THE SEX STEREOTYPE AGAINST THE TIV NATION: A FIGMENT OF THE IMAGINATION

BY

ULAGA SHAGBAOR JR

A rather cozy morning at the Faculty of Arts quadrangle of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I came across this youngster, sixteen years of age, I presume, who was running away from the early morning drops of rain like me. A conversation ensued as both of us lamented over the persistent rainfall. This youngster noticed that my accent was quite unusual and different from that of the Igbos and inquired to know where I had come from; he was particularly interested in the way I articulated the word 'disturb.' I told him I was a Tiv man from Benue. This youngster told me he would like to visit me when I get married. Of course, I was overwhelmed by his offer to visit me and was immediately engulfed by the thoughts of telling my future wife to prepare pounded yam with bush meat for him. These thoughts were however cut short after he added the following words: “Tiv men offer their wives to visitors to sleep with, as kola nut.” I was dumbfounded.

Another incident was at the Moot Court Complex Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria Enugu Campus. It was a lecture. And the topic was Religion and Social Change. The lecturer, a man in his late fifties while teaching his students used an unnamed tribe to illustrate how culture changes from time to time. He said that a particular Nigerian tribe had a cultural practice where a man offer his wife to his visitor to sleep with as a way of entertainment. Of course, he didn’t mention that tribe. One wonders while he felt reluctant to mention that particular tribe like the youngster did.

If the above incidences are meaningful, they represent numerous attempts by people from other ethnic nationalities --- young and old, educated and illiterates, urban sophisticates, and rural dwellers --- to ridicule the decent cultural behavior of the Tiv people, question their moral values and to crown it all, lower them in the estimation of right-thinking people using this fictitious sex stereotype. This stereotype states that the Tiv people have a cultural practice according to which a Tiv man offers his beloved wife to his visitor at night for sexual entertainment. This stereotype has been disseminated across the nooks and crannies of Nigeria. For other ethnic groups, the story is completely true. This is taught and fully believed in educational institutions.

It is a truism that love and care between husband and wife is a common moral property of every racial group. All men jealously guard against other men having sexual intercourse with their wives. Because of adultery, husbands in every racial group have inflicted severe injuries even painful deaths on fellow men who have slept with their wives. Many of such cases of violence have occurred among Tiv men. Therefore, for anyone to say that Tiv men offer their wives to visitors as a form of entertainment is either wickedness or ignorance of the highest order. Tiv people are truly normal human beings with high moral standards and as such cannot engage in such animal-like behavior.

Furthermore, if this sensational story is anything to go by, it then means that adultery is normal among the Tiv people. But that is not the case as adultery was/is a crime in Tiv land. In the past, cases of adultery were tried and penalties were imposed on offenders by age groups and council of elders. Tiv people tried adulterous cases because they violated the moral principle of marital relationship between husband and wife.

Fabricators and propagators of this stereotypical portrait of the Tiv argue that the younger generation is unaware of the cultural practice because of civilization. They posit that the practice had waned as a result of the Tiv people’s contact with the Europeans. (That lecturer falls into this category). But the truth of the matter is that at no time did the Tiv people engage in such cultural behavior. Assuming but not conceding that they did engage in it, there are no records to prove the existence of such historical fact. If there were, Lugard and his cohorts would not have spared the Tiv in circulating them, considering the obvious hatred he had for that tribe whom he described as “warlike”.

Paul Bohannan, a professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom in 1949 visited Tivland and researched the culture of the Tiv people. He published his findings in his book entitled Justice and Judgment Among the Tiv in 1957. In that book, he presented two case studies on adultery as a crime among the Tiv but did not mention anything concerning this sex stereotype. This raises doubt as to the veracity of any claim that such a practice had existed among the Tiv people of North Central Nigeria. The posers are: Was it that Bohannan was not properly entertained the “Tiv way” or that he was properly entertained with a Tiv man’s wife and was subsequently bribed not to mention it? Hence his silence in that book. Pontificators would find that book interesting as it would explicitly serve notice to them that adultery was a serious offense and that Tiv people would not approbate and reprobate at the same time by giving out their wives to visitors and turning to punish those who commit adultery.

An acquaintance, while I was promoting this work, told me that I was unnecessarily obsessed with the issue. He also said that stereotypes are part of life. He cited an instance where Igbos are said to love money more than everything, even to the extent that they could betray their brothers. My response to him was that I was not talking about a mere stereotype that says a group of people love money, that I was talking about a stereotype that parades in the most vulgar fashion prejudices in which a battalion of question marks is inserted into the moral consciousness of a group of people.

The most irritating part of this matter is that these non-Tiv people claim to know much more about this stereotype than the Tiv people themselves. Some of them hold their opinion as though they have had firsthand knowledge of it. I had engaged in a heated argument with one of them and asked him how he came about the story and was subsequently disappointed when he told me that a cousin of his who had traveled to Tiv land relayed the information to him. My advice to him was that as a sensible man he shouldn’t accept any traveler’s tale on the basis that he has not made the journey himself, especially when such a story is as jaundiced as his cousin’s.

One would do nothing but pity those lecturers who teach their ignorant students Tiv culture even though they have had no sheerest acquaintance with it. These lecturers rely on rumors to pontificate and they invariably prosecute a matter regarding which they lack any vestige of understanding or competence. It is also interesting to know that ninety-nine percent of the lecturers who propagate this stereotype has not stepped their feet on Tiv soil let alone researched the cultural behavior of the Tiv people. With this paucity of research, people still get surprised and ask questions as to why Nigerian universities are ranked low in the world when the answers are very glaring.

Therefore that sixteen-year-old youngster shouldn’t be crucified for uttering such a slanderous statement against the Tiv people because he is the product of a society that has embraced academic parochialism. One would not also be surprised to hear that that youngster had passed through the tutelage of that lecturer that taught his students Religion and Social Change at the Moot Court Complex on that fateful day.