Between The Former Deji Of Akure And The Nigerian Culture

 

Culture has been said to be “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterize an institution, organization or group”. Culture is more or less the foundation upon which a society is built, its affairs are regulated and its goals met. Most Africans ascribe to their cultural beliefs in almost every theory or ideology they form, making culture the very root of their existence.

When Nigerians ushered in the other half of the year, it was not without the controversy of a high profile wife battery affair leading to hospitalization and dethronement. The main actor in this unfortunate drama was the former Deji of Akure and his estranged wife, Olori Bolanle. Whatever the traditional ruler’s reasons were for engaging his wife in a public fight, it was clear the former Oba had once again descended into the familiar gutters of wife battery.

Whether people like to admit it or not, the cultural construction of the role of a wife here in Nigeria is to be blamed. Nigeria like most African societies is a patriarchal society and the cultural inferiority of the female has gradually become accepted as the norm in the country. The high profile nature of the parties involved no doubt played a crucial role in the publicizing of the whole event.

In seven out of every ten Nigerian marriages, women suffer the same fate as Olori Bolanle did on that day while some even lose their lives in the process. Pathetic cases of hapless wives being pummeled in front of their equally helpless children hardly find room in the Nigerian Police files as they are most times dismissed as private affairs between the couple. The lackadaisical attitude of the Police can be traced to the fact that some of the officers themselves may sometimes be culprits of the same offence or they believe in the cultural rightness of a man to “discipline” his wife over any perceived wrongdoing. For the fear of digressing, we must look beyond the Oba’s violence against his wife and look at the crux of the matter. Was dust raised over the Oba’s scandalous behaviour because such an act was unacceptable within our cultural code of conduct or was the Ondo State government under pressure to remove the Oba because what he did desecrated the traditional stool of Akure and constituted a disgrace to the town?

In my candid opinion, I believe all the hue and cry over the man’s actions was merely because a high traditional stool was involved. Typical cultural beliefs hold that a wife is the property of her husband and indirectly vests the latter with the moral right to beat her as punishment for any kind of insubordination. The culture hardly allows for freedom of self expression by the women.

In the institutions of family and work place it is no news that women are given very limiting and restrictive roles to play. The culture promotes subjugation of the female as well as complacency. The Law itself has done little or nothing to help check the adverse effect of this culture because it is simply a mirror of it. Inadequate legal mechanisms have been put in place to criminalize wife battery or violence against women in general. It cannot protect women because its architects were themselves products of a patriarchal mind frame. Nigerians despite being very enlightened have refused to let their education permeate the fogginess of cultural condescension of women and roles expected of them.

As much as it is not my intention to generalize, it is however obvious that the majority of the Nigerian male psyche is informed by these backward notions that women are second class citizens and therefore should be treated as chattels. According to the 1991 census, women make up more than half of the Nigerian population. Therefore women in Nigeria constitute more than 50% and yet have only a value of about 35% due to several economic and social challenges. Politically, they are merely backup dancers to their male lead singers and have no real input to the development of politics. There are countless other things which show the underlying cultural inhibition when it comes to women in Nigeria, wife battery is just one of them.

It is important for Nigerians as a people to examine the misplaced values that leave women at the bottom of the ladder and put an end to all forms of injustice meted to them. There is no such thing as a perfect culture, it is often very amusing to hear some men boast of the beauty of the African culture simply because women here are more biddable than women of other races. No wonder Africa continues a downward spiral into chaos and poverty. The African society has failed to harness the talents of women and have instead settled for glorified slaves who must remain voiceless no matter the situation. From hideous widow practices, social stigma of raped females, inadequate laws and legal enforcement to protect abused women, gross inequality in earning power and economic standing, Nigeria continues running hard on one spot when it comes to the issue of gender equality.

The former Deji of Akure can be rest assured that he is not the only man who beats his wife for stepping on his toes. His only mistake was to do it in public. I doubt if the dethroned monarch would have gotten the type of tongue lashing he got if he had done what he did in the confines of his matrimonial bedroom. Blame the culture not the man. Between the former Deji and the generally accepted norms that bind Nigerians as a nation, there is no bigger villain than that culture itself. The man was just following a trend that had been followed by generations past and even thousands in the present day Nigeria.

If the culture had shown zero tolerance for wife battery or other forms of injustice highlighted above, the dethroned Oba would not have had the temerity or audacity to beat up his wife whether in the palace or on the streets knowing that there were stringent Laws to prosecute him and probably send him to jail. It is not enough for people to froth at the mouth over what the former Oba did but to examine our culture and its influence on our way of thinking. That way we should be able to avoid more cases of violence against women whether by a traditional ruler, public office holder or common man.

Between Culture And The Deji Of Akure was published

In Guardian Newspaper Nigeria on June 17, 2010.