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,