By Sandra Ijeoma Okoye
For the sake of clarity, it is expedient to start expressing my view in this context by throwing insight to what domestic abuse is. According to the United Nations (UN) in one of its publications, “Domestic abuse, also called “domestic violence” or “intimate partner violence”, can be defined as a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. Abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that frighten, intimidate, terrorize, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure, or wound someone. Domestic abuse can happen to anyone of any race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or gender. It can occur within a range of relationships including couples who are married, living together or dating. Domestic violence affects people of all socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels”.
It further explained that anyone can be a victim of domestic violence, regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, faith or class, and that victims of domestic abuse may also include a child or other relative, or any other household member.
In fact, domestic abuse is typically manifested as a pattern of abusive behavior toward an intimate partner in a dating or family relationship, where the abuser exerts power and control over the victim, and it can be mental, physical, economic or sexual in nature. Incidents are rarely isolated, and usually escalate in frequency and severity. Not only that, domestic abuse may culminate in serious physical injury or death.
Unlike in America and Europe where zero-tolerance policies, as spelt out in extant laws, cases of domestic violence in Africa with particular reference to Nigeria have taken an upward swing, when analyzed from the physical aspect of it. If it is not about a man beating, maiming or killing his wife, it is about a woman dealing with her husband in like manner. There have also been reports of a man stabbing his brother to death for wading into a feud between him and his wife and a woman beating and blinding her grandchild, among others.
For instance, like the proverbial Leopard that cannot change its spots, not few Nigerians, particularly fathers, that are married to fellow Nigerians, mainly in Europe and America, have been reported on social media platforms to have literarily turned their wives to objects of abuse and housemaids.
For instance, there is a story that trended, precisely in May 2021, which has it that a Nigerian man revealed what most of his colleagues who brought their wives from Nigeria to the UK were passing through. According to the report, Uche Osborn, a Nigerian based in the UK, took to his Twitter handle, and wrote, “A lot of Nigerian guys in my office brought their wives over from Nigeria, and within 2 years their marriages crashed. Reason, small argument and wives report to the police. Man gets thrown out of his house and he starts from scratch. It’s always the same story. God abeg ooo.”
In a similar vein, a relative recently narrated to me how a Nigerian who relocated with his wife and two daughters resorted to abusing them domestically. She said after two years of relocating to Germany that the man whose name will remain anonymous in this context got his wife pregnant, and subsequently had another baby girl. As narrated, having the third baby girl from her wife did not go down with him, and his attitude towards his wife and children changed so much that he started abusing them in an uncontrollable manner. He was wont to abuse his wife by calling her names, telling her that she only knows how to give birth to girls. In fact, the marriage unbearably became toxic that the wife became scared as she does not want to lose her marriage.
Given the foregoing, she was more often than not seen to be crying, and always portrays the demeanor of someone in a state of unhappiness or despondency.
Not only was she often called derogatory names by her husband for not bearing male children, the man stopped giving her allowances for the children upkeep, and she began to make do with allowances that accrue from the government to the children.
After 3yrs, the wife got pregnant for the fourth baby. For fear of not infuriating her husband to another bout of domestic abuse, she is circumventing any discussion that may make her go for an ultrasound to reveal the sex of her yet to be born baby. Contrary to her resolve of putting her faith in God. As a result of her refusal to undergo ultrasound, her husband has started abusing her again, cursing her by telling her that she will die with the pregnancy. Not only is the man abusing her, as he is wont to, he is this time around also abusing his children for being baby-girls, and as a result they have been living in fear.
It gathered that the lady contemplated committing suicide at a point, but the deadly move was foiled as she was seen by her eldest daughter who empathized with her by joining her to cry uncontrollably. Her daughter’s cry invariably made her to shelve the idea of killing herself. Being 9 of age, she queried her, “Mummy, why do you want to kill yourself”, and a neighbor who heard her inquisitive and weird question amid her mother’s sob called the police and the children told the police what they are going through in the hands of their Dad.
When the matter got to the Police, they were told that the man does not come home early from work, and that he does not leave feeding allowance when going to work even as he does not care for the children’s school fees. To worsen the situation, he was reported to have for umpteenth times to have threateningly told the wife that he will make her run mad and nobody will say anything as the wife lost her parents at 13.
It was also gathered that the husband refused to help her normalize her stay in their State of residence, and on that note threatened her that even if the government send him out of the house, he will claim that he has nothing to do because that is the same thing he did to his German wife that has a son for him. He also threatened her that he will make sure she suffers and nobody will ever look at her again, and that he will not pay a dime for their children’s upkeep whereas the guy is doing well, financially.
Ironically, one of the reasons that made the lady to marry him was that he was a born again Christian by virtue of being a member of Christ Embassy Church, though he did his wedding in Anglican Church. To contextually capture the marital situation which the lady is passing through since the story was narrated to yours sincerely, it is expedient to say that she is pregnant at the moment but lives in fear.
