Report on the #CallitFemicide March

By Raimi Akegbejo, International Liaison Personnel of Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard, Nigerian Section of the RCIT. 6th April, 2024. https//:communism4africa.wordpress.com

The #CallItFemicide march organised by DOHS Cares Foundation for Women and Children took place on the 4th of April, which was aimed at codifying femicide into Nigerian law as a separate crime from murder or to for stiffer penalties in case of femicide over cases of murder or as a new aspect of homicide. The march commenced at Allen Roundabout, Ikeja, where all the demonstrators converged and terminated at the Lagos State House of Assembly, Alausa, Ikeja after a draft bill on femicide was submitted.

The DOHS is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that probably gets funding from Western imperialist countries, as is the case with many NGO’s in Africa. This factor is responsible for the pacifism of an otherwise vibrant group of individuals who participated in the march. For one thing, signs that the organisation had some gate-keeping tendency includes the low level of publicity the rally was given on social media when such a crucial issue could have been well publicised on social media platforms.

Another is the fact that the march was fixed on April 4th, weeks away from International Women’s Day when it should be ideally held, and after the whole month of March, which is Women’s History Month. Nonetheless, the general crises in the capitalist system made for some interesting displays of militancy by students from Yaba College of Technology (Yaba Tech).

The founder of the group, Ololade Ajayi, is a little known feminist (in my evaluation) in Nigerian feminist circles. Her definition of femicide is “the intentional killing of women and girls by men, which is characterised by a history of domestic violence and social abuse.”¹ While this definition is acceptable in the general sense, it limits the meaning of feminicide in a way, to domestic violence and intimate partner violence or cases where other forms of sexual abuse like rape are involved. A more appropriate definition would have been simply the murder of a woman since one cannot seperate the circumstances and experiences of a person’s life from their death, and for women, it is that of patriarchal oppression.

The group also had on placards the names of popular victims of femicide who were yet to receive justice such as Bamise Ayanwole, Sarah Adesanya, Barakat Bello, Obiageli Anajekwu, Augusta Osedion, Damian Okoligwe, Ogochukwu Anene, Ndubuisi, Nana Fadimatu, Esther Aja, Ovye Yakubu, Evelyn Alifiya, Itunu Chigozie, Mercy Samuel, Osinachi Nwachukwu, Bimbo Ogbonna.

As socialists it is our duty to participate in events like this in order expand and deepen these campaigns so that we can win genuine change-seekers over for a revolutionary women’s liberation movement.