SPARING A MOMENT FOR NIGERIAN WIDOWS
All stakeholders must do more to safeguard widows from social injustices
The 2026 International Widows Day (IWAD) which comes up today should compel critical stakeholders in the country to the unique challenges of widowhood, especially at a period when many women are losing their husbands to sundry criminal cartels. These challenges of widowhood include poverty, cultural stigmatisation, lack of inheritance rights and others that have been highlighted by the United Nations which has adopted the campaign message, ‘Invisible Women, Invisible Problems’. As Nigerians therefore join the rest of the world to mark the 2026 IWD, critical stakeholders must work to end the impediments against women who lose their husbands.
Access to justice and poverty combine to leave many widows in the country suffering from silence, stigma and shame, and education does not seem to insulate any woman. Across many communities, according to Ochiawunma Akwiwu-Ibe, a United States-based public health pediatrician with over 20 years of experience, Nigerian widows continue to suffer ritual seclusion and isolation, forced mourning rites, public humiliation, property dispossession, emotional and psychological abuse and coercive rituals to prove that they were not responsible for their husbands’ death. “The details vary. The outcome is the same,” Akwiwu-Ibe stated. “Women who are already grieving are made to suffer even more.”
The Violence Against Persons Act (VAPP) signed into law in 2015 by President Goodluck Jonathan includes provisions on the plight of widows. According to Section 15 of the law, any person who subjects a widow to harmful traditional practices commits an offence and liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine not exceeding N500,000 or both. The law also criminalises attempts to subject widows to such harmful practices. A few states have also enacted legislation in support of widows’ rights. But most of these laws are observed in breach. From being made to undergo barbaric ritual practices to being disposed of joint property by greedy in-laws or losing their inheritance if they remarry, the patriarchal nature of our society makes life difficult for widows.
The International Widows Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010, to address the social injustices faced by millions of widows around the world and to promote their rights. To safeguard Nigerian widows from denial of property rights, forced marriage and other practices that undermine their dignity and general wellbeing, there have been moves by some members of the National Assembly to amend the VAPP Act 2015 to incorporate more provisions.
In many communities in Nigeria today, widowhood is associated with trauma and isolation. Some of the customary laws and cultural norms that affect our widows, according to the founder of Widows Development Organisation (WIDO), Dr Eleanor Nwadinobi, include harmful traditional practices such as forced shaving of the hair, varying periods of confinement and stigmatising dress codes. We are also increasingly dealing with wives of the disappeared in the context of conflicts, for whom there is no closure. But beyond socio-cultural factors, what is more concerning is that there seems to be a conspiracy by commercial banks in the country to deny widows their claim to the money left behind by their husbands.
While we enjoin Nigerians to imbibe the idea of having a Will in case of sudden unexpected death, it is unfortunate that many banks in the country are still introducing stringent conditions for widows to access money in their husbands’ accounts, even when they are designated as next-of-kins. We hope the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will intervene on this vexatious matter. We also call on authorities, at all levels, and members of the civil society to rise in defence of widows in Nigeria.
