In April 2018, the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team during a ministerial press briefing delivered by the Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice, Adeniji Kazeem, stated that the Team received 138 cases of domestic violence against men from March 2017 to April 2018. This indicates that men are also not left out in the game of domestic violence.
One thing I have however observed is that whenever the issue of domestic violence is raised in any discussion, the first thing that alerts the mind of any discussant and picture created in the mind of such a person is that of a woman beaten and maltreated by her husband. This is because the fabric of our society on domestic violence has been patterned after a feministic design. No doubt, our society is patriarchal in giving the male gender the upper hand especially on issues relating to customary law inheritance. For instance, the Igiogbe custom in Benin society allows the eldest surviving son exclusively inherit his deceased father’s dwelling house before his death and any disposition under a will which is not in accordance with this custom will be void.
Conventionally, women have always been at the focal point of this topical issue as preys without any consideration of the men as victims of domestic violence. This truth is revealed through several publications and the United Nations Convention for the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women have been centred around women as this is not in accordance with gender neutrality. This may be in accordance with the society’s opinion that men are immune to so many ordeals faced by women due to their physical strength and emotional tolerance unlike the women who are naturally conceived as weak.
Domestic violence as a gender-based violence which is also known as Intimate Partner Violence is simply defined as a fundamental societal anomaly involving the physical, financial, sexual, and emotional abuse by an intimate partner who is either legally married or cohabiting. However, since the Nigerian jurisprudence reveals that cultural and societal values play a key role in its affairs, domestic violence will be viewed from the lenses of physical abuse. This is largely because in the Nigerian patriarchal society, the man is expected to cater for the needs of the family with the corollary being the woman’s submission.
It will however be prejudicial to state that the web of domestic violence should only accommodate women as some people have argued due to reasons and factors best known to them. While it is common and less taxing to access statistics bordering on domestic violence against women, it may be difficult accessing statistics based on domestic violence against men. The discrepancy then is this, while women are configured to be more expressive in their emotions, the men are not configured to be expressive in their emotions and most imperatively is the fact that while women can easily cry out for help when being victims of domestic violence, the men will rather opt for silence and be muted. This is because the societal expectations from a man is high and anything less than the expectations will portray him as a wimp. This position is adequately exemplified in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in the character of Okonkwo who hated being effeminate, and resolved never to follow in the footsteps of his father, Unoka, and detested his son, Nwoye, for being less of a man.
The society expects the man to confront every violence springing up anywhere just like a lion, let alone physical violence from his spouse. This is simply because there is a presumption of the fact that men possess all the necessary features required to defend themselves against any aggression. Today, we read and hear of stories where the woman is the predator taking advantage of the man as the prey. The man no doubt will be emotionally disturbed considering the fact that the marriage institution or cohabitation can either be a haven or hell. Such a man opts for silence because it is regarded as disgraceful telling his friends about his ordeal with his spouse. Most cases of domestic violence against men predominantly border on infidelity and inability to cater for the needs of his family which results in the loss of his esteemed position in his family.
In 2016, one Mr. Oyelowo Adeniran, a 38-year-old businessman, was allegedly stabbed to death by his wife, one Yewande, at their residence in Akobo Estate in Ibadan after a domestic dispute. The dispute reportedly arose out of an argument over the visit of Oyelowo to his child from another woman which was unpleasant to his wife, Yewande, who stabbed her husband first on the shoulder, but later received treatment at the hospital and returned home. In the middle of the night, it was alleged that Yewande stabbed her husband in the neck with a knife which ultimately led to his death. The case is still pending in court. While it may be argued that most men are adulterous and are usually both the proximate and remote causes of their violence, it must however be reiterated that it still doesn’t change the situation from being less of domestic violence when physical abuse is perpetrated against another spouse.
While the reasons most men take to physical abuse against their spouse are due to their nagging nature, women are also not left in this act as there are cases of women who are temperamental and at the slightest provocation destroy household appliances thereby making the home unbearable for the man. No matter the amount of excuses any person can give, they do not warrant domestic violence, an animalistic behaviour which must never be found in the midst of people who can utilise the platform of communication to talk over their differences.
The Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, a gender neutral and current federal legislation on domestic violence in Nigeria, is still inadequate due to its limitation in scope of applicability. Section 47 of the Act limits the scope of its applicability to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The most amazing and innovative provision of the Act in my opinion is Section 45 which gives its provision an overriding effect over the Penal, Criminal Code, and Criminal Procedure Act. The implication then is this, Section 55(1)(d) of the Penal Code which allows a man chastise his wife for correction is invalid. This is a commendable innovation in our legislative sphere. Many states have yet to enact laws on domestic violence and are encouraged to do so through their various Houses of Assembly. Lagos State as the pathfinder and some few states already have laws and a department to handle cases on domestic violence such as the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team to nip this menace in the bud if the law going by the sociological school of jurisprudence as posited by Roscoe Pound is to serve as an instrument of social engineering. There are hardly cases in courts or decided cases on domestic violence and this is because of the cultural mentality that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, hence no interference. It will then be foolhardy to say that it becomes a matter of interference when it becomes a murder case. The case of Titilayo Akolade Arowolo speaks volumes in this regard.
The Nigerian attitude to domestic violence is still one based on religious and moral grounds founded on the premise that there is a private aspect of a person’s life the law should not interfere.
For instance, Christianity frowns on divorce and remarriage but wisdom is however the principal thing in the sense that a spouse must run for safety when one’s life is in peril. It is in this vein that religious leaders while mediating in marital disputes should at all times take into cognisance threats to life as many preys of domestic violence before their death hid under the aegis that their clerics implored them to endure while fighting for their marriage until they died in the battlefield. The option of judicial separation can be opted for instead of divorce for those enduring on the basis of religious grounds and care of what people may say.
Daramola is a 500l law student and Head, Legal Clinic, Bowen Univeristy, Iwo, Osun State. 0810-654-6397
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