Every year, almost like clockwork, Nigerian women take to social media to wail and cry out for help about the violence they face. In 2020, we had the murder of Uwaila Omozuwa. In 2022, it was Bamise Ayanwole. And in 2023, Augusta Osedion. This year, it’s the same story—different names, different hashtags, but the same outrage. Nigerian women are once again asking, begging and demanding an end to the violence.
There’s a heaviness that comes with being a woman in this world. Especially in Nigeria. Nigeria is no utopia, but for women, Nigeria feels like a specific circle of hell—a place where we only exist in labor, fleeting moments of outrage, and the endless abyss of gender-based violence.
The truth is, I’m just 22, and already, I’m tired of writing about women’s right to live. The pen is mightier than the sword, they say, but right now, the sword seems to be doing all the damage, and our pens feel too light to stop it. Women, especially Nigerian women, are burnt out. It is not normal to defend your right to exist every day, yet here we are, constantly pleading with a society that continues to ignore our cries.
With no end in sight, we are writhing in discomfort, suffocated by the weight of being unheard. What can truly be done to solve this pervasive and persistent issue?
With every dead woman there is the ever-present cycle of hashtags and statistics, the performative outrage that dies down with each passing day, the scattered “what about mens rights”, like they ever cared about rights before the word woman was placed in front of it. Femicide isn’t just a crisis, it’s a pandemic and one that is not taken as seriously as it should.
In Nigeria, it feels like femicide has become an everyday reality. Take the recent case of Augusta Osedion, a 21-year-old woman murdered by her boyfriend, Benjamin Best. Despite confessing to the crime on social media, Best is still on the run. This isn’t an isolated case. We can name Uwaila Omozuwa, who was raped and murdered in a church in 2020, or Bamise Ayanwole, who was abducted and found dead after boarding a public bus in Lagos last year. And then there’s the heartbreaking case of Hiny Umoren, lured under the guise of a job interview, raped, and killed in 2021.
Unfortunately, Nigeria is not an isolated case but part of a global epidemic. According to the WHO, 1 in 3 women worldwide have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or non-partner in their lifetime. In some countries, up to 38% of all murders of women are committed by intimate partners. The issue of femicide is not confined to any one region, culture, or society—it is a symptom of deep-rooted patriarchy and misogyny that transcends borders.
In Uganda, Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei was recently set on fire by her former partner just after winning a medal at the Paris Olympics this year. In India, doctors have gone on strike after the rape and murder of a female colleague that happened at the hospital she worked at. The headlines tell the same story, over and over again, in different places, with different names.
The names pile up, but justice seems to grow more distant with each passing case. In Nigeria, the problem goes beyond individual cases. It’s systemic. The police are often silent, slow to act, or worse, complicit. Take the case of Augusta Osedion and the infamous Killaboi: the Nigerian Police have yet to apprehend the killer. In fact, their only statement on the matter was a vague promise to transfer the case for further investigation. This kind of laxity sends a clear message—that the lives of women are not a priority.
In 2022, Africa recorded the highest global rate of femicide. This violence is not random; it is deeply entrenched in the systems that continue to uphold gender inequality. When women are seen as lesser, as property, as people without agency, these crimes will continue to happen. As feminist writer Emitomo Nimisire has pointed out, the attitude of the police often mirrors the attitudes of society. A police officer who thinks women deserve to be violated is unlikely to take reports of gender-based violence seriously. It’s no wonder that many of these crimes go unsolved or are outright ignored. The Ministry of Women Affairs’ dashboard on gender-based violence reports 23,371 cases, yet only 1,463 have been closed. These numbers show a clear lack of accountability.
This leads me to believe that the solution is not more awareness. It is accountability. At the root of this violence is a system that refuses to hold perpetrators accountable. And so, we need real, tangible action. Perpetrators must be brought to justice, police reform is necessary, and there must be a commitment from the government to prioritize the safety and lives of women. And where the police are holding perpetrators accountable, we must hold the police accountable. As Nimisire suggests, “At the end of each year, we want to see what the police have done with respect to violence against women. Let them show us the number of reports, arrests, and closed cases. Let’s actually hold the police accountable.”
It’s not enough to cry out every year. It’s not enough to raise awareness when justice is still so far out of reach. We’re tired. We don’t need more hashtags, more moments of social media outrage that fade after a week. We appreciate the sentiment but what we need is action. What we need is justice. We need to hold law enforcement and governments accountable. The names of these women must not be in vain—they should be remembered as catalysts for real change.
The exhaustion is palpable. Nigerian women are tired of writing, tired of pleading, tired of hoping. I am Nigerian women and I am tired and still, I know that we cannot afford to stop. Our lives depend on it. Literally. If the system won’t change on its own, we must continue to demand it—loudly, persistently, and with the understanding that change, real change, has to go beyond awareness. It has to be about action, accountability, and a relentless pursuit of justice for every woman.
Until then, the cycle of violence will continue, and women will continue to be tired.
