Conduct unbecoming
It is wrong for a man to beat his wife. In fact, it is wrong for a man to beat any woman. You would think this was obvious enough, but you wouldn’t know it from watching Nigerian movies.
The stories from Nollywood do more than their fair share to deepen the stereotype that women are fair game to be beaten when they ‘go astray’. When a woman is quarrelsome, troublesome or ‘loud’, it somehow becomes permissible, despite constitutionally guaranteed rights, including equality, for the man to step in and ‘discipline’ her. It is taken for granted that the man assumes a position of authority over the woman, in whatever relationship. You see drivers in Nollywood movies promising to beat up their female bosses, just like their wives at home.
We can chalk all this up to executive producers looking at the world from their small windows, but then one has to wonder about the approving public, and the very many across the country who connect with these kinds of themes. Or, one can wonder about the Deji of Akure land, Oluwadare Adepoju Adesina, who, one fine Sunday evening, beat one of his wives silly in a free for all in Akure, the Ondo State capital.
As this paper reported, the king, accompanied by his latest wife, Remi Adesina – and backed up by “stern looking people suspected to be thugs” descended on Olori Bolanle Adesina and inflicted injuries on her. Mrs. Adesina is presently receiving medical attention at the Federal Medical Centre in Owo for chemical burns and other injuries she sustained during the attack on her following the initial first aid treatment she got at the Ondo State Specialist Hospital, Akure.
In her court petition immediately following the incident (and we salute her for this quick response), her lawyers submitted, “in strong and clear terms, that the paramount ruler’s act is contrary to royal native norms, values, and traditional dictates. The king’s action is criminal in nature, which attracts sanction under the criminal code.”
We cannot agree more.
It is bad enough that a man can decide to settle a domestic quarrel by hiring thugs to beat a defenseless woman. It is worse that he did this with the full approval of another woman, and even more disturbing, that the two principal characters in this drama are supposed to be respected members of Nigerian society and the so called representatives of our tradition and culture.
But the real tragedy is the belief system that seems to prescribe that men are entitled, by right of birth, to discipline a woman where she is ‘errant’ – and that when they decide not to, it is only out of
personal grace.
Thankfully, it is a sign of the times and our progress as a people that there has been universal condemnation of the act, and not just from organisations like the National Council of Women Societies and the National Association of Women Journalists.
On Thursday last week, the Ondo State Council of Obas announced the suspension of the Oba Adepoju for the act of violence he committed. The council’s chairman, the Olowo of Owo, Oba Folagbade Olateru-Olagbegi, said this in a statement issued to reporters after the meeting of the chieftaincy committee of the council- sending a clear message to any who would turn to the ambiguous idea of ‘tradition’ to justify the action.
This is coming as police authorities in Ondo State also said a full scale investigation into the incident has begun. The command went even one step further, with the state commissioner of police giving an order that the matter be investigated as a purely criminal case and not as a domestic affair. The case has consequently been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation office.
To add to all of that, the Oba’s palace has been under siege as security reports indicate that many of the youth in Akure are intent on giving him a taste of his own medicine, a situation where two wrongs will certainly not make anything right.
But the wife-beater has been defiant, calling the decision of his fellow monarchs harsh and boasting that no one can dethrone him.
We might need to remind the Deji of Akure of one small, under-reported incident: in an attempt to escape being dealt with by the people of the area after his action, he fell into a gutter along the road and his cap, it is reported, fell off his head. It then took the quick intervention of the police from the state command to save him from being lynched by the irate mob.
One can only hope that, eventually, if a ray of reason shines its light through the windows of his palace, the King who beat his wife – and all men who consider violence against women par for the course – will see his fall into the gutter as the fitting metaphor that it truly is.
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