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Mrs. Grace Ezea, the bursar of Egba Grammar School, Egaba was heading for Uhunwanwode local government area in Edo state to attend a meeting with the Chief Inspector of Education in the area, early this year. On the Benin/Auchi road at Ehrukwosu, a convoy of the former minister of works overtook her. According to eyewitnesses, the ex-minister’s jeep and another car successfully overtook the lady before a Peugeot 406 car in the convoy crashed into the right side of Ezea’s car as she attempted to veer off the road for the mad drivers to pass. When the convoy stopped, they were only concerned about some of their men who were injured and took them to the nearby hospital. The lady who was fatally injured was crying inside the crashed car. Instead of helping her, the men in the convoy allegedly tried to reposition her car to give an impression that she was at fault but they could not get away with it. An honest driver with Edo Line, the transport outfit of Edo State government who saw the bleeding woman immediately alerted the authorities of the Federal Road Safety Commission near the accident scene. By the time the FRSC officials arrived the scene of the accident it was too late as Ezea, a 47 year-old mother of six had become history. Up until today, nobody has been questioned about the death of the innocent woman.
18 year-old Angela Ihentuge from Imo State, was in love with a man of her dreams. Even when the man was unable to meet the basic requirements that would make her his legitimate wife, she was never discouraged. She convinced her parents to allow her marry the young man. No sooner had she moved in with her heartthrob, she was pregnant. Angela was a happy young woman in every sense of the word. What would a woman pray for – a husband, a steady source of income and a child. Her neighbours said she was proud of the baby she was expecting and had started shopping for the baby six months into the pregnancy. However, Angela never lived to see that baby and nobody could account for what happened to it. Seven months into the pregnancy, the young woman was found in a bush path close to her father’s compound stark necked and dead. She not only died a frustrated woman, but also was thoroughly assaulted and her womanhood abused. When Angela’s remains were finally recovered, her private part had
been expertly cropped out, her right breast had been severed at the base, her right eye had been plucked from the socket, her tongue was cut off and her womb ripped open and the foetus removed. It was really a sorry spectacle to say the least and one of the worst things to have happened to a human being. The society did nothing to bring the perpetrators of that wickedness to justice. The aged parents and brothers who insisted in getting the police to find the murderers of Angela were threatened by faceless persons to rescind their action. Angela could not rise to defend her cause and nobody fought for her to obtain justice, post humously, that is. As it were, the ghosts of the decimated woman and that of her unborn baby are still roaming the bush path crying for justice, which may not come until rapture.
Tukur, the Kaduna state commissioner for women affairs said that some of the violence meted to women were part of the culture of the society and advocated that concrete measures be taken to curb such cultural practices, especially those which deprived women of their fundamental rights. The former chairman of the committee on women affairs in the House of Representatives, Mrs. Florence Aya is of the opinion that the passage of the Women’s Rights bill currently in the Kaduna State House of Assembly and in five other Houses of Assembly in the country could be the antidote to the problem. After having consulted with a cross section of lawmakers at the National Assembly and the Kaduna State legislature, the former lawmaker said that what was needed to get the bill passed was serious advocacy and lobbying. Aya said that she had sponsored the same bill at the National Assembly but lamented that the bill could not see the light of day as a result of the administrative complexity of the
legislature. “The agitation for the respect of the rights of women is not and should not be considered as a fight against culture but an attempt to safeguard the fundamental rights of the vulnerable group in the society for the good of all,” Aya argued.
An Islamic scholar and deputy national president of the Religious Harmony Committee of Kaduna state, Imam Mohammed Sani Isa who spoke on the issue agreed that it was not mere speculation that women have been denied their rights. He also said that there have been serious cases of violence against women in the country, adding that he was in support of every effort by women to get the society to respect their fundamental rights as human beings. “I agree eighty per cent with the women because in most cases, you see that our people are working against their rights using Islam as the cover,” he said.
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Ibanga Isine
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