The Breakdown of the Family in Ebiraland

The family as the nucleus of the society ensures the survival of the species through procreation, imparting knowledge, coexistence and providing the means of livelihood. In much of the western world, the man is legally entitled to one wife at a time in a nuclear family consisting of the parents and the children. In the Ebira culture and throughout much of Africa, the nuclear family is extended through polygamy and the common habitation of many married couples and their children. Procreation is an insurance against infirmity or old age, children are expected to take care of the parents during this citical period in their lives. In both cultures, the man is at the apex in the family hierarchy. The more wives a man has in an African culture, particularly Ebiraland, the more power, status and esteem.

Power, status and esteem are not the only reasons for taking on more wives in Ebiraland. Anebira are renowned throughout Nigeria for the primary occupation: farming which once provided employment for well over 95 percent of the adult population. Subsistence farming is labour intensive. Farmers rely on such implements as holes and cutlasses. The size of the family correlates to the size of the farm. Family hands are deployed in such farm routines as clearing, tilling, thinning, planting, mulching, weeding and harvesting. They are also crucial in the transport of excess produce to the markets the sale of which, is used to finance the education of the children, buy the farming tools, clothes, medicines and save for the rainy day.

The farm work aside, the wives take care of the exertion in the domestic front: fetching water, firewood, cooking, baking, spinning, weaving, looking after the kids and laundry.

Everywhere, the structure of the family is undergoing constant and significant changes. It used to be that in the patriarchal family, especially in the west, the man was the sole owner of the family property and he had absolute control over the members of the family. Emancipation and the feminist movement of the 19th century have reversed many of the discriminations that women suffered in terms of property ownership, divorce, inheritance, political rights and control over the child. There is the intervention of the state modifying the control that parents have over their children. Schools now complement the household in the education of the child. Laws provide equal benefits and legal backing to children born to married couples or out of wedlock giving rise to new extremes such as cohabitation, same-sex marriage, civil union or domestic partnerships in the structure of the western family. Same sex marriage is gaining popularity in many parts of the world, it is legally recognised in Belgium, Holland Spain and Canada.

The structure of the family in Ebiraland also has its own new extreme putting the traditional role of the man as the breadwinner under threat. The men used to travel hundreds of kilometres away from home, to Ondo, Owo, Akure and other parts of the rainforest region in Nigeria in the search of fertile soil for farming to guarantee the food needs of the family. In less than two decades of Independence, following a trend that is, tragically, also true of the country as a whole, Anebira changed from net sellers of farm produce to net buyers. Misguided and myopic government policies have ensured this tragedy. The government was earning lots of bucks from the sale of crude oil to warrant any interest in agriculture, civil servants and politicians flaunted their ill-gotten wealth. The impression was soon created that, farming a very laborious and tedious work does not pay and farmers were disparaged. Consequently, farmers abandoned their holes and cutlasses to take up barbing, bicklaying, painting, trading and other vocation.

State intervention apart, industrialisation, in western societies, took away from home to the factory economic activities such as spinning, weaving and baking. The pursuit of career, economic and social conditions often mean that the parents are away to work outside the home leaving the children in the care of day centres and nannies. Sociologists and development psychologists have attributed divorce, juvenile delinquency, drug abuse and mental illness to the changing pattern of relationships of the members of a family to each other and to the community as a whole. In Ebiraland, the man or husband as farmer often grows enough for his family to subsist on. As net consumers of farm produce, the food requirement of the family must be entertained within his capacity. This he does by doling out cash to the wives in order of seniority or turn on a daily or weekly basis. The women or wives in Ebira are very resourceful, hardworking and competitive. Their competitive spirit has been sharpened by life in polygamy. Through their individual efforts, some are capable of single-handedly taking care of themselves and their children with little or no assistance from the husband, man or state. They trade in commodities and they are also experienced weavers, doing more than most to put Ebiraland on the world map. The erosion of the authority of the father or husband began with his inability to provide for the upkeep of his family.

Despite the monogamy, state benefits and incentives in the form of tax rebate, financial assistance, couples are having fewer kids, delaying child birth and are even refusing having children altogether. The western society now suffers from an aging population. Ironically, in Africa and Ebira specifically where there is zero assistance from the state, the birth rate has been rising steadily. This has to do with the cultural belief that children belong to God and that it is He who takes care of them. Be that as it may, children must be fed, clothed, their health needs provided for, and they must be sent to school. It would be asking too much to call on a woman or wife, no matter how successful, to assume the role of a man or husband who have abandoned his responsibility. She may have an own child and certainly own personal problems. Her material wealth may only enable her to assist her husband in terms of the material well being of the family. In a polygamous family where there are three to four others as mates with each having an average of three children that may be asking too much.

The fact that a western family has few children or no child does not diminish their love for children. Many have adopted children. Others spend their time and money to promoting UNICEF causes like child soldier, child labour and illiteracy. The creation of the Nigeria Steel Development Authority (NSDA) in April 1971 and the subsequent establishment of the Ajaokuta Steel Company (ASCO) eight years later marked the exodus of farmers to fill up abundant pool of unskilled labourers needed at the Tiajproxmexport, (TPE), the Soviet firm that handled the steel construction work, the Dumez and Julius Berger, both civil construction companies at Ajaokuta. The need for more hands to work the farm no longer hold but the penchant for more wives continued and many other women were put in the family way.

Most of the children born during the Ajaokuta hay days have come of age now. Their childhood coincided with SAP, the structural adjustment package of the infamous Babangida administration and the systemic neglect of the “bedrock of Nigeria’s industrialisation”. The parents of these children were hard hit by the retrenchment occasioned by SAP. The neglect and abandonment of Ajaokuta, visible 65km away at Okene and other outlying towns once bustling and alive with economic activity are now severely depressed economically and socially. No wonders the youths of these areas are expressing their frustrations and anger through violence and gang warfare.

Any serious attempt to address the ceaseless and escalating violence in Ebiraland must take cognisance of the breakdown of the family. Children need protection and support of the parents. To have kids is one of the most important decisions made by a western family. Polygamy is illegal and man or husband who have kids out of wedlock are liable to pay child support allowance till the 18th birthday of the kid(s). Deciding to have some during marriage or out of wedlock goes with profound responsibility. To run away from such responsibility is a punishable offence.

Unfortunately, the decision to bear kids and the responsibility it entails are handled with recklessness by the family in Ebiraland. Couples can have dozens of kids without any thought for shelter, clothing, source of sustenance, health provision and education. Apparently, the only thought seems to be assurance against infirmity or old age. Changing these attitudes is a Herculean task because of cultural belief and unless the Ebira family takes the responsibility for their decisions or indecisions over the question of bearing children much more seriously, the consequences will be much more catastrophic. Moreover, children must be well brought up to enable them play the role of assuring the lives of the parents during infirmity or old age.