Follow Us on Google
Nigerian men are good at covering up one another’s wrong doings, sins and atrocities. They are good at defending one another. Whenever a Nigerian man is exposed for being either a love scammer, a rapist, a wife beater, a serial cheat or a terrible spouse, other men will pretend not to know about his vices.
They won’t even condemn his actions. They will start making excuses for him. They will start asking for the other side of the story. They will claim the women who accused a man of doing something wrong are lying. These men will heap the blame on the woman on his life, blame her for pushing him into crime or not looking after him enough. Others will simply keep quiet and bring up other topics just so that they don’t talk about what another man did wrong. 
A Nigerian man will know that his brother or friend is just stringing you along in an endless relationship and he will be calling you ‘our wife’ so that you won’t suspect a thing. You will visit them, cook for them, clean their dirty apartments, wash their dirty clothes and chat with them but you wont suspect you are one among six girls who take turns to do domestic chores for the man you think you are dating and his friends. These guys know you are just a play thing but won’t give you a heads up. They will play along until you either find out by yourself or the guy breaks up with you over a flimsy excuse.
A Nigerian man will ask a woman who was been beaten by her husband “What did you do that made him beat you?” He won’t condemn the other man’s actions. He won’t get angry that a human being was beaten like a goat. That’s not his business. His concern is to divert attention from his friend or brother to the woman. She will be blamed for having a sharp tongue or for not even talking at all. It is always a woman’s fault when a man beats her. The annoying thing about these women beaters is that they never fight or beat their fellow men. When men provoke them or insult them, they control themselves and walk away but they love to show their boxing skills whenever they have a misunderstanding with a woman. Such weaklings!
If you have a case with a Nigerian man, if you are not careful, his fellow men will turn things against you in a flash and you will become the villain instead of the victim. Men do this to rape victims all the time and it is sad. They will blame the victim for seducing her rapists with her dressing. They will blame her for visiting a man. According to these men, once a woman visits a man, it means she wants to have sex with him. She would be asked why she visited a man if she didn’t want to be raped. This society has raised a lot of sick men, it is sad. Men now boast about behaving like animals.
A Nigerian man will know that his friend and brother has another family elsewhere and he will guard that secret with his life. He will be smiling with the woman he’s presently living with and that one won’t suspect a thing. He will be calling her our wife while calling calling the other woman our wife too. Both women won’t know they are being played by a man who lacks scruples until maybe he dies suddenly or someone finally decides to tell the women the truth about the double life the man is living.
I remember the day a woman sent me a message on Facebook. She was angry and distraught and wanted me to tell her what to do. She discovered that her husband of over ten years was dating multiple women on Facebook and having sex with them without protection.
Her husband even travels outside the state they are based in to go and have sex with these ladies. He will tell her he’s traveling for business. He has different lovers in different states. Some sent him messages at some point saying they were pregnant and that he should send money for abortion and recuperation. This man doesn’t think about contacting sexually transmitted diseases or HIV. He’s just so selfish to think about how he’s endangering his wife’s life.
When this woman found out about her husband’s lifestyle, she was angry. She reported him to his friend and guess what that one said: “Why did he allow himself to get caught? He should be smart and should have covered his tracks well. Men are not satisfied with one woman but they cheat discreetly and cover their tracks well so that they don’t hurt their wives.”
The woman asked him if that was the only thing he would say about his friend’s disrespect and deception, he said yes. He said his friend is a man and men do these things but there’s no big deal because our culture encourages men to marry as many wives as they can take care of. She asked him if he would say the same thing if she was the one cheating on his friend with different men, he didn’t respond. He told her to forget about his escapades and focus on being a good wife and mother.
She reported her husband to his family and they told her to stop checking his phone because what she doesn’t know won’t kill her. They forgot that many wives have died from not knowing what their lying, cheating and manipulative husbands were up to until it was too late. Some women are managing HIV today because they trusted their husbands blindly. Others have been poisoned by their husbands lovers unknowingly. The stories I hear are terrible.
The bottom line is that Nigerian men hardly call out other men when they are doing bad. They are good at covering up one another’s wrong doings. Is it not shady how Nigerian men don’t know rapists and sexual abusers but the men who carry out these atrocities against women are their friends, neighbors, family members, religious leaders and even mentors?
One woman recently shared her story about how she tried to cover up for her ex husbands lack of finances by being the primary provider in her marriage but her ex husband kept lying to her for years and was busy spending her money on God knows what. He squandered the money she gave him to furnish their home after they got married. He squandered the money he borrowed from her to start a business and couldn’t account for it months later.
Nigerian men instead of calling out one of their own for being a deceptive slime ball, they started calling this woman a desperate woman and blamed her for giving her ex husband money to pay her bride price, rent a house and open an eatery. Some men claimed that the man felt emasculated and behaved badly because he didn’t have money.
They didn’t reprimand him for lying to her for years. They didn’t call him names for squandering her money on other things she knew nothing about. They didn’t reprimand him for disrespecting her for years until they got divorced. They excused his behavior with not having money and feeling less than a man because his ex wife was richer than him.
As a woman, if you think a Nigerian man will have your back and defend you against his gender, you are on a very long thing. He won’t do that. He will support his fellow man and blame you for being his victim. Nigerian men are good at covering up one another’s sins, wrong doings and atrocities, trust them at your own peril. They don’t care if their guys hurt you, hit you or stole from you, they will support him.
Nigerian women should learn that men cover up for one another a lot and stop thinking these men will treat them differently when they betray their fellow women. These women will find out the hard way that Nigerian men always have one another’s backs no matter how they hurt women, their gender will support them and blame the woman for being a victim. It is sad.
Re: What marriage shouldn’t look like
Kate, your diagnostic article about relationship deserves kudos. Marriage in our world today is bedevilled by all manner of ills and vices. Domestic violence like battery, has marred this institution which is supposed to be an object of envy and glorification. Self animation and aggrandizement destroys marital vows since it takes two to tango. The “I” mentality is a monosyllabic word-virus that has emotionally put asunder so many marital destinies.
-Ejemasa lucky Einstein
The way you talk about marriage shows you are talking from an outsiders stand point. It shows you are not married. You don’t know anything about marriage. Marriage is not easy. It is constant hard work. It is challenging to be married, it is not a fairy tale relationship like you paint it to be all the time.
Marriage is challenging and women should be submissive to their husbands so that they can have peace. It is when women start challenging men and rubbing shoulders with them that they get treated badly by men. Men are spiritual and physical heads of their marriages and women should respect them if they want their marriages to work.
-Ikechukwu Obidike, Awka
Marriage is a woman’s greatest achievement in life so women should do everything possible to make their marriages work. All the stories you told in your column last week were one sided to paint men black. You don’t ever see anything wrong with the way women disrespect men these days.
Men are like gods in marriages and women should worship them if they don’t want to be beaten. A married man is allowed to give his wife corrective beating if she disrespects him. It is not bad. Some women won’t behave properly until they are beaten. Kate, teach women how to respect their husbands and stop teaching us how to behave like white people.
-Peter Onuoha, Lagos
Dear Kate, I want the Senate to approve right to full scale professionalism for women. Henceforth, no marriage should be registered unless the lady is on the job or doing business or has a handiwork. With this, women will earn respect in their marriages.
-Cletus Frenchman, Enugu.
Kate, thank you for everything you do to bring the plight of women in toxic and abusive marriages to the fore. You are God sent to Nigerian women and I have learnt a lot reading from you for months. You are our mouthpiece and sensible women are solidly behind you. God bless you. My marriage is better because of your writings.
-Peace Edwards, Portharcourt
Kate you are a good writer. Your piece on what marriage shouldn’t look like is an educative piece that men and women should read together.
For crying out loud, women are human beings like men and should be treated right. I’m a man but I hate how some men treat women like rags or like lesser beings.
Men should learn to respect and adore women and stop treating them like beasts of burden. May God help women in bad marriages so that they don’t die and leave their children behind with these wicked men.
I see women as endangered species because of what some of them go through in marriages in this wicked world.
-Hon Peter Okafor, Imo State
