Women Today: The View of Malam Na-Bakin-Kogi
(I)
By
Aliyu A. Ammani
Early in the morning, I set out to visit
Malam Na-Bakin-Kogi. Why? To have his take on the problems that
confronts women, in our major towns and cities today. Setting out to see
Malam, in this Holy month of Ramadan, means disrupting his meditation.
However, I felt it was worthwhile. Malam Na-Bakin-Kogi is a well bred
erudite Islamic scholar who studied the religion under different Sheiks
in Hausaland, Borno, and the Sudan. He lives a Sufi-like lifestyle at
the banks of the stream in the outskirts of his village. His is a
most perceptive mind: an amalgam of conservatism and progressivism; and
his mastery of the subject matter have the appropriate mix of
socio-cultural, academic and religious pigmentation. What follows is a
précis of our discussion with Malam, it is intended to present in simple
terms the views of Malam Na-Bakin-Kogi vis-à-vis the circumstances of
the women folk in our towns and cities in the 21st Century of
the Christian era.
Women and children are at the receiving
end of all calamities, natural and manmade. Poverty is a calamity that
is widespread in Nigeria today. In fact, experts believe that more than
70% of Nigerians are living below the poverty line. In the views of
experts like Soludo, a large chunk of this 70% is found in the North. It
goes without saying that women bear the brunt of poverty. Poverty has
condemned a large number of people to living and breeding like animals.
Examples abound in the squalor settlements around our densely populated
towns and cities, of families of seven or more children, living in a one
room apartment probably with 2 or more grown-up daughters. The children
are given neither Islamic nor Western education; and are engaged in all
sorts of child labour. In these circumstances, friction between mother
and daughter is inescapable. Consequently, the parent’s only prayer is
for a husband to emerge for the daughter. In their haste to get rid of
their daughter, they hardly wait to consider the suitability of the
suitor. In most instances, within a year; in some cases barely 3 months
into marriage, the relationship will hit the rocks. This is mostly
because either the husbands are found wanting in their responsibility or
the wives are lacking in character. In the final analysis, the girl
returns to squat with her parents and siblings, in their single room
apartment. Subsequently, the girl join the army of wives and daughters
of the poor working as menial labourers in the homes of the rich and
powerful; and the vicious cycle goes on.
There is a natural division of labour
between the sexes. Assuming life is a battle field, the men folk fight
in the war front as breadwinners for their families; while the women
take care of the rear. The problem starts when there is competition
between men and women for a place at the war front or, worst, a reversal
of roles: where women move to the war front and men take to the rear.
Traditionally, the woman’s place is in the
home. Yet, it is foolhardy to expect women to remain at home in this 21st
Century of the Christian era. Modernism, with its attendant necessity
and socio-economic circumstances, forced women out of the home and into
the workplace. Modernism has a price. It is the price that we, the
society, are paying. The inflow of women into the workplace, marketplace
etcetera, exposed them to the machinations of men and sexual harassment.
By omission or commission, the average man is in a perpetual quest for,
in this order, money, women and power, depending on his socio-economic
standing in life. Most men view women in the classes, marketplaces and
workplaces as fair game. The ego of these men is bolstered by the action
of some women who use their feminineness [read: sexuality] as practical
means through which they seek to improve their individual socio-economic
position in a competitive setting. Everyman that mingled with such women
in the course of his normal daily routine has a story to tell: Civil
Servants, Politicians, Okada riders, Teachers, Businessmen and traders,
particularly those that specialize in jewelries and women wares,
etcetera. This, in the view of Malam Na-Bakin-Kogi, explains why women
in schools, workplaces and marketplaces are the central theme in men’s
circles.
When both men and women turn out to be
active at the war front, the home front becomes neglected. Thus children
upbringing, the all important aspect central to the survival of any
community, society or nation suffers. Malam Na-Bakin-Kogi seems to have
problem with women working. He believes women should only work as a
necessity. His argument: for every woman that works, a man, probably the
head of a family, is displaced. In a form of digression, Malam Na-Bakin-Kogi
postulated what may appear preposterous: a hypothesis as the panacea to
the problem of unemployment. The substance of this anti-feminist
hypothesis is that no husband or wife should be in public service
employment at the same time with his or her spouse. In other words, a
woman can only join the public service of the Federation, State or Local
Governments, if and only if, her husband is not in the employment of any
public services in Nigeria. This, in the opinion of Malam, will make
jobs available to those that needed it most –current or prospective
family heads.
A visit to most of the video shops in
Kaduna, from where I am writing this piece, will reveal the explicit
display of pornographic videos. In fact, the streets that lead to the
Kaduna Central Market are sporadically bug-ridden with VCD and DVD
vendors who openly display such obscene video labels by the road sides
and on wheel barrows. Whatever way one look at it, pornography is
debasing to womanhood; and corrupting to the minds. Those who should
know have argued, rightly so, that there exist a strong relationship
between pornography and violence against women and girls.
To the Westernized mind, religion is
personal: it is a personal relationship between man and his God. Islam
is a religion in a comprehensive sense of the word: it is a complete way
of life; it defines and regulates not only the relationship between man
and God, but also that which exist between man and man; and man with the
State. Islamically, it is the duty of the State to protect the dignity
of womanhood and the mind, reasoning faculty, of the youth from
corruption. When Muslims advocate for Shari’ah, the non-Muslims felt
threatened; the so-called Human Rights activists dread the coming
of the reign of chopping of hands and stoning to death of adulterers. In
their highfalutin frenzy, they fail to see the wood for the trees.
The state must be seen to protect, not
only life and property of citizens, but also the dignity and the
reasoning faculty of its people. This is compatible with our
circumstance as a federation and a democracy. Our democracy is fashioned
after the American presidential system. We have some lessons to learn
from the American experience. First, from 1920-1933, the US had the
Prohibition: the legal ban on the manufacture and sale of intoxicating
drinks. Second, today, the US is one of the countries that have laws
against prostitution. It is a sociological fact that the trio of
pornography, prostitution and drugs anywhere are threats to women
everywhere. With just a thousand naira, one can purchase all the three,
put together, in Kaduna.
I hope to visit Malam Na-Bakin-Kogi after
Sallah, insha Allah, to investigate the issue further,
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