Nigeria women are the breadwinners in their home but husbands still cheats?

“He gets jealous every time he sees me with any man and if he asks for money and I don’t give him, he gets very violent. The painful part was that he beats me in the presence of our children.”

More are more women in Nigeria are becoming the breadwinners in their households. With more and more of them singularly bearing the financial responsibility for their husbands and children.

The other day my older aunty was sympathizing with us singletons, she said she can’t imagine being a single woman right now, cos she heard a lot of men are looking for wives who would take care of them financially. And she’s not about that life. An investigative reporter from Punch talked to a few women who are in these positions, they narrate how they give their men money, men who have refused to go out to find work, these same men cheat on them and even swindle them out of their hard earned cash.

But despite the disrespect they have refused to live their low life husbands because of what “society will say”

Read excerpts from the eye opening report after the jump

Her wedding day was one of happiness and merry making. But that was a few years ago when Wunmi Oyediji was still in love. Fast forward eight years and you have a completely different story from the sweet romance that led Oyediji to the altar.

Her marriage to Damilare had so much promise, but her hope of a blissful union gradually faded into a living hell before her eyes, albeit a silent one since her frustrations are being bottled up. Oyediji’s constant source of worry is her husband.

Oyediji, a banker with a reasonable income, met Damilare when he was working in an IT firm in Lagos. But shortly after their marriage, Damilare lost his job and has had none since then, except for the mostly futile hustling he does at the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos State capital. The village is Nigeria’s IT hub.

For over five years, Oyediji has been shouldering the financial responsibilities at home like paying their children’s school fees, feeding and clothing the family.

Twice, she has tried to set up business for her husband and twice he has been unable to account for the money invested in the businesses. On several occasions, Oyediji has caught Damilare cheating on her and on a few other instances suspected him of attempting to dupe her.

“It’s just like he’s contented with the situation because he has since stopped looking for job or trying to take care of his responsibilities at home. If I ask him for any money, he will say ‘shebi you have money, go and do it now. Over a year ago, I gave him over N1.5m to get some equipment from overseas which he said he would sell at the Computer Village. Till now, he insists the goods have not arrived in Nigeria and each time I ask, he keeps giving different reasons. Some months ago, he asked for another N300,000 to clear some issues causing the delay in bringing in the goods but I didn’t believe him; so I didn’t give him.

“Earlier, I had given him about N1m for another project but nothing also came out of that one. I know he also cheats on me because I go through his phones but he always denies it. In spite of everything I do for him, he still connives with my mechanic to increase the cost of auto parts so that he can take cuts. ”

However, Oyediji is not considering divorce or separating from Damilare yet for a few reasons including the fear of raising their children without a father figure.

“Apart from the fact that I don’t want to raise the children as a single parent, I also don’t want my marriage to fail. People will say the marriage failed because I’m richer than my husband and that’s why I’m not submissive to him. But that’s far from the truth. Some of my friends wonder if I’ve been charmed but those are the reasons I don’t want a divorce,” she said.

In many of such cases, the women suffer in silence because of a range of reasons including the stigma and the cultural issues associated with divorce. In Nigeria, divorce is frowned at culturally and so divorcees often have a hard time getting someone to remarry.

Another case is that of Mr. David Popoola. Like Damilare, Popoola was into IT until his business crashed about five years ago. Since then, he has depended on his wife, Funke, who manages a thriving catering business in Lagos.

Since losing his job, Popoola has had a few job offers, but he turned them all down for one reason or the other each time an offer came. The latest one came when Popoola rejected a job offer by the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, facilitated by his uncle.

This attitude infuriated Funke and her appeals to get Popoola to work have so far been shunned by him.

In an informal interaction with Popoola by our correspondent, he revealed he had turned down the latest job offer because he felt the job did not befit his status.

“The job is beneath me. Can you imagine me doing a LASTMA job with my master’s degree? He said.

Funke, however, explained that she has been providing for the home and paying the children’s school fees, singlehandedly, for five years.

A source close to the family also shared with our correspondent how Popoola wondered why there was so much fuss over his decision to wait for his dream job.

“He told me that after all, he’s been supporting the home since by taking care of the kids when his wife is at work. His wife is tired of the whole thing, but she’s enduring it because she doesn’t want to go through divorce,” the source said.

Like Popoola, Mr. Akpan, who is also jobless, has been taking care of the home while his wife, Gloria, is at work.

Gloria, a director in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, has been embarrassed by her husband’s situation.

Akpan, a chartered accountant was a banker until he resigned some years ago after a recapitalisation policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria led to mergers which affected his bank.

His complaint was that a younger worker was being put above him as his superior.

After a few months of searching for job, Akpan got another one but resigned six months later, citing a similar excuse. In all, Akpan has resigned from three jobs before deciding that he was no longer interested in working for anyone.

Since Akpan’s last job in 2008, he has been relying on his wife to carry out the financial responsibilities in the home.

Gloria told our correspondent that in addition to such responsibilities, she has had to constantly upgrade her husband to keep up with her status as a senior federal civil servant.

“I buy him cars and give him money because it will be shameful for the husband of a director to look wretched. The situation bothers me but what can I do? It’s my cross,” she said.

Tolulope, who is from a rich family, met her husband in church. They courted briefly before getting married 10 years ago. Shortly after the marriage, Tolulope realised that Daniel was not a comfortable businessman he had claimed to be. He always insists that Tolulope, a banker, is earning more than him and should therefore foot the bills in the house.

Tolulope said she has grown tired of shouldering all the financial responsibilities at home, but does not know what to do.

She said, “He doesn’t do anything at home. We used to share our children’s tuition fees between us but after some time, he stopped paying. He said after all, I was earning more than him.

“I never really knew him before we got married because the marriage was arranged in our church. He gave me the impression that he was responsible and had a comfortable job. It was later that I got to know that he wasn’t a businessman as he had claimed.

“Sometimes, he would not come home. He would say he had one business to attend to but none of the businesses ever brought in money for the family. So I knew he must have been cheating on me. I went through his phone one day and saw a text message from someone claiming to be pregnant for him. He denied and swore to me that he knew nothing about it.

“I don’t mind putting down more money at home, I just want him to be putting something down too even if it’s only N5,000. I bought him a car when he complained about taking public transport.

“He gets jealous every time he sees me with any man and if he asks for money and I don’t give him, he gets very violent. The painful part was that he beats me in the presence of our children.”

But interestingly, the trend is not peculiar to the country’s educated class alone. It cuts across all strata of the society.

For example, a sample carried out in major markets in Lagos shows a scenario similar to the ones earlier highlighted.

A lot of the women at Ketu and Mile 12 markets in Lagos are travellers from adjoining states like Oyo, Ogun, Osun and Kwara, sending money home for the upkeep of their families.

One of the these traders from Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, identified herself as Mrs. Ramota.

Ramota said though she labours everyday to send money home to her family, reports getting back to her concerning her husband had been unpleasant.

“In spite of all I do to feed my husband and four children, travelling up and down, I hear that he cheats on me whenever I’m not around. And he doesn’t do anything. He always waits for me to send money,” she said.

Damn! Some women are going through hell! I can’t imagine being solely financially responsible for my husband & entire household and on top of that he’s using my money on other women?! It’s one thing to go through a rough patch but when it becomes permanent and he’s not even working towards bringing in income for the family…then I will lose respect for him.

DO YOU SUPPORT THESE WOMEN WHO HAVE STAYED WITH THEIR CHEATING HOUSEHUSBANDS?

HAVE YOU BEEN IN A SIMILAR SITUATION?

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WOMEN BEING THE BREADWINNERS?

Source: The1960chick.com