Should men be afraid?

The many funny vidoes that were made after the unfortunate murder of Bilyaminu Bello, allegedly by his wife Maryam, almost turned the tragic incident into a comedy of sorts.  Users of social media will agree with me that the videos were numerous and mostly hilarious. There was the one with a man sleeping on his […]

The many funny vidoes that were made after the unfortunate murder of Bilyaminu Bello, allegedly by his wife Maryam, almost turned the tragic incident into a comedy of sorts. 

Users of social media will agree with me that the videos were numerous and mostly hilarious. There was the one with a man sleeping on his bed, by his side was his mobile phone and a shot gun lying next to it. The moment his wife sneaked in and picked the phone, he raised the gun to her without even opening his eyes. Of course she dropped the phone and ran away.

Then there was the one who tied his phone securely with a chain and padlock, making it impossible for his prying wife to open the phone and see what was inside. Again there was the guy who used his pet cat’s paws to lock his touch-sensitive lock. 

That way, when his wife tried to use his fingers (and even his toes) to open the phone while he pretended to sleep, she couldn’t. After she gave up and left, he rose from his couch,  picked his pet cat and smiling broadly opened his phone. 

There is even a Hausa video on the same theme. A husband returned home and was welcomed lovingly by his wife. When he went in to freshen up, he returned to see his wife putting down his phone, an indication that she had checked it. A little while later, he saw her brandishing a shiny knife in the kitchen. This husband needed no second bidding before he made his way quietly out of the house broke into a run. His wife showed up a little later with a tray of nicely cut watermelon and couldn’t understand why her husband was missing.

There are many other such videos and even written jokes suggesting how insecure men have become since the Bilyaminu Bello murder episode. At first I was ready to regard them at as needless paranoia, though humorously displayed. 

However when three more violent episodes followed in quick succession, I couldn’t help asking myself whether our men really have a reason to fear for their lives.

The first was the attack on another Bilyaminu in Zamfara state, which happened just a few days after the Abuja tragedy. This time around, the man was said to be preparing to take a second wife. But the first wife decided to ‘deal with him’ by attacking him with a knife and inflicting injuries on his private parts. 

About a week after that, a Sokoto bride was alleged to have attacked her groom with a razor blade, thereby injuring him on parts of his face. She told newsmen that it was not her intention to kill him. All she wanted was to get him out of her life because she never loved him. 

Then just when we were trying to make sense of that, another bride in a village in Katsina state, poisoned her husband and her brother to death when she fed them food laced with rat poison. Her reason also was that she didn’t like the man anymore because he had lost some teeth in a recent accident and had some broken limbs to boot. Her brother went down as collateral damage because he happened to partake of the same meal but he was not the intended victim. 

To me, the big question here is how and where these young women learnt that violent attacks are the solution to their marital problems. Yes, it’s a very painful thing to hear that your husband is about to take another wife but surely polygamy is the most common marriage type in Zamfara state, so why did Mrs Bilyaminu Zamfara think she had to violently stop her husband, as if he was about to do something totally unheard of? 

I’m almost certain that almost every other house in Gusau and environs is inhabited by a man with more than one wife, so why couldn’t this woman simply pack out of the house, when she knew that she couldn’t take that ‘betrayal’. Why was attacking the man a more attractive course of action?

I feel the same way about the Sokoto razor blade attacker, because in her case too, it was easier to just pack and run away than attack the man because he wasn’t her choice of a marriage partner. 

I mean don’t these violent women realise that it is a crime to attack another human, especially with a weapon? If so, why do they prefer the crime rather than find a way to leave the men they can’t stand? 

The same question applies to the Katsina teenage wife who poisoned her husband because of his now deformed looks. Did she really think she won’t be found out or was she so desperate to get rid of him that she simply damned the consequences?

When I was reading these different stories, what persisted in my mind was the question: What happened to time honoured marriage mantras like “ki ji, ki qi ji, ki gani, ki qi gani” (roughly translates to) “see no evil and hear no evil” in your marital home?

Or ‘aure yaqin mata da haquri ake yin nasara’ literally ‘marriage is the women’s war and it can only be won through patience’. 

It’s almost as if no one bothers to remind young brides of today about these bits of wisdom, when they are about to move to their husband’s homes. The result of this negligence is that these new wives believe they can take the law into their hands at the slightest provocation. 

In this part of the world, where wives are known to be docile, obedient, respectful and generally tolerant, it’s scandalous to know that the young generation believes knives and razors are the solution to their marital problems. 

So should our men be afraid? Yes, I think they should be, after all they have but one life to live and they wouldn’t want to lose it to the one person they call their better half. 

My humble suggestion here is for them to have less female friends and so called ‘chat friends’ since they know that certain Madams do not take kindly to that. 

And for our part, as aunties and mothers of prospective brides, we must bring back the culture of lecturing young women about the virtue of patience and tolerance in marriage. Additionally, we must make sure they know that there are steps to resolving conflicts in marriage, when the problem cannot be solved by the couple, and this is by letting the elders know and intervene. 

It is possible that if parents take the trouble to prepare their children well enough for marriage, we will not be hearing about such violent attacks on spouses anymore.