You can't hold me down!

Sometimes last year my colleague and I visited a community and we had the privilege of speaking with
the community leader (Seriki). He told us of a farmer who is married with four wives, thirty two children
and five other family members living with him. In summarily we have forty two people living in a small
hut devoid of a toilet, portable drinking water, no proper drainage and exposure to mosquitoes.

The Seriki told us of how the farmer’s two children almost died of dysentery but for the intervention of an
emergency rescue from ABUTH Shika. He said they were given drip and it took the kids eighteen hours
to wake up. I felt sad that day. For weeks I kept talking about the situation.

This Farmer has a land or two so to say. He plants maize, guinea corn and millet. At the end of the harvest
his farm produce is not enough to feed his large family not to talk of taking to the market for sale. I am
not angry at this man, religion, culture or the society at large. I am angry at Women-Mothers.

I can excuse a man or husband because he certainly does not know the pain of bringing forth a child but I
won’t excuse the women. Women are the only ones that can say what they have been through with child
bearing, they are the only ones that can tell the many sacrifices they make for their children, and they are
the ones that take all the blame for the good and bad. Even today, I put all the blame on them.

If a mother is been through this kind of hellish life why make your daughter second, third or fourth wife?
Why allow her marry at the tender age of 9 or the moment she starts seeing her monthly flow? If you
understand this pain why make them suffer in the hands of old men? Why don’t you advice your children
on the number of children they should have? Why don’t you preach contraceptive and family planning?
Why allow this problem persist that it is become a generation issue? Why don’t you advice your children
to take their babies to the hospital when they see the child is sick and not wait till the situation is that
which medical science can’t help out?

Our Girls need to be guided on the kind of man they marry. The society that calls the men to marry four
wives haven’t made provision for the wellbeing of these children.  When a child is sick the mother most
times is saddled with the responsibility of getting money to pay the bills not the father or the so called
society that have made him lord over four women.

I still don’t know the basis of a 9 year old getting married and I still don’t understand why a man who
can’t comfortably feed himself is encouraged to marry more than one wife. If this Farmer were to be
Dangote, I certainly won’t have an issue with it because Dangote would have taken proper care of his
family as regards finances.

Every woman should be encouraged to earn a living. This farmer’s wives are not earning a living. They
wait for the lord of their lives to bring food to the table. Education can never be over emphasized; it
remains the only bedrock that would sweep extreme poverty out of the land and give a sense of mental
reasoning to all the society laid down rules. Education will make you question a lot of theories which
from the time of inception is barbaric and should not be practiced in the society.

There is extreme hunger and high level of illiteracy in the north. The only solution to these is to train a
girl child in a proper academic setting. If everything goes as planned a girl child should be rounding off
her PhD at the age of 25-27 if she so wish. If marriage is the goal for a particular society, then at 22 years
of age the girl is done with masters and even at 19 years she is had her first degree.

Who should be blamed? Religion, society or culture….what is your take?