Nigeria: Elder Orphans

25 September 2018
opinion

Last week I wrote an article on the fight between Bianca Ojukwu and her stepchildren. The step children do not want the politician-widow to contest for a senatorial seat in Nnewi, Anambra State, her home by marriage. They are asking her to go to Ngwo in Enugu State, her home by birth. I dealt mainly with the issue as it relates to Bianca's status as a politician but only cursorily with her widowhood status. Now, some readers have asked me to do a column on widowhood as a subject. That is why I am sinking my teeth into this subject that is fenced round with thorns of trouble.

Widowhood is when a man dies and leaves his wife while widowerhood is the reverse. But the one with tons of trouble is widowhood. Husbands and wives are like mothers and fathers to each other. They take care of each other the way their own parents took care of them and when one of them dies, it is pure wahala for the one that survives. In most cases, it is the husband that dies and leaves the wife, an elder orphan. The reasons there are more widows than widowers are not far to seek. Most men marry younger women, so the women outlive them. More men get killed in wars, conflicts, accidents, assassinations and daring exploits than women. So you can say that the world is full of widows.

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