Lessons From Senator Remi Tinubu’s Trials By Abimbola Adelakun

Let me admit upfront that I do not care much about Senator Remi Tinubu’s encounter with her legislative colleague, Dino Melaye. No, not out of any schadenfreude (defined as pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune) but because the abuse she experienced is the daily reality of Nigerian women. There are studies that up to 50 per cent of Nigerian women are regularly abused in one form or the other. If one adjusts that figure for unreported cases, the picture will be more dismal. Many of these victims do not have the social and political capital that enables them to be heard like Tinubu.

My indifference is no support for Melaye, a man whose seeming crassness and vulgarity have yet to find a match. If Nigeria were a better country, he would be in gaol for the reported cases of his alleged domestic abuses. Melaye once stood up in the Senate chambers and urged his fellow men to patronise “made in Nigeria women” as if they are commodities. On another occasion, during a legislative debate on sexual predation in the university system, he thoughtlessly justified that gross act of indiscipline. Melaye’s misogyny shines through virtually every human interaction he has had, including the episode with the actress, Bisi Ibidapo-Obe, who allegedly had his child.

His propensity to violence is not always discriminating – he has been aggressive with male colleagues as well. A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Patricia Etteh, was one of his earliest victims. It is unsurprising that in that same “hallowed” space, he could whip out his phallus and threaten to beat up his colleague with it. Despite his record, I gave him the benefit of the doubt when the story was initially reported but his persistent obnoxiousness when he defended himself eroded any doubts I had that he could go that low.

I am glad the episode between the pair happened because it partly illustrates the response I planned to give the Olori of Ife, Wuraola Zainab. Some weeks back, she had said in the US that she did not believe in feminism, that men and women are not meant to be equal, and that women should accept their place as subalterns. Her ideas are not novel; it is the wisdom women have been fed all their lives to protect the society’s patriarchal structures. Women are told they are subordinates and their lives revolve around their marriage; that without this achievement, they are socially denuded and asking to be disrespected.

I had to hold back from writing that piece because Olori was already getting a lot of flak from those who thought her rather conservative ideas contrasted with the image of progressiveness she and her husband projected. Their disappointment, though understandable, was also misplaced. Olori perhaps never imagined she would be a frontliner in such a key institution and her opinion on burning social issues would be sought. Come to think of it, who has ever asked Oba’s wives questions on any issue other than their predictable domestic lives? When the photographs of the Oloris of the Alaafin of Oyo hit the Internet recently, who thought those women–arranged like ornaments on a trophy case, their fair complexioned skin making a striking visual appeal – had an opinion on any contentious topic other than Kabiyesi’s sexual prowess?

I was going to say to the Olori Wuraola then that the entire gospel of subservience (or submissiveness to male authority) preached to women to accept the patriarchal structure of the society as not only the natural order, but in their own self-interest, is a self-serving lie pushed by male agenda to repress women. First, every form of subjugation is regulated with violence and in the case of gender, it is precisely the kinds of violence Melaye threatened Tinubu with –physical and sexual.

Patriarchal societies are the ones where men mark territories with their phallus and that is how they keep women down. The aggressive males like Melaye chase women with threats of penetrating them in a most vicious manner; the benign chauvinists’ advice women to stay away from political spaces so that their virtues are not tainted. If women listened, they find themselves trapped in their “helpmeet” roles and dissuaded from debating matters that concern them as citizens. If they do not listen, they are treated like Justice Olamide Oloyede of Osun State whose private life was brought to the fore to silence her when she got entangled in state politics. Mind you, the men who orchestrated that agenda are no models of sexual virtues either but when patriarchy defines social values, men set a high bar for women while they get a pass for their own indiscretions.

The same society then justifies the paucity of women in public roles by blaming their “weaker” genes and their lack of efforts.

The fact that women roll over, play dead, and let men take the steering wheel of state does not mean that women’s humanity would ever be acknowledged. They would still be infantilised and disrespected. Think of how the APC has reacted to Tinubu’s harassment since last week. The party members have been running helter skelter to cover the shame inflicted on them by one of their own. One after the other, they have issued press releases condemning the act and even paid Tinubu a visit. There was a group of paid hecklers who protested on behalf of Tinubu. Except for the letter she wrote to the Inspector-General of Police asking for protection, Tinubu herself has remained largely silent because she knows that the battle being fought is less about her person but her husband. The male party members trying to retrieve her dignity are not doing so because they subscribe to a philosophy of equality. Theirs is to protect the integrity of their big daddy who happens to be the husband of Mrs. Tinubu.

There is very little about the APC – the party members, their conduct, and their composition at the higher levels of authority that suggests that they see women as more than domestic appendages or at best, voting bloc. Their party manifesto contains some scant lines on their “women agenda” but their post electoral victory behaviour has shown that those lines were included as merely a discharge of obligation and nothing more. There is very little evidence that it was thought through. In terms of implementation, they have been far behind on their own propaganda.

On their website, they have a list of 20 officers but only one happens to be a woman and she is just a woman leader. That lone female official will not be allowed to rule over the male folk because they do not consider women as commensurable. Theirs is a homo-social gathering, a near Svengali club where the few women who make it are the ones who benefit from quotas allotted to wives, concubines, and daughters. The bulk of appointments made since Muhammadu Buhari became President have gone to men but that obvious discrimination has not compelled any urgency in the party. They do not speak of inclusion neither does it bother them that they have regressed from the 33 per cent appointment for women (similar to South Africa) Buhari’s predecessor followed. The gender equality bill that was thrown out should have been an opportunity for them to address some of the many tenuous problems Nigerian women face in this country but who heard from them? When it comes to misogyny, in what ways are their collective values superior to Melaye’s, really? That is why some of us, though we will not weep in our coffee for Tinubu, we will nevertheless point out that Melaye is a hyper-reflection of the chauvinism, misogynism and the phallocentricism with which they rule their party.

Punch

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