won’t behave like those ‘oyibo’ women who are so powerful that they can lock their husbands up in jail or send them home if they are immigrants.