By Arabinrin Aderonke
I am tired. I am angry. And I am scared.
Every day, another woman is killed most brutally. Women are being butchered, dismembered, and discarded like nothing. The news spreads quickly on social media, people talk about it for a while, and everything goes quiet. The perpetrators are arrested, but we never hear what happens next. Justice is slow if it ever comes at all.
And these are just the ones we are lucky to see online, the ones that make it to the news. What about the women who never trend, the ones whose names and faces never go viral? What about the ones buried in shallow graves, their stories lost forever? How did life as a woman in Nigeria become so dangerous?
Just a few days ago, I read about the horrific murder of Lawal Hafsoh Yetunde, a final-year student at the Kwara State College of Education. A young girl with dreams, lured to her death by an Islamic cleric she met on Facebook. She trusted him, not knowing she was walking into the hands of a murderer. Her life was cut short, and her story is now just another tragic headline.
Hafsoh is not the first. She will not be the last. That is the most painful part of all of this.
Before her, there was Christiana Idowu, a 21-year-old student at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. She was abducted, and despite her family paying a ransom, she was brutally murdered. The suspect, 23-year-old Ayomide Adeleye, confessed to the crime.
Then there was Salome Eleojo Adaidu, a 24-year-old National Youth Service Corps member who was killed by her supposed boyfriend, 32-year-old gospel singer Timileyin Ajayi, in Nasarawa State. Ajayi confessed to the murder, citing suspicions of infidelity as his motive. He was arrested after being found with her severed head.
These are young people for crying out loud. Girls with dreams, with their whole lives ahead of them. Hafsoh, Christianah, and Salome, among others. They should be graduating, building careers, starting families, and living. Instead, their lives were cut short by men who saw them as nothing but objects to use and destroy. Chaiiii God, how did we get here?
How many more names will be added to this growing list before we finally know that femicide is now a pandemic in Nigeria? I keep asking myself what it will take. How many more women must die before we wake up as a nation?
Where is our protection? Where is our justice system? The system has failed us repeatedly. Laws exist but they are rarely enforced. Killers are arrested, but trials drag on endlessly.
Society is complicit. We live in a country where violence against women is normalized, where girls are raised to be careful, but boys are not taught to be decent. A country where women are blamed for their own deaths, questioned about what they wore, where they went, or why they trusted the wrong person. How is it that the victims are scrutinized more than the killers?
I refuse to stay silent. We all should.
Femicide is a pandemic, a war on women. And if we do not fight back, if we do not demand justice, more names will be added to this list. More dreams will be cut short. More families will be left in mourning.
To those in power, Mr. President Sir (Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu), lawmakers, and enforcers of justice do something. Enough of watching from a distance while women die. Act now before more blood is spilled.
And to my fellow women, we must protect ourselves because right now, it is clear that no one else will.
Arabinrin Aderonke Atoyebi is the Founder and Executive Director, FAME Foundation
