society
CBA Foundation Efforts to decriminalize Widowhood in Nigeria.
CBA Foundation and Efforts to decriminalize Widowhood in Nigeria.
SaharaWeeklyNG Reports Concerning CBA Foundation That It’s a crime to be a widow! Yes, that’s exactly what you read. Please stop reading it, again and again, to see whether it’s meant figuratively or literally. It’s exactly meant the way you read it at first.
CBA Foundation
Does our society say being a widow is a crime? No. But does society act as though it’s a crime – and a big one at that? Absolutely. Capital YES! So it doesn’t matter what society says or doesn’t say or what it has tucked away somewhere in our statute books. What matters most is what society does. Society’s action, demonstrated in the way widows are treated and which speaks louder than its words, calls widowhood a crime.
Are widows treated by our society any better than criminals or those suspected to be/have engaged in any form of criminal activity, including ex-convicts? Criminals (or those alleged to be or have been) are avoided like a plague. They’re ostracised. They’re shamed. They’re stigmatized. They’re condemned. They’re even accused of additional crimes they may not have committed or been convicted of. No one associates with them as that would be considered a taint and stain on the associate. Just look at the aforementioned ways criminals (even alleged and ex-criminals) are treated and confirm if widows don’t go through worse in society’s hands, especially in the hands of the kith and kin of their late husbands.
Losing one’s husband is an agonizing and devastating experience that could traumatize a woman for life. So it’s hard to understand how society can even dare to want to add to the agony and pain of suffering women who have lost their husbands instead of making effort to comfort them and soothe their pain? CBA Foundation Society pretends as though it doesn’t realize that women who are made to go through hell after the death of their husbands are being made to relive that horrifying and nightmarish moment when they saw their husbands die or when news of their husbands’ death reached them. How much more unfortunate can any human being’s life be made to be? Society probably makes peace with itself while treating widows as common criminals by rationalizing widowhood as a crime. CBA FOUNDATION
And were this to be the case, then the work of NGOs like Chinwe Bode-Akinwande (CBA) Foundation that is trying to restore dignity to widows (and their children) may have to be reframed in the context of efforts to decriminalize widowhood in Nigeria. Founded in 2015, the CBA Foundation has been working tirelessly to promote “the protection of [underprivileged] widows and their vulnerable children in Nigeria, to promote immediate and lasting hope, confidence and courage in their lives.” The Foundation pursues its mission under its 5-point agenda of Women Empowerment/Capacity Building, through which it has reached out to over 8,600 widows; Health Intervention, wherein it has overseen the administration of treatment and medicines to over 4,500 underprivileged widows; Nutrition, under which it has distributed food items to over 10,600 underprivileged widows; Quality Basic Education, through which 158 children have been reinstated in school; and Self-Employment Scheme, wherein it has financially empowered 220 widows to start their own businesses. CBA FOUNDATION
These efforts as well as those of other like-minded NGOs working to enhance the welfare of suffering widows are highly commendable. Viewed against the backdrop of the theme of this year’s International Widow’s Day, commemorated across the world last Wednesday 23rd June 2021: “Invisible Women, Invisible Problem”, the work of these NGOs makes poor widows, who society would rather not want to be seen or heard, visible so the problems they face daily can be visible as well to all. After all, the International Widow’s Day was introduced by the United Nations to raise global awareness of the issues faced by widows and highlight as well as combat “poverty and injustice faced by millions of widows and their dependents in many countries.” CBA FOUNDATION
However, as laudable as the efforts are, one cannot help but notice that the combined work and efforts of all the NGOs are only scratching the surface. Nigeria has so many widows, estimated to be around 3.5 million by the 2015 World Widows Report of the Loomba Foundation. That was when the rate of widespread killing and disappearance in Nigeria was not as alarming as today. Many more widows would have joined the number since 2015 and much more will join with time given our declining life expectancy (and the disparity between men’s rate and women’s). Undoubtedly, a good number of these widows would have been able to take care of themselves and their children if they were allowed to inherit and build upon their late husbands’ assets. Sadly, 60 percent of women in Nigeria are kicked out of their homes after the passing of their husbands. This is the handiwork of traditionalists and the kith and kin of the widows’ late husbands who would rather subject them to all manner of indignities and dispossess them of everything, leaving them and their children uncared for. Thus, the burden borne by CBA Foundation and similar NGOs continues to grow, stretching their resources thin and limiting their ability to be effective or make any dent in the problem.
So what’s required is a more fundamental and holistic approach predicated on society realizing that it is in its enlightened self-interest to confront and combat the entrenched ways and traditions from the past that debase women, especially widows, and criminalize widowhood. It is this kind of intervention at the society level to address the overarching issue of entrenched traditional practices that criminalize widows, dispossess them of their husband’s inheritance, and pauperizes them that would make any significant difference. Sadly, this is the one approach we have not acknowledged and moved to adopt in Nigeria.
It’s amazing how many people in Nigeria carry on with their lives and live completely unconcerned about the plight of widows and the crying need to do something to change their lot. We do not realize how close we all are to either becoming a widow or having a loved one become one. We are living in Nigeria where life is so cheap and unpredictable that it can be snuffed out just like that. One can be picked up in the short distance between one’s neighborhood shop and one’s residence, accused of armed robbery and silenced by the bullets of Nigeria’s citizen-killer security agencies. Even in the comfort of one’s bedroom accidental discharges from the weapons of this same security personnel can send one to an untimely death. When security agencies are not in the picture, one still has to contend with killer herdsmen, kidnappers, ritual killers, bandits, and unknown gunmen who do an equally effective job of returning one to one’s creator before the appointed time. What about our roads? They demonstrate an unmatchable talent for terminating destinies. And our waterways? They seem only a little less effective in cutting destinies short because they don’t witness as much passenger traffic as our roads. Our skies rank the same as our waterways in destiny truncation for the same reason of relatively low passenger traffic.
How can people in positions of authority and influence not care enough to confront society on the plight of widows when their own family, family members, relatives, friends, etc. could be affected tomorrow? How can the Minister of Women’s Affairs and officials of the ministry be sitting comfortably in their air-conditioned Abuja office when the plight of widows is no better today than it was when they assumed their positions? How can they be wasting a golden opportunity to use their positions to do all that they can and should to completely change the story of widowhood in Nigeria forever? Today’s widow is another person’s daughter, sister, mother, aunt, niece, cousin, etc. Tomorrow’s widow will be your daughter, sister, mother, aunt, niece, cousin, etc. How can you not be bothered about doing something today to decriminalize widowhood when it could affect you or someone you care about tomorrow? CBA FOUNDATION
Widows who have been fortunate to pick up the pieces after the devastation of losing their husbands and found a way to give themselves a second chance at happiness should realize that they are but a tiny fraction compared to the large number who have remained sentenced to misery, deprivation, poverty and public opprobrium since their husbands’ death. Such fortunate widows should lead one front in the war against the issues that confront widows and build strong advocacy and support for their fellow widows. They should do this with the conviction that until all widows are free (from the shackles of anachronistic traditions that sentence them to poverty, deprivation, and injustice), they’re themselves far from free. They should keep in mind that unless the wicked and unjust system that criminalizes widowhood is overthrown, their daughters, mother, sisters, female relatives, female friends, etc. could find themselves in demeaning and dehumanizing circumstances as widows. CBA FOUNDATION
Mr. Husband, what are you doing to protect your wife (and children) in case the unexpected happens? Don’t be fooled by the love that your siblings and kinsmen have for you and your family. It’s conditional love predicated on your presence (and presents). It will not be there in your permanent absence. What about you, adult children, who can and should do something? What are you doing to ensure that your mother, that auntie, that woman relative of yours don’t become a dehumanized widow if her husband dies unexpectedly? CBA FOUNDATION
And you traditionalists who hold onto anachronistic cultural practices that debase women, especially those who have lost their husbands, and treat them as the scum of the earth, can you point to five ways your diabolical wickedness towards widows have made your life or your family’s any better? Can you identify the modern amenities that your backward ways have attracted to your community? You claim that they’re traditions instituted by your forefathers which you must uphold perpetually, yet you have conveniently abandoned other traditions and embraced modernity where it suits you. Your forefathers never asked you to speak the white man’s language, wear his clothes, use his goods, read his books, send your children to his school, or trade with modern money, but you’ve adopted all of these and abandoned the alternative traditional practices using your common sense. What is stopping you from applying this same common sense to end the diabolical traditional practices that you use to shame and debase widows? Even Satan must be stunned by your grand hypocrisy. CBA foundation
This year’s International Widow’s Day has come and gone with little or nothing to celebrate as the lot of Nigerian widows hasn’t improved much over the last year. Isn’t it high time we changed both strategy and tactics and get out of the insanity of expecting a different result while still doing the same old thing year after year? Chinwe Bode-Akinwande, the founder of CBA Foundation, answers in the affirmative. Her Foundation once ran a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #careisaction, which asserted that “…without action, you truly don’t care, regardless of what you claim.” Next year’s commemoration is already beckoning, and in line with her call for action, the sixty-four thousand dollar question remains: is there any reason to be optimistic about seeing significant improvements in the lives of our widows if as a society we are not yet willing and determined to take action to confront and defeat the entrenched forces and issues that make widowhood a crime in this clime? CBA Foundation
By CBA Foundation
society
Tinubu’s Food Security Reforms: A Reactionary Gimmick Driven by Fear, Not Empathy – ADC Fires Back
Tinubu’s Food Security Reforms: A Reactionary Gimmick Driven by Fear, Not Empathy – ADC Fires Back.
By George Omagbemi Sylvester | Published by SaharaWeeklyNG.com
In what appears to be a desperate scramble to douse public anger amid Nigeria’s worsening food crisis, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent pronouncements on food security have been described by the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as not only belated but driven by sheer fear of public backlash not empathy for the Nigerian people. While the President now talks tough about declaring food as a national emergency, the ADC has boldly called out this so-called reform agenda as a reactionary measure borne out of panic and not patriotism.
Nigerians are not fooled by press statements or cosmetic committee formations. They are HUNGRY. They are ANGRY. And above all, they are tired of being treated as STATISTICAL FOOTNOTES while the ruling elite feed fat on their agony. The skyrocketing prices of basic food items (garri, rice, beans, yam and even sachet water) have reached astronomical levels under this administration. This is not an ISOLATED MARKET DISTORTION. This is ECONOMIC SABOTAGE by NEGLECT.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), inflation in Nigeria climbed to 34.1% in May 2025, with food inflation surpassing 40%, a devastating record. Over 31 million Nigerians, according to the United Nations World Food Programme, face acute food insecurity. These are not abstract numbers. They are your neighbors, family members and colleagues skipping meals or relying on charity to stay alive.
Yet, for almost two years since assuming office, Tinubu failed to prioritize agriculture beyond policy papers. His administration’s obsession with neoliberal economic theories (from fuel subsidy removal to currency floating) has compounded rural poverty, destroyed purchasing power and dismantled any existing structure for agricultural resilience. Now, when the streets begin to simmer with rage and the organized labour threatens more strikes, the President suddenly ‘discovers’ food security?
The African Democratic Congress is right in calling out the President’s food emergency declaration as fear-induced. The ADC National Chairman, Ralph Nwosu, minced no words recently:
“A government that ignored farmers, refused to support rural infrastructure and watched as bandits chased thousands of agricultural workers from their land cannot now pretend to care about food security. Tinubu is reacting to fear, not responding with empathy.”
This statement is not mere political rhetoric. The reality on the ground confirms that Tinubu’s food reforms are cosmetic, reactive and fundamentally disconnected from the lived realities of Nigerians.
SECURITY and AGRICULTURE: A Broken Link
Perhaps the greatest irony of Tinubu’s food security posturing is his failure to secure the rural economy. More than 12 million Nigerians have been displaced since 2009 due to insecurity, especially in the Middle Belt and northern regions, the country’s agricultural backbone. Bandits, terrorists and herders operate with impunity while farmers abandon their lands.
Dr. Akinyemi Olabode, an agricultural economist at the University of Ibadan, recently noted:
“You cannot talk about food security in a war zone. The real food security policy should begin with guaranteeing physical safety for farmers. Until then, these reforms are academic exercises.”
Rather than increase investment in agro-policing or community farming protection schemes, Tinubu’s government has consistently slashed the budgets of the Ministry of Agriculture while spending billions on luxury foreign trips, meaningless jamborees and inflated solar panels for Aso Rock.
Where Was Tinubu When Farmers Cried?
When farmers across Benue, Zamfara, Kaduna, Plateau and parts of Delta State cried out over the loss of farmland and attacks by armed herdsmen, where was Tinubu? When rice and maize associations demanded subsidized inputs and protection against imported produce, where was his empathy?
Instead of responding to the agricultural sector with strategic foresight, the President continued to parade imported technocrats with zero practical knowledge of local food systems. Policies like the so-called “GREEN IMPERATIVE” and MECHANIZED AGRICULTURE BLUEPRINT were mere buzzwords without budgetary backing. The Anchor Borrowers Programme, which had shown some promise under past administrations, was left in bureaucratic limbo.
ADC’s Bold Alternative Vision.
In contrast, the ADC has consistently championed a grassroots-centered approach to food security. The party advocates for a Food Sovereignty Act that would protect local farmers, enhance state-level ago-cooperatives and legalize land ownership rights for smallholders. Rather than depend on private profiteers or foreign donors, the ADC calls for direct community budgeting and a return to Nigeria’s rich agrarian heritage.
“We must move beyond press releases and fight food poverty like we fought Ebola or COVID-19,” says ADC spokesperson, Hon. Adaobi Onyekachi. “Food is not just an economic issue; it is a national survival issue. A hungry population cannot be loyal, peaceful or productive.”
The ADC further accused Tinubu of failing to engage agricultural unions, rural communities or academic think tanks before hastily declaring a state of emergency. This top-down leadership style, the party argues, has always resulted in policy failure; from the fuel subsidy chaos to the botched student loan scheme.
Lip Service vs. Real Policy.
In practical terms, Tinubu’s food policy lacks substance. There is no clear IMPLEMENTATION ROAD MAP. No RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE BUDGET. No POST-HARVEST PRESERVATION or LOGISTICS plan. No MONITORING AGENCY with actual teeth. Declaring emergency is one thing. Translating it into sustainable food pricing, availability and affordability is quite another.
Moreover, the government’s continued failure to regulate the activities of middlemen and commodity hoarders remains a key driver of food inflation. Without breaking the monopolies of urban market cartels and empowering producer cooperatives, farmers will remain poor and food prices will keep soaring.
Public Sentiment: Tinubu’s Growing Disconnect.
Public opinion is rapidly shifting against the President. Many Nigerians now see him as arrogant, disconnected and elitist. The ADC’s rebuke taps into this public frustration. It reflects a growing consensus that Tinubu’s administration is out of touch with grassroots pain and more concerned about international image than national dignity.
“We voted for renewed hope. What we got is renewed hunger,” says Ngozi Ede, a Lagos market trader. “Every day my capital shrinks, my customers cry and Tinubu is still flying abroad talking about investment. If we die of hunger, who will invest in a graveyard?”
In Retrospect: Nigeria Needs Empathy, Not Emergency Rhetoric.
The time has passed for performative governance. Nigerians demand real empathy, not emergency declarations rooted in fear of revolt. Food security cannot be achieved through fear-driven policy announcements. It requires bold, inclusive and honest leadership qualities sorely missing in the Tinubu presidency.
The ADC has rightly exposed the hollow nature of this food security charade. Nigeria deserves a government that does not wait for protests to feed its people. A government that leads with compassion, not coercion. One that plans ahead, listens to its farmers, respects its poor and sees every hungry child as a national failure, not a political liability.
Tinubu may have declared food a national emergency, but Nigerians already know; HUNGER became a national tragedy the day leadership forgot its PEOPLE.
By George Omagbemi Sylvester
Published by SaharaWeeklyNG.com
ADC Tsunami Is Rocking Party Structures Across The North
In what many describe as ‘the ADC tsunami’
the entire structure of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Yobe State has collapsed into the African Democratic Congress (ADC), leaving only the party’s Acting National Chairman, Umar Iliya Damagum, as the last man standing in the state.
The ADC’s takeover of PDP structures is part of a broader coalition-building effort ahead of the 2027 general elections. Reports indicate that PDP executives in Gombe and Adamawa states have also pledged loyalty to ADC, as the movement gains unprecedented traction across the North.
Confirming the development, Paul Ibe, media aide to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, said:
“The movement is gaining traction. A traction that will provide direction to ensure the coalition evolves into a formidable, robust, and viable platform.”
He described the coalition’s struggles as similar to newly married couples adjusting to each other, noting that with patience, they will become stronger and more united.
Political analysts say the defection has reduced PDP in Yobe to a shadow of its past glory, leaving Umar Damagum alone amidst its collapsed northern structure.
As the ADC steps up efforts to woo top politicians from PDP and APC, the mass defection in Yobe is a clear indicator of PDP’s deepening crisis, as the ADC continues to position itself as a formidable third force. Analysts warn that if this trend continues, the PDP may enter the 2027 elections significantly weakened in its northern strongholds.
For now, the image of Umar Damagum standing as the lone prominent PDP figure in Yobe paints a sorrowful picture of a party struggling to hold on to its fading influence.
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