Patriarchy is not useful for anyone

By Toyin Ndidi Taiwo-Ojo

Even the men are victims, your innocent sister is now a widow, it’s her turn to be subjected to the harmful traditional practises of your people and you are looking for human rights activist to fight for her.

My brother, have you forgotten the several town hall meetings different from Bulaba Blublu, where you failed to address this wickedness against women? You had the opportunity to start reorientating your fellow men to remove these obnoxious traditional practises but no, you kept quiet because it served your purpose then.

Today, its your sister, tomorrow it will be your wife and definitely, it will be the turn of your beloved daughter.

You know why? Because in this part of the world, a woman never wins against tradition. If a young man dies, he must have died from the effects of his young wife’s adulterous ways. And if a man dies in old age, his equally old wife must have used him as a contribution in her coven! Men hardly die of natural causes here; he must somehow have died from the actions of his wife!

The evil you support today may haunt you tomorrow. 

Another man used his brother as next of kin and made no will, immediately he died, brother started “toasting” wife, wife had to ask him, are you the one who killed my husband or why are you so eager to till the farm that your brother was tilling before his demise.

Woman and their two kids have since been thrown out of the  house while brother has since applied for  letter of administration.  We intend to enter a caveat on her behalf. Hopefully, her interest will be protected but the wheel of justice grinds ever slowly in this country that I fear it may take so many years before she and her kids get justice. While we wait for justice to take its course, the deceased has to watch from the other side while his brother and family members feast on his “sweat”.

 All these hardships would have been solved with a little bit of làákàyè (common sense).

A caring father is denied care of his children when his wife died because patriarchy says that men cannot take care of children? Even though we all know he is a great dad and was even better at nurturing when his wife was alive. Patriarchy makes men not to believe in their ability to nurture and thus this age long bias is borne leaving men holding the short end of the rope!

When we say no to Patriarchy does not mean we are saying yes to Matriarchy. Let Equity lead. Let humanity win!

Toyin Ndidi Taiwo-Ojo is a legal practitioner and the founder of Stop The Abuse Against Children and Women Foundation,  popularly called Stop the Abuse foundation.