Not sure if many people know that there are many interpretations to the word Madam. Besides being a form of polite address to a woman, it also means a woman who runs a brothel. In other words, a procurer or a love-vendor (in lay man’s terms) who provides sex workers in arrangement with her customers.

Going by past, recent and future incidents (hopefully not), the average Nigerian woman is a madam. In a recent news report, a teenage housemaid was rescued by the police in Delta State from her madam. From all accounts, aside from the usual house chores, her duties seemed to also include sexual entertainment.


Oluchi (not real name) said, “Several times, I have been sexually harassed by my madam's husband and son. Each time I refused their advances, they accuse me of stealing and I will receive severe beating from my madam, husband and son.”



Her story is not new neither is it strange. In many homes, it has become the norm for many Nigerian women to look the other way while their husbands, sons, brothers, male cousins etc molest and rape their teenage housemaids or even their own female relatives. Perhaps this is just one of the many ways marriages and family relationships are sustained and kept. For the average Nigerian woman, no sacrifice is too big to’ keep her marriage.’


How terrible you may say; I can never do such! Don’t be too quick to exonerate yourself; madams come in various forms and shapes. You are a senior executive but see nothing wrong with your male colleagues victimizing their female subordinates for sex, you are a madam.


When you get poor indigent girls from your village, conscript them into street trading, even mandating them not to return home until all the wares for the day have been sold, you are a madam. Chances that those girls would be molested and raped while selling wares late into the night is 9 out of 10.


You see a male neighbor inviting an underage street trader to bring her wares into his house for sale and you raise no eyebrows, you are a madam. You are in the market and notice some male traders groping at young girls trying to shop and you fail to chastise the men, you are a madam. You are a Head of Department, Dean or a senior non-academic staff of any university and you have not in your entire career, saved any girl from victimization, you are a madam.


A senior member of the military, police or any security agency, yet you have not lifted a finger to support junior female officers raped and victimized daily by their male superiors; you are a madam. You are a church worker and your colleague has been fired by the pastor/ priest unjustly. You are well aware that the sack has nothing to do with her job but everything to do with not satisfying the pastor/priest’s sexual demands. Yet you saw ‘no evil’, heard ‘no evil’ and obviously, spoke ‘no evil’; you are a madam.


You are a teacher and your principal is an unrepentant philanderer. There is always one school girl or the other leaving his office. You suspect he is messing them up but yet say nothing about your fears. Several PTA meetings come and go, yet you are as silent as the grave. Parents remain blissfully unaware until a schoolgirl begins to show evidence of the dangerous liaisons; you are a madam.


I could go on and on but by now, you get the general picture. It is amazing that Nigerian women already disadvantaged by a society skewed in favour of patriarchy, will rather do all they can to entrench the status quo than upturn it.


Why should one expect anything less when our self image comes from being tied to a man? How can we do any better when our sole aim in life is to protect our marriages even if it means offering up our daughters, sisters, nieces, toddlers and suckling babies to please the sexual appetites of our men?


After actively encouraging infidelity in their men, these same women never fail to cry foul about how young single girls run around with married men. You forget so soon the number of call girls you have groomed in your home, office, etc over the years. Having left your’ loving care and tutelage’, those girls have to practice what they have been taught. And what better person to practice with than a man in the image and likeness of madam’s husband or friend as the case maybe (married men)?


I am not hopeful that the sexual harassment of women in Nigeria will be reduced to the barest minimum anytime soon. Reason being that the biggest nurturers of this evil are women. He who wears the shoe knows where it pinches most. Expecting the men folk to put an end to centuries old practice will be akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.


https://biteofbenin..com.ng/2017/11/nigerian-women-evolving-from-mothers-to.html