Beyond Crime Scene!
Later this month, I have a presentation for a conference. My paper is titled "Of Fame and Fragility: Feminist-Celebrity and Gendered Violence in COVID-19 Era Nigeria. I examine Nigerian celebrity feminist activism against gendered violence during COVID-19. I argue that Nigeria celebrity feminist activism offered little help in amelioration GBV because celebrity feminist operates within a space that impedes the effectiveness of their activism. Specifically, I argue that fandom, power, and celebrity have limited impact when activism takes place within "deathscapes" ( Tendayi Sithole) and necropolitics (Achille Mbembe). I moved from a reductionist focus on motivation, impact, and influence to the critical question of space and scapes to the absence of structural and systemic responses required to tackle gendered violence.
One of the best concepts I have found in the last few years to describe Nigerian space beyond the usual catchphrase of the crime scene is Tendayi Sithole's concept of Deathscapes, which was his expansion of Achille Mbembe's concept of death worlds. Deathscapes "are spaces where the lives of those killed are meaningless, and their deaths cannot be accounted for." "deathscape is what captures the lives thrown out of the realm of life – the lives denied essence and being given to death as they are in the zone of non-being." While Sithole's articulation of this concept is about racialized systemic and the structural way blacks in South Africa have been treated, Mbembe has argued that Deathworlds is universalized. They are both in the first world and the third world.
Gendered violence is widespread and impacts all spaces and people; what is endemic about the Nigerian situation is the complicit of the state and its agencies either through ineptitude, aiding, or wickedness to perpetuate it or make it easy for perpetrators to go free. All over the world, gendered violence is a problem but what distinguishes some spaces from the others is the commitment and consistency of stakeholders to combat this menace.
In Nigeria, it is entirely lip service. Lives, particularly women and girls, are only meaningful when it is time for the election. The way COVID-19 amplified our government incompetence, especially regarding the security and safety of women, one would never believe that we would move so quickly without long-term and active commitment to guaranteeing safety, security, and sanity for citizens, more so, women constantly at the brink of death. Even Vice President Yemi Osinbajo acknowledged that this was a problem during the pandemic. However, we are back to normal as usual. The police reported over 700 cases of rape during th pandemic but what of the unreported cases.
Who would have thought we would forget Barakat, Uwa, and several other women too numerous to mention. Now it is Bamise. I am exhausted for lack of a better world. I could not get Umoren away from my mind; I was almost a mental wreck. I can't imagine how much she fought to stay alive; I can only imagine Bamise's experience. You get away from Nigeria, but the country never stops haunting you.
What seems incomprehensible for me, even though it should not be, given that I have read Amina Mama, Saheed Aderinto, Aisha Bawa, among other scholars who have written about Nigeria Firstladyism are the femocract (women who claim to speak for the Other). Women obsessed with selfish gain and doing patriarchy's biding to be involved. In a country where is the name of the game is mediocrity and ineptitude. Where bills to support women are turned down without the blicking of an eye.
To be sure, violence against women is not new; the state perpetrating violence is not new; the colonial state was not different, but the Nigerian state has institutionalized violence either through its unwillingness to uncover crime, punish perpetrators or guarantee safety and security. I have severally thought of another area of specialization beyond women, gender, and sexuality. However, the field will not get away from me. Feminist research is not just about knowledge production; it is an activist project. I wonder if the perpetrator will be uncovered like too many deaths in Nigeria at the risk of pessimism. I am tired!
Posted on Facebook on March 7, 2022
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