Nigeria Tradition : A Prejudice to Womanhood

Nigeria is a country in the west of Africa that lies east of the Republic of Benin, south of the Republic of Niger and Chad and west of the Republic of Cameroun and north of the Gulf of Guinea.

The Nigerian Legal System is made up of the Common Law, Statutory Law, Customary Law and Islamic Law.  The Common Law is essentially an accumulated body of English case law.  The Statutory Law comprises restatement of English Statutes, which over the years have been amended or reenacted and written laws passed by the enabling body.  The Customary Laws, where applicable, are the body of rules governing a particular group of people and Islamic Laws are religious tenets applicable to those subject to it.

Nigeria is a multi-ethnic nation with over two hundred and fifty different ethnic groups.  Three dominant groups account for nearly sixty percent of the country’s total population of about one hundred and twenty million people.  These are the Yorubas, who are predominantly in the southwest, the Igbos in the southeast and the Hausas in the north. There are other smaller but important groups scattered all over the country.

In Nigeria, like other African countries, traditional customs, deep-rooted cultural mores and religious beliefs tend to compete with and in many cases overshadow the common laws and statutory laws with regard to some issues.  Issues relating to women are mostly affected resulting in prejudice against women in Nigeria.  The highest incidence of prejudice occurs in the home and the bosom of the closely knitted family.  This is a contradiction as the African family is noted for being closely knit.

Nigeria is a signatory to many international treaties, which prohibit violence against women.  There are also many regional instruments and national laws that frown at such violence.  However, the violence continues.  The discussion in this Article focuses on some types of prejudice inflicted on women.
One of these prejudices against women is the “Domestic Violence”. Domestic Violence is “pervasive” in Nigeria. About 20 percent of Nigeria women experience physical, sexual and psychological violence from spouse or male relative.
The level of prejudice against women in Nigeria is increasing day by day with two out of every three women in certain communities experiencing prejudice in the family.

As reported by the  Daily  newspapers and  Fadeiye and Adenegan  (1999), Charity  Agbaruku's  boy  friend  poured  acid on her  in  1992, in 1995, Rashidat  Kuti  was  attacked  by  her cousin over a minor quarrel. The same year, Deborah Odeyemi's husband poured acid on her.  Oyibo (1999) also reported an incidence where the late  Ego  Osadebe  died  as  a  result  of  the  acid  poured  on her  by  her husband in 1998. All these nefarious acts meted on the female citizens of Nigeria should change.

Another prejudice against women is the “Nigerian Tradition”. For many years, women have often been at the receiving end of law and traditions. These raises a question do the laws of natural justice and the modern day rule of law that posit, “Every man created by God is equal before the law?”

Nigerian tradition, like the various laws, tends to portray the prejudice meted out to women. As the word of tradition connotes, “the beliefs, custom, established method or practice passed from generation to generation”. It spells out the fact that women would continue to suffer one form of prejudice from one generation to generation, if adequate measures are not taken to put a stop to it.

Emecheta’s (1974, 1976, 1979, 982) writings, for example, focus purely on the oppression of patriarchy in traditional African societies and therefore on the discourse of protest against the cultural injustice on the girl child in traditional societies. Her writings, in other words, draw serious attention to the brutalities, subordination and other oppressive realities and manifestations of the trammels of tradition on women in Africa. In addition, her aim is to use the avenue of fiction to counsel modern African men towards putting a halt to the negative experience of patriarchal exploitation of women in Africa.

Imagine a tradition that deprives a widow of her late husband’s property because she did not bear a male child for him, or the one that states a woman is expected to drink the water used in washing her husband’s corpse in a course of proving her innocent over the death of her husband.

There are even worse situations, where a woman has to marry her late husband’s brother undermining whether he is married or not or whether he is too old or too young for the woman.

In  some  parts  of  the  country  and  specifically  the  Benin,  Ishan,  and  Yoruba,  customary  laws  for  instance,  forbid  women  to  inherit  their husband's property even if  most of the properties were purchased by the wives. In some parts of the country and especially among the northerners, parents select husbands for their daughters. Young  girls  in Northern  Nigeria  are  forced to marry  men chosen  for them by  their fathers without their own  consent or that o f their mother s in  most cases.

It  was  observed by Kaita  (1969) that  there were  instances  when  young girls of  between 12  years and 14 years were withdrawn from schools to be married to men as old as their fathers or  even  older.  All these  injustices  and  discriminatory  attitudes  against  women  must  be redressed.

When a family is built, women are the foundation and the fundamentals of learning and values ultimately lead to decency. Somalis say: ‘The values with which children are brought up precede their actual birth’. Indeed, before becoming adults, we attend a basic school, and that school is mother (cf. Mohammed, 2003:102).

The same appreciation of ‘the mother as school’ is found in the report from the Cameroonian study which underscored the idea that among the traditional communities in Cameroon, the mothers taught their children, particularly the girls, how to share and to show solidarity. They showed them how to protect the weaker children and the handicapped.

These observations and trends clearly demonstrate that an essential contribution of women in traditional African societies is their role as school for the young. Through their important mothering role, the culture of peace is entrenched in children as a foundation for peaceful living in families, the community and the clan.

Women are the champions for peace in any society because women are always at the receiving end of any out-break of disasters, especially war. Women lose virtually everything from property to life. Women have been known to challenge repressive governments. Women,  throughout  history have led  various  social  movements  that  brought  change  to  the  society.
Nigerian women have continually endured exclusions and restrictions.  The marginalization of women is global, but western societies tend to manage it more subtly than African societies.  However, by far the unconscionable acts of injustice against Nigerian women are widows.

There are so many absurd traditions, still strongly held today and worse of all; they have been inculcating into the culture of the people, intending to be pass from one generation to generation.

Yet, if those at the helm of affairs religious, political and traditional rulers would take, a bold step in reviewing those traditions these prejudices can be correct. In addition, the Africa and the world as a whole would agree that WOMAN’S RIGHT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS, hence Nigeria government should through legal instruments adopted a change of stand to enhance rapid growth and development by curbing communities who still keep to the old customs and traditions of representing women.