By Nusrat Lasisi, aka NusratDReteller
The happy International Women’s Day messages have filled the air, and numerous well-wishers have followed the trend of messaging every woman they know. But I refuse to be swayed by this faux display of solidarity for women.
In the same week leading to International Women’s Day, something extraordinary happened to a woman in the Senate. Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan from Kogi accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who has been accused of similar sexual abuse, of sexual harassment. And what did she get for speaking up? She was suspended for six months while the accused remains in the same Senate house.
This is a senator, a member of the legislative arm of government, facing the same plight as the average victim of sexual abuse. People resorted to vilifying her, the victim, questioning her integrity as a woman rather than calling out the assailant who has been accused of sexual abuse previously.
Late singer Mohbad’s widow is a victim of cyberbullying instigated by a slanderer called VeryDarkMan for refusing to prove the paternity of her son, Liam. A recycling of widow maltreatment in the 21st century. These are women of better social and financial standing being repressed by a society that’s against its women.
Our society aims to diminish women to nothing more than a tool, an object, and a mere necessity, not human, and we all, women included, allowed it because of our tribal, political, and social leanings.
There’s been no progress in the protection and upholding of women’s rights in the country. Women are still relegated, gagged, repressed, and limited. No woman in the four-woman Senate stood up for Senator Natasha. No ministry of women’s rights fought for Wunmi except Nollywood actress Iyabo Ojo.
No one will stand up for us unless we take a stand that we are important. We constitute almost half of the population in this country. A huge number of people shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought.
It was disappointing that even the First Lady is quiet about the reality she could have suffered should the tables turn. Mrs. Akpabio, the fierce adversary of Senator Natasha, forgets that her husband’s reality is not hers, and should the tables turn, she’d become another Annie Idibia. Annie is a victim of emotional exploitation in her marriage, a reality for most wives in the nation.
It’s International Women’s Day, so let me roll out the issues women face. Menstrual pads are a luxury currently. We don’t have access to qualitative reproductive healthcare as women in the country. The motherhood penalty is dealing mercilessly with women in the labor force. Huge pay disparities based on gender still occur in our companies and factories.
The emotional labor of women in marriages is becoming a norm. Domestic violence against women is being justified. Femicide is continually on the rise, and women aren’t safe anywhere. She is neither safe as a CEO nor as a petty trader. She is not safe as a teenager and not safe as a grandma.
There’s not much happiness on this day for a deep-thinking woman in Nigeria. Rather, it’s a reminder of how far behind we are in the race for gender equality and women’s emancipation.
Until we unify our voices and stand firmly for our rights like the Icelandic women’s revolution, which made Iceland the leading country in the world when it comes to women’s rights and gender equality, every year, we’d only relive our miseries and pains in the corner of our rooms, in our idle chats, as the wind hushes our voices and it becomes something gone with it.
“If the first one is handled justly and firmly, there won’t be a second time.” It is my sincere hope that Senator Natasha Akpoti gets justice for whatever becomes of her, a barrister and senator, becomes the reality of the average woman in Nigeria. And we women realize that we are a race too powerful to be sidelined.
*Nusrat Lasisi can be contacted via WhatsApp 08063043213.
