Unfortunate Spells: Inside the Travails of Youthful Nigerian Women Divorcées
- There is a growing perception that divorce is rising in Nigeria as celebrities and everyday people are experiencing it
- In countries with the highest divorce rates, religion and lack of social support are among the significant contributors
- In this special report, Legit.ng takes a deep dive into how in disregard for human rights, some youthful Nigerian women are being exploited in marriage
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Legit.ng journalist, Ridwan Adeola Yusuf, has over 5 years of experience covering women’s issues.
Ikeja, Lagos state - Inexperienced but desirous of matrimonial glamour, 23-year-old Muheeb Temitope opted to love her now estranged husband till infinity. But humans are not the best planners, thus, years later, the beautiful woman would choose peace over chaos.
“The marriage almost consumed me,” Temitope, a self-labelled trouble hater, told Legit.ng.
Source: UGC
"When my marital crisis reached its peak, I was ‘eaten up’ by people who did not know what was going on in the minds of myself and my former husband. It involved domestic violence, life-endangering issues, and for a party to be involved in magic objects. It was when I faced the life-threatening part that I absconded. I needed to save my life and that of the three children because it direly affected them when the physical violence involved breaking of bottles and stabbing,” she stated.
Per Divorce.com, a United States (US) website which offers resources and support for navigating divorce, Nigeria is on its list of countries with high divorce rates.
According to data published on their website in July 2024, Nigeria ranked 11th out of 26 countries with the highest divorce rate.
The results were obtained after sampling respondents from these countries and compiling statistics from 16 primary sources, ensuring a comprehensive and reliable research process.
The report also revealed a significant trend. Women in sub-Saharan Africa, especially Nigeria, are taking the initiative in divorce more often than men. The report showed that the country’s divorce rate reached 2.9 per cent in 2023 (based on available data), which translates to 1.8 per cent divorces per 1,000 people in the same year.
When a marriage (statutory, customary, or Islamic) crashes, people who have no knowledge of the goings-on in the matrimony put the major blame on the woman. For Temitope, she wanted to earn her own money—that was her ‘offence’. She wanted a means to support herself and the family, but her ex-husband—insecure—kicked and screamed.
“I am not an idle person. My parents spent all they had on me to make sure I had my higher education which I did. I obtained a certificate in Estate Management and also did the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
“I explained all these to my ex-husband, informing him about my wish to work. Then I started dropping applications, which he was aware of. Alhamdulillah (praise be to God), I was able to secure a teaching job in Festac area of Lagos and another job with an estate firm in Ikeja. My ex-husband disagreed that I should not go just because he was worried I could be attractive to other men,” Temitope said with a sarcastic smile.
“Meanwhile, we had three kids we needed to properly take care of and provide for, but the upkeep he was dropping was not enough. I just felt I could support by getting a job, no matter how little.”
Society often tags a woman who leaves her husband as irresponsible, but Temitope toughened up in the twilight of her union. Being a believing Muslim, she explored how she could Islamically annul the legality of the marriage.
"There were family interventions which proved abortive," she narrated. "I had to read lots of Islamic books, hadiths (traditional accounts of things said or done by Prophet Muhammad or his companions) and so on to know the next step because I had already lost interest in the marriage."
After deep research from scholars and journals, she realised she could pay back her partner's mahr (an Arabic word meaning dowry). It was after the return of the mahr that the disgruntled husband filed a case in court. But Tope was already fulfilled.
She explained: “I returned his mahr in 2016, a year after he had filed his first case in the magistrate court.
“We did not end it there because the judgement was not in his favour. He proceeded to the high court in 2018. In April 2024, the lower court’s judgement was ratified.”
Silent suffering of women in Nigeria
Across major provinces in the most populous black country on earth, religion has sold some women to certain Muslim men who have exploited them. Due to socio-religious reasons, these ladies would not share their pain publicly.
Islam treats divorce as something permitted but not laudable. According to a popular hadith, “the most hated of permissible things to Allah is divorce.” This hadith is weak, according to Muslim scholars such as Muhammad Nasir al-Din, commonly known as al-Albani. However, it has been attributed to Prophet Muhammad to discourage divorce. Some Muslim theologians believe the meaning of the hadith is sound, even though it is not reliable.
Most certainly, couples would have to deal with issues in marriage, and it always takes two to tango. Despite these facts, some young Muslim men are insincere when getting into marriage. Hence, they subsequently announce separation/divorce, citing ‘offences’ that are in fact mendable.
In an instance, a young man who identifies as ‘Ahlu Sunnah’ (Muslim faithful who claim they follow the traditions of Prophet Muhammad to the letter) dumped his wife and mother of his child after a few years of marriage “because she prefers to patronise food vendors rather than make meals at home” and also on account of the lady’s regular social media activities.
This reporter’s covert probe uncovered that there is a faction of men within the Salafi sect of Ahlu Sunnah group who do not treat women with honour. In the name of avoiding zina (unlawful sexual relations between two opposite genders), these youthful men target younger persons. They marry them for a short period and discard them. They then move on to the next female partner.
An insider, Abu Dharr Ahmad, in a rare fashion, shed light on the insincerity and spate of divorce.
He divulged: “We see divorce here and there—even among our salafis. In most cases, if you are to ask some salafi brothers their reason for divorcing their wives, they will be like ‘she embarrasses me with her lingua franca anytime she goes out with me’. As though it was after getting married to him that she started the dialect.
“Some will be like ‘I never had feelings for her from the scratch sef (sic); I only got married to her hoping that the affection would come later’. So, when the long-awaited feelings prove adamant, he has no choice but to let her go. This is so pathetic.”
Ahmad likened marriages of this era to ShopRite, a popular supermarket chain where many Nigerians visit anytime and come out after some hours of shopping.
He cited an example of a marriage of a conservative Muslim that crashed within the same week of the nikah (marriage in Islam).
Ahmad shared: “I turned down the walimatul nikah (celebration of marriage) invitation of one of our brothers due to some reasons known to me alone. I only congratulated them both. So, within the same week of the nikah, I heard they already separated. I was like ‘so fast?’ Being that I know both husband and wife, I put a call through to him to confirm the news, and he replied in the affirmative.
“The pathetic aspect is that he could not point out a single tangible thing that led to the divorce. All he mentioned was that she is too lazy in performing qiyamul layl (spending the night, or part of it, in prayer). He claimed that anytime he wakes her up, she finds it hard to wake up. Simply because of that, he divorced her.”
There are strong allegations of some Muslim men marrying with the hidden intention of divorce.
A video surfaced in 2024 of Imam Shadeed Muhammad discussing the culture of divorce. In the clip, Muhammad, an African-American Muslim scholar and alumnus of the famous Islamic University of Medina, Saudi Arabia, called out the exploitation of Muslim women—African-Muslim women in particular—who are victims of the "marriage with the intention of divorce" phenomenon whereby some salafi Muslim brothers take advantage of a controversial fatwa (religious opinion) by late Saudi-Salafi scholar Abdul Aziz ibn Baz. Ibn Baz’s fatwa permitted a Muslim man to marry a woman with the intention of divorcing her. This controversial ruling led to many salafi Muslim brothers in the US and the United Kingdom marrying vulnerable women and then divorcing them after they fulfilled their desires for "halal intimacy." Halal means lawful.
Since Ibn Baz's fatwa, a number of salafi clerics have argued that such unethical marriages are not within the teachings of Islam as they involve deceit, deception, and cause trauma. If the woman and her guardian knew that the husband was only getting married with the intention of divorce after a few days, months, and so on, they would not have agreed to that.
Ahmad confirmed that the manipulation happens in Nigeria too.
“Even among some outwardly pious salafists who claim to follow the Qur’an and sunnah (the way of the prophet), this type of exploitative marriage happens here in Nigeria. The aim of these brothers is just to ‘deflower the deflowerable ones’ among our sisters,” he lamented. “I pray that Allah (God) protects our sisters from these wolves in human form. A painful torment awaits such men in the hereafter.”
Stressing the importance of a prudent choice of spouse, the concerned Muslim wondered why a lady of just 19, whom her parents just managed to give her out to a young man, would end up being mistreated.
“These brothers should just fear Allah,” he fumed.
Experts offer counsel
Ustadh Saheed Rasaq, a Lagos-based seasoned Islamic Studies tutor, reasoned that Islam strictly forbids cheating and deception.
“Since Salafism is considered by its adherents as the purest Islam, they should always lead with the best example. We should not have a culture of dubious marriage in the salafi community because salafis have the sound 'Aqeedah (Islamic creed) and the whole objective behind the 'Aqeedah is that these beliefs show on your limbs,” Rasaq told Legit.ng.
“The Salaf (the pious forbearers of Islam) continued to repeat that faith is statements, beliefs, and actions for a reason. If there is a disconnect between the inner and outer, then, you should check yourself as salafi.
“Although marriage may be an outlet for sexual desires, it will not reduce lust because lust is never satisfied.”
Source: Facebook
Omotola Akinwale, a psychologist at Mycarebuddy, a Lagos-based mental health therapy startup, shared in Rasaq’s thoughts on lust. She does not believe marriage is the permanent cure for lasciviousness.
The therapist told Legit.ng: “The cure for lust is discipline—not marriage. Many are married but still lust after other people.”
Effects of divorce on Nigerian society
Nigerian society cannot ignore the massive effects of divorce. As social scientists track successive generations of children whose parents have ended their marriages, findings show that divorce is hurting the country and devastating the lives of children. Its effects are obvious in family life, educational attainment, emotional health, drug use, and crime.
Not only do parents divorce each other, but they, in effect, divorce or partially divorce their children. The primary effect of divorce (and of the conflicts that lead to divorce) is the deterioration of the relationship between the child and at least one parent. Often, a deterioration of relations occurs between the child and both the custodial and non-custodial parents. Divorced mothers, despite their best intentions, are less able than married mothers to give the same level of emotional support to their children. Divorced fathers are less likely to have a close relationship with their children, and the younger the children are at the time of the divorce, the more likely the father is to drift away from regular contact with the children.
Divorce has pervasive ill effects on children and the five major institutions of society--the family, economy, education, religion, and the state or government itself. Given its commonness, the Nigerian society is hit with violence, crime, education disparities, and homelessness, yet few are willing to point to divorce as a major contributor to these problems.
To set about the task of rebuilding a culture of family based on marriage and providing it with all the support needed to make intact marriages commonplace again, federal, state, and local officials can play a crucial role in creating an environment that supports the institution (marriage), individual and societal changes. A comprehensive approach that combines government implementing policies that strengthen families, educational programmes, mental health resources, and legal reforms can help reduce the divorce rate over time.
PCOS conqueror helping women
Earlier, Legit.ng spotlighted a polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) conqueror who is brilliantly helping women with fertility issues in Nigeria.
Having lived through PCOS and fertility struggles, Sarah Afolabi-Olagoke decided to dedicate her time to empowering, educating, and supporting women living with PCOS.
Proofreading by Nkem Ikeke, journalist and copy editor at Legit.ng.
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Source: Legit.ng
