Senator Shehu Sani has kicked against the advice the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, said he gave his daughters if faced with an abusive husband.
While speaking recently at a forum against gender-based domestic violence, the monarch said he had told his daughters to slap their husbands back if they ever raise their hands to slap them.
Emir Sanusi: Slap Back If Your Man Slaps You, I Tell My Daughters
However, his comment has received mixed reactions from Nigerians.
In a Facebook, Senator Sani (former APC, Kaduna) said: ‘’His Highness Sanusi should not be encouraging this kind of domestic violence in form of Slapping and Slapping back. Rather, Husbands and wives should learn to control themselves in moments of anger when the Devil temporarily visits their homes. When a husband is angry, he should walk out of the House and come back later. When a husband is upset and shouting loudly, the wife should just keep quiet and allow him to relieve all of his words. The sentence ‘I’m sorry’ has a magical spirit that can evict the demon in the house.
“Two people shouting at each other is the source of many Divorce. If the man is becoming violent, the wife should protect herself by walking out to his family or her family home. The very day slapping and slapping back becomes the order of a family, the marriage is irreversibly destroyed even if the couple remains together. Most of the participants in those mass weddings are literally divorced wives who believe in this revengeful idea of slapping back their husbands. What is the possibility that when you slap your first husband you won’t slap the second one?. Did you grew up from a home where your father slapped your mother and your mother slapped him back? How did your parents resolve their problems? Should that not be your guide?
“It’s sad that you can now see thousands of Divorcees from the North in Abuja, who refused to be patient with their husbands. They are virtually living a life of glorified prostitution moving from one Honorable to another Honorable, giving them mostly false promises of multi million naira contracts or Supplies and sleeping with them. What they cannot tolerate from their husbands they end up tolerating it with the Honorables whom they cannot slap back under any circumstance.
“There is no perfect husband and there is no perfect and there is no perfect family. We live by learning to understand and tolerate our imperfections. Every family poor or rich has its challenges. In every home there are good moments and bad moments, when bad moments come, we should learn to navigate the storms and the turbulence and it will pass. Most Marriages last not because of love, but because the couples have learned and master the art of overcoming those bad moments and moving on. When you are getting married to a man or a woman, just know that you are not getting married to an angel even though you call each other Angels. You also call yourselves honey and forget that honey comes from a Bee that can sting. Even me, that writes this have my own headache and troubles at home occasionally. Whenever I travel, my wife wants to call me on video call by midnight or 1am and she will not tolerate the excuse that I don’t have enough data sometimes or network problems; and whenever we communicated via that video, she feels happy and life moves on. One day I’ll be gone and the family will miss that moment. That is life.”
