As women re-define themselves

In many African cultures, certain patterns of behaviour are believed to be characteristic of men and women. When, for instance, you ask a Nigerian woman to define men, she would describe them in the light of chauvinism; and may add that they are hypocrites. If you also request a Nigerian male adult to define women, […]

In many African cultures, certain patterns of behaviour are believed to be characteristic of men and women. When, for instance, you ask a Nigerian woman to define men, she would describe them in the light of chauvinism; and may add that they are hypocrites. If you also request a Nigerian male adult to define women, he is likely to label them as custodians of the satanic evil called jealousy. A chatty man may even add gossip and ingratitude to the list of women’s ‘natural’ traits. While men do not seem prepared to engage in behaviours that would change women’s perception about them, the idiosyncrasy of contemporary Nigerian women is, on the other hand, altering public perception about them.
Recent media reports portray women (particularly in Nigeria) more as wicked creatures than their innate attachment to jealousy, gossip and ingratitude reveal. Some recent incidents in parts of the country are illustrative of this insinuation. For example, the Daily Trust newspaper of Tuesday, May 24, 2016 carried a story on page 6 that two stepmothers were arrested for breaking their stepson’s legs and hands. The two stepmothers from Rimin-Gado local government area of Kano State also caused injuries to their stepson’s tongue and private part. Subhanallahi!
The baby-boy who was taken by his father from the mother after they were divorced, was returned and handed over to one of his (i.e. the boy’s) stepmothers. The boy’s mother, Bilkisu, said it was the boy’s father who insisted when she wanted to re-marry that she must give him back his son, which she did. But 28 days later, the boy’s father informed her that the boy was ill. “My aunt,” she said “went to see the boy and found his ears oozing out blood and thus took him to the hospital for medication. The boy was thereafter returned to his father’s house.” The following day, the boy’s mother said she was told that the boy’s eyes had problems. She later found out that the boy’s legs and hands were also fractured by his stepmothers. Bilkisu explained that even the boy’s tongue, teeth and testicles were not spared by the fantastically wicked stepmothers. Wickedness, in the opinion of this writer, is too mild a word to describe these two stepmothers.
Barely a month after the above incident, a married woman at Kwamba area of Suleja, Niger State, was reported to have inflicted injuries on the arms and shoulders of her two step-children aged two and four, respectively. The children were said to have been taken from their mother two months earlier by their father who divorced her a year ago and thereafter put the two kids in the custody of the woman he re-married. Daily Trust newspaper which reported the incident in its edition of Thursday, June 23, 2016 gathered that the woman who inflicted injuries on her two stepchildren accused the children (a boy and a girl) of disturbing her life by excreting inside their living room and vomiting after she fed them.
Few days after the Suleja incident, another woman who had been married for 17 years in Dafe village of Shiroro local government area of Niger State allegedly cut off the private organ of her 23-day-old stepson. Bara’atu is accused of cutting off Buhari’s genitals out of jealousy. By her own confession, Bara’atu said she used a knife to carry out the act in their toilet. Although Buhari was taken to the IBB Specialist Hospital in Minna, medical doctors at the hospital said: “Buhari’s genitals had been damaged and cannot be transplanted.” Subhanallahi! If this inhuman act resulted from jealousy as insinuated, Bara’atu has carried her jealousy too far.
As if women in Niger have resolved to radically transform the state into a home of cruelty against children, another woman from Bosso in Bosso local government area allegedly fed a-day-old step child with insecticide. After safe delivery, the baby’s mother left the child with its stepmother while she went into the bathroom to take her bath. But on her return from bathroom, a crowd of sympathisers were consoling her on the sudden ill-condition of the new-born baby who after diagnosis at the hospital was confirmed to have been poisoned with insecticide. Subhanallahi! From where and to where are all these women going with a highbred madness called jealousy?
This group of wicked women must have received inspirations from Beverly Gail Allitt who was convicted of murdering four children, attempting to murder three others, and causing grievous bodily harm to six other children. These crimes were committed over a period of 59 days between February and April 1991. Nick-named ‘angel of death,’ Allitt who worked as a nurse in children’s ward at Grantham and Kensteven Hospital, Lincolnshire, administered large doses of insulin to at least two of her victims.
Although history is full of women that have tried to change public perception about them, the annals of Islamic history speak of virtuous women whose personalities depict kindness, generosity and altruism. It’s actually a common belief that women symbolise love, care and sympathy. Universally, women are known to be graceful, polite, cheerful and tenderly-hearted. Regrettably, a few women today admire virtuous women, including Aisha, wife of the Prophet (SAW) who had no child but was caring; or Asiyah, Pharaoh’s wife who risked her husband’s brutality to save the life of little Musa (AS) who wasn’t her child; or Zahrah (the biblical Sarah) who after long years of infertility suggested to her husband (Prophet Ibrahim) to take a second wife who could bear children for him. Wicked women of contemporary Nigeria would, perhaps, have acted otherwise if they were Aisha, Asiyah or Zahrah.
Based on the claim by one of the wicked women that she did what she did because she was obsessed, the trend cannot be isolated from the indecent dressing of such women by which their hair, chest and other parts of the body that should be hidden are left exposed. Such uncovered parts provide a platform for Satan, the accursed, to take control of the heart and psyche of indecently dressed women. To forestall any devilish obsessions, women must prioritise decency in their forms of dressing. The law should also catch up with women who engage in violence against children in order to halt the dangerous trend. May Allah (SWT) guide and protect women against the attempt by a few to re-define or re-invent them, amin.