Two years before the pandemic, the World Bank in a publication, ‘Nutrition, Religion, and Widowhood in Nigeria’, noted that, globally, unmarried individuals have been found to have higher mortality and morbidity than married ones. The report acknowledged that the mistreatment of widows is grave and this includes dispossession following a husband’s passing as over 42 percent of Nigerian widows are found to be completely dispossessed.
When the pandemic began, apart from other concerns, global organizations like UN-Women soon began to worry about the general welfare of women. This was due to the heightening of gender-based violence occasioned by the virus.
However, away from that, COVID-19 has complicated the psychosocial and economic challenges of widows in Nigeria. While this is something that is rarely talked about, beyond the psycho-economic and emotional brunt of losing a breadwinner to death, the economic burden shouldered by widows in Nigeria has been threatened.
The dynamics of survival in widowhood, especially in this time, may not be fully grasped unless experienced. The Sudden death of a husband often plunges women into the double role of nurturing and providing for the family.
COVID-19 pandemic has increased the vulnerable status and plight of widows amidst government struggle to combat it, on the one hand, and has put widows in a dilemma of shouldering personal and family economic needs. The magnitude of impact on widows cannot and should not be overlooked.
In this photo story, the reporter captures the plight of widows in the low-income environs of Ajegunle and Okoko in Lagos.
Weyemi Evelyn
From Delta State, Weyemi is a widow and community volunteer for a Non-governmental organisation in Lagos. She has been living without her husband who died 2006 when her three children were just between the ages of two and three. She now works as a volunteer with an NGO that caters for widows and people living with HIV. Life without her husband was unbearable. But the pandemic introduced a different kind of pain.
Her husband was very sick before his death, and as she did not have a job, it plunged her into suffering as feeding became difficult for her and her children.
She lived from hand to mouth, and to survive, doing laundry for people around her as well as sweeping their compounds.
According to her, life was very tough because there was no helper. She recalls one of her husband’s brothers tried to take care of her and she got clothes from her husband’s younger sister. But, she couldn’t afford soap to bathe with, wash or even maintain proper general hygiene.
“I picked pieces of soap by others in our shared bathroom,” she said.
The COVID-19 pandemic amplified her woes. Evelyn who described it as ‘terrible’ said she could not feed at all, noting that things were very tough for her and her children because she has no business, adding that one of her children was very sick and she believed he fell sick due to lack of good care and food.
While she expressed gratitude to God that he is alive and engaged in a job that earns him N700 daily, but he does not get to work every day. Her daughter who is into the make-up business, got pregnant during the pandemic and has given birth.
“I couldn’t feed myself. I was going from house to house to beg for food because I had no source of income. Even to buy water was very difficult for me. I don’t like to talk about it because it makes me feel bad because things were really tough for me,” she said.
Weyemi now volunteers for Rhoda’s Haven Network where she also helps in looking after other widows. The network has been her major source of support. It was also through the NGO that she and other women got to know about the General Hospital in Lagos Island where they got some COVID-19 food palliatives after that of the government was hoarded by politicians in her local government.
Despite her ordeals, she is thankful for my life because she now works with the NGO as a community volunteer and settles her bills with the stipend she gets. But the lack is not going away anytime soon.
“I still lack a lot of things in my house,” she said. “Although, the stipend I get is not enough to take care of my children because to food has become expensive.”
Mariam Asemota
From Benin, Edo state, Asemota, an elderly woman in her 70s cannot recall exactly when she lost her husband but it has been up to 10 years.
As with widowhood, Asemota since losing her husband started struggling alone with children who though were adults, could not take care of her because they were also not financially stable.
Lamenting that her in-laws did not care about her or the children, the pandemic complicated things.
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“The pandemic affected me very well. I couldn’t eat. Even the palliatives that were brought to the local government were not given to us. They did not attend to widows. Only a selected few got it. It didn’t get to us. When the hardship became unbearable as the lockdown persisted, I had to sell pure water (sachet water),” she said.
“I now sell garri, palm fruits and sachet water. Since I started this business, I hardly make any sales. I don’t know why,” she laments. “I don’t have another business doing besides this one and I don’t get support from anyone. It’ll be good if government can help us with something to sell or increase my business.”
Asemota described her husband, an ex-policeman, as a caring man who took care of her and the kids. But unfortunately, death snatched him.
“I miss him a lot,” she said, “If he was alive, my life wouldn’t be like this.”
Rabiat Isah.
With four children and no support, she survives on her foodstuff business, which is now at the brink of collapse.
Her COVID-19 experience, like other widows, was filled with hunger as she could not afford food because for lack of money and the disruption of her business by the pandemic.
“It was bad,” she said. “There was no sale as people too could not afford it.”
To avoid her business collapsing totally, she got a loan from a micro finance bank and makes remittances every week.
“It’s when you have enough goods to display that you attract customers to you,” said Isah, referring to her scanty stock at the time. As the business became increasingly insufficient to sustain her, she took up a job as a cleaner at a primary school to improve her finances.
Isah simply survived that period by managing. On days when she had food to eat, she would eat. When there was none, she stayed hungry. “I’m used to fasting already. I’m just grateful that I and my children were not sick,” she said.
Grace Adoayuba
Adoayuba lost her husband in 2013. He was a policeman who prevented his wife from working. He preferred her to be a housewife, she recalls. When he died, everything stopped, including the education of her five children. She then took to hawking groundnuts with her son until she was introduced to a foundation that looks after widows, which then helped with putting her children into school. But the pandemic came with its own problems for her.
Like Isah, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Adoayuba and her children only ate when there was food. She had a shop where she sold rice, noodles, spaghetti and other raw foodstuff, which was what she survived on during the lockdown.
“People patronised me, but I couldn’t put the money back in the business because I took care of the family from the sales and when I go back to buy more things, the prices had gone up. I couldn’t afford to restock,” she said, and now “the shop has run down because the business eventually collapsed during the pandemic due to increased prices.”
Patience Okafor
Okafor has been a widow for 10 years. Like others in this piece, relatives too abandoned her. The major pain point for her, is seeing her daughter miss getting into the university twice.
Okafor was a food vendor but two years ago, she became very sick and due to that and the lack of money, she could not continue the business. Unlike other widows in this piece, during the pandemic, she had a lot of help, although there was no job.
“People called me to send my account details. I had a lot of help from people such that I shared to other people,” she said. Though she owed a six-month rent, at the time of being interviewed, in terms of food, she did not lack. This according to her was because people extended help to her and she says, “It was just God.”
She expected the homerun to continue, but now, everything has collapsed as she was laid off from the little job she was managing.
Florence Ogunleye
61-year-old Ogunleye became a widow eight years ago. That was when life became tough. She too could not train her son beyond secondary school. The second born, a girl, got pregnant before she finished secondary school. She runs a small business, which like most business got hit by the pandemic.
“I feed myself from this small business and I manage my life from it as well. But COVID-19 came and business was bad. I don’t have money to restock. I have plenty crates, but I can only afford little drinks—sometimes, one or two crates—because I eat from the proceeds,” she narrates.
Stressing that her business was badly affected, she could not withdraw the little cash sent to her because banks were closed and she did not have an ATM card. “It was tough for me. I could not feed,” she adds.
While she is thankful for life today, stating that she had some help from some family members and the Calidan Foundation during that period, she now, needs money to grow her business.
Dorcas Dimoh,
A mother of three (two girls and a boy), Dimoh lost her husband in 2002.
“Since his death, it’s been a tough time, and relations don’t care. It’s been me struggling. When my husband was alive, though he had nothing doing, he was able to take care of me and his children. Even if it meant borrowing, he did. Just to take care of his children,” she said.
During the lockdown, which lasted for months, Dimoh only ate once a day, usually in the morning.
“I will never forget that COVID-19 period because of how much I suffered. It took the help of a philanthropist in the US who made some donations to the foundation for me to get something,” she said.
She also didn’t get help from the government and no palliatives got to her. Dimoh’s business also suffered because she could not go out, and even when she did, her customers didn’t go to the market.
Dimoh acknowledges that it was generally a bad time, and now needs a shop where she can sell her wares and quit hawking. “One of my sons needs help getting into a university too,” she said.
This report was facilitated by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under its Free to share project.
