The Burden Of The Girl Child…

There is a peculiar burden that the Nigerian girl child bears—one that is neither written in law nor proclaimed in public, yet is faithfully enforced by society. It is the burden of perpetual suspicion. She must live under judgments she never invited and defend accusations she never earned. Where a man is given the luxury of explanation, a woman is sentenced by assumption. Where a boy is applauded for daring, a girl is condemned for merely existing.

Life itself is an enigma. It gives no notice before changing the script, no explanation before dimming the light. Today, we laugh with those we love; tomorrow, we gather to speak of them in the past tense. Death remains the greatest mystery ever entrusted to humanity—a visitor that neither seeks permission nor respects status, innocence, wealth, or reputation.

Yet, even before the earth has received one of its daughters, we have hurried to bury her dignity.

Since the heartbreaking news of the young lady found lifeless in the residence of the Honourable Minister, Dave Umahi, became public, compassion has been strangely absent. Sympathy has surrendered to speculation. Before investigators could speak, before facts could breathe, the court of social media had already pronounced its verdict: she must have been a hook-up girl.

How frightening that a woman’s corpse is no longer allowed the silence of dignity before it is interrogated by prejudice.

Let us ask ourselves, calmly and honestly: what is wrong with a qualified nurse working as a private caregiver to a minister? Must every nurse be confined to the four walls of a hospital before society grants her legitimacy? Across the world, countless nurses devote their lives to home healthcare, hospices, rehabilitation centres, and the care of the elderly. Their profession is defined by service, not by geography.

If the minister’s residence could legitimately employ policemen to provide security, drivers to operate vehicles, cooks to prepare meals, cleaners to maintain the home, and aides to perform official duties, why should the presence of a nurse suddenly become evidence of immorality? Her employment deserved the same dignity accorded to every other worker within those walls.

A place where death occurs is not necessarily the reason death occurs.

Had fate written her final chapter elsewhere—on a highway, in a hospital ward, aboard an aircraft, inside a classroom, or in her own home—would the verdict have been different? Death has never respected addresses. It has claimed kings upon their thrones, labourers in the fields, worshippers in sanctuaries, passengers in transit, children in their sleep, and physicians while saving lives. Death is the one visitor that never asks for directions; it simply arrives when eternity has whispered a name.

Perhaps that house was merely the last stop on her earthly journey, not the definition of her character.

There is something deeply unsettling about how eagerly we strip dead women of their honour while extending every benefit of the doubt to the living. It reveals less about the departed than about the living. A society that cannot show mercy to the dead has already begun to lose its own humanity.

Every funeral procession is, in truth, a quiet procession for the living. Whenever another person dies, heaven gently reminds the rest of us that our own appointment with eternity remains on the calendar, only the date is hidden. The grave does not discriminate. It waits patiently for saints and sinners, the celebrated and the forgotten alike.

Perhaps, then, the greatest tribute we can offer the dead is kindness. If we possess no facts, let us possess compassion. If we cannot defend their lives, let us at least refuse to assassinate their memories.

For one day, when our own voices have fallen silent and others gather to speak of us, we too shall depend on the mercy of those we leave behind.

Painfully, being a woman has become a burden too many daughters carry in silence. Today, when a girl is born, my first instinct is no longer unrestrained celebration but quiet fear. Fear of the world she must navigate. Fear of the judgments she will inherit. Fear that she may one day have to defend her dignity against people who never knew her, even after death.
It is a cruel society that teaches its daughters to survive not only life but also the stories strangers will tell about them when they are gone.

May God protect every girl child from the violence of false assumptions, from the cruelty of reckless tongues, and from a generation that has mistaken suspicion for truth. May He grant us hearts that choose compassion over conjecture, mercy over malice, and silence over slander.

For in the end, every one of us will leave this world with only our deeds before God, while our reputation rests in the hands of those we leave behind. May we never become the reason another soul is dishonoured after death.
May God save us all.

Solemnly Musing

Abdullahi O Haruna Haruspice