The death of the Ekwueme minstrel, Mrs. Osinachi Nwachukwu, once more, brought to the front burner the scourge of spousal violence, which I have decided to upgrade to terrorism.
People were so embittered that they would have ‘finished’ Peter Nwachukwu if they could lay hands on him, with many suggesting the appropriate types of wicked punishment for the apparently cold-hearted fellow.
Others blamed the beastliness/bestiality of men in general, saying ‘it is in their character.’ A particular platform I belong to dedicated a whole week to the matter, sharing relevant cases, videos, comments, and sermons.
…ask yourself why and how people who voluntary agreed to get entangled with each other, with the support and in the presence of family and friends ‘till death do us part,’ will suddenly so hate themselves that they do these unthinkable things to each other
Some of the videos were unbelievably BRUTAL, drawing real or mimic tears form the viewers.
However, in the process, it became very obvious that men were also victimise, indeed more victimised than people imagined.
Unfortunately, many, even officials funded from the public purse (Gender, Domestic and Sexual violence agencies), limit themselves to violence against women. Occasionally, they remember the children but men are NOT in the equation.
In June 2020, for instance, Ekiti State pronounced immediate dismissal for any male civil servant who sexually assaulted the female counterparts.
Its Head of Service, Mrs Peju Babafemi also declared, “We will sensitise our female workers and encourage our women generally to speak out against any gender-based violence (GBV).” Case closed: only women were sexually and physically assaulted; the men were, and still are, the aggressors!
It is also an indubitable fact that the Coro-induced triple-locks (lockup, lockdown and lock-in) accentuated domestic terrorism (see Covid-19 lockdowns and domestic violence: evidence from two studies in Argentina:
Perez Vincent et al, 2020, Inter American Development Bank, downloaded 24,000 times in less than 2 years). The National Human Rights Commission also received 266 reports of domestic violence in the first three months of this year from Kano State alone.
Incidentally in the Osinachi case, everybody condemned Peter unequivocally, saying nothing could have warranted such extreme wickedness and these were based on the stories we heard because we were not eye-witnesses.
Professor Anthony Oha of Umuchukwu, was a lone voice, asking if Osinachi was truly an angel at home, recalling how women terrorise men with their venomous tongues, daring them to ‘touch me if you are man enough.’ However, when men were on the receiving end, the comments mostly by women revolved around ‘who knew what he must have done.’
This gives rise to a multiple choice question scenario. Is spousal terrorism bad on itself? Is it bad based on who is the pugilist or the pugilee? Or is it bad based on the offense of the pugilistic victim? That will be for the next Global Gender-based Violence Conference!
Spousal terrorism (also known as Intimate Partner Violence), which was initially perceived to be exclusively against women, did not start today. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo beat the daylight out of his wife for killing a banana tree (p27) and nearly murdered her for running her mouth (yes; running her mouth; as it was in the beginning.) about his hunting incompetence (p28). He was so annoyed that he reasoned with his brawn, forgetting that it was the week of peace.
For this, Ezaini, the priest of the earth godess fined him a she-goat, a hen, a piece of cloth and 100 cowries (a hefty fine in those days), telling him that even if he had caught her red-handed with another man in their matrimonial bed, the beating was condemnable.
The Igbo worldview on spousal terrorism is also established in the case of Mgbafo vs Uzowulu when the supreme court of Umuofia (staffed by the ancestors, one of whom walked like Okonkwo, and led by the dreaded ajofia (evil forest) declared that it is not bravery when a man fights with a woman (p66), and directed the man to go and beg his wife and in-laws with a pot of palm wine (Achebe, C(1958) TFA, Heinemann, Ibadan). In Arrow of God, the wife-beater was asked to cleanse himself of his madness, before serving his punishment!
However, about 55 years ago, there was a very bad reverse case in my town: The bodacious woman so terrorised her husband that a masquerade was commissioned to protect the man through the process of itu-omu (tying fresh palm leaves around the man to indicate that he belonged to a masquerade such that any time the woman touched him, it was as good as daring the masquerades and the consequences were better imagined!). I know the woman in question and I know the family!
There was also this story about a couple intensely scuffling behind closed doors with the husband shouting ‘I will kill you today’!
The neighbours pleaded with the man to take it easy so as not to commit murder but when the scuffle continued unabated, they broke the door only to find the man being pounded on all sides by the hefty wife. The man was using the little strength he had left to shout I will kill you today so that neighbours would not know that he was at the receiving end.
I did not eye-mark this story but it is thus obvious that women are not the only victims of spousal terrorism; it is a two-way affair.
Incidences of husbands terrorising their wives are three for a penny. However, for the purpose of this intervention, I will draw from two of my files on husband battering (opened in 2017) and household wickedness (opened around 2019).
As you go through this intervention, ask yourself why and how people who voluntary agreed to get entangled with each other, with the support and in the presence of family and friends ‘till death do us part,’ will suddenly so hate themselves that they do these unthinkable things to each other (Ik Muo, Spousal Wickedness, BusinessDay, 27/2/20).
Instances include Samaila Musa of Kastina who locked up his two wives in a room for 10 months and dehumanised them in several ways, including ‘peppering’ their private parts; a diaspora Nigerian who discovered that none of the three children was his and brutally restructured the wife’s facial and dental configuration; the recent case (March 2022) of Mr Anyago who brutalised the wife, Judith for denying him access to her holy of holies; Ifeanyi Ajaero who chained his wife, Obiageli to a generator overnight in Ewooluwo, Ogun State; the popular case of Fani Kayode and his fourth wife, Precious who took a walk over domestic terrorism a fate that befell her three predecessors (why did she marry him despite this woeful testimonial?); Anthony Ikpeama, who beat his six-month pregnant wife, Barr Adaeze to coma and allegedly removed the oxygen mask infused on her which led to her death.
I don’t know how to classify the case of Yetunde Folorunsho, a pretty mother of two who committed suicide over her husbands plan to marry a second wife (Kwara State, April, 2022.) She was a Muslim and knew the rules of engagement ab initio!
These are all condemnable and stand condemned. However, in June 2021, Muhammed Abdullahi, Chief of Staff to Governor El-Rufai revealed that 73 percent of women in Kaduna LGAs did not think it was wrong for their husbands to beat them (www.globaltimesng.com).
Read also: Violence remains major obstacle to achieving food security
In March 2018, a Ugandan parliamentarian, Onesimus Twinamasiko (Bugangaizi East) said on Ugandan National TV that a man should ‘touch, tackle and beat his wife somehow so as to streamline her.’ That was in response to President Museveni’s remarks that men who beat their wives were cowards. He later clarified that he did not mean beatings that would cause injuries or death.
Furthermore, about 90 percent of women aged 15-49 in Afghanistan and Jordan, and above 80 percent in Jordan, Mali and Central African Republic, believe that a husband is justified in beating the wife under certain circumstances.
60 percent of women in rural Egypt feel that it is justified for a husband to beat his wife (that is when he has the capacity to do so) if she refuses him sex, argues with him or goes out without telling him. It is even as high as 65 percent in Nigeria.
In India, 56 percent of the sample believe that the husband can beat the wife for bad cooking, disrespect for in-laws, leaving home without informing him or having more girls (AA Adebayo (2014) Domestic violence against men: balancing the gender issues in Nigeria.
American Journal of Sociological Research,4[1], 14-19). In the southern region of S/Arabia, 52 percent believe that beating a woman is justified in at least one out of six circumstances, especially if she insults or disrespects him (EA Dhaher (2020) Women’s attitude towards accepting wife beating in the southern region of Saudi Arabia.
Social Science, 6(1)1-10). 38-50 percent of young people (aged 15-19) in Africa, South Asia and Middle East believe that wife beating is Ok, especially in cases of burnt food, insult, denial of access to holy of holies and neglect of children.
There are more female believers than male, UNICEFF (2021) Attitude and social norms on violence). So, it is the more you look, the less you see; different strokes for different folks.
On the other hand, the incidences in which men are the recipients equally abound and they are increasing in geometrical progression but people pretend that it does not exist.
In most of the cases, the men are either consciously killed or rendered man-less by cutting off their manhood! That was the view of one of the victims of amputated manhood, Mr Aliyu who lamented that his wife had ended his life-even though he was alive to tell the tale (to be continued).
