NYSC and the Triumph of Common Sense: Are Women now Human?, by Abdulkadir Salaudeen

Whenever commonsense triumphs over common notion and common practice, the expression of joy by me is spontaneous. We live in a country where an outsider (a foreigner)might think common sense is a crime. So, it is natural to be in joyful mood each time common sense guides the action of our rulers and their officials. The National Youth Service Corps recently, after the case of Aisha Saneeya v. NYSC, grants a married woman in Nigeria the choice to bear her father’s name or maiden surname name.

Aisha Saneeya sued NYSC. She approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, to seek a declaration of court that the act of the NYSC of changing/substituting  her surname with that of her husband’s name without any justification is unconstitutional, unlawful and infringement to her right to freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination. She won the case.

In a circular dated 25th November, 2024, the NYSC concedes that it is no longer a requirement for serving married women to change their maiden names to those of their spouses for concessional relocation to where their spouses reside.

One may wonder and ask: when was the law enacted that married women can not bear their fathers’ names as ‘coppers’—serving corps members? This should be a right question to ask. But that is if a law ever existed in Nigeria, in the first place, that says a married woman must bear her husband’s name as a ‘copper’. There isn’t such law! Because there isn’t such law, no new law was enacted.

So, what happened? Why were married women, until now, forced to change their maiden names because they want to serve their fatherland? I think it is due to official lawlessness that prevails in Nigeria. Someone in authority might just wake up and think something is wrong or right, and before you say ‘Jack Robinson’, it has become a law (nevertheless of its unwrittenness).

Like a dexterious story teller, Puella Ibraheem beautifully captured the reality of this dictatorial NYSC ritual of rechristening women’s name in her story titled”In Service and Humility – Part One: The Married Woman’s Name.” She wrote the story in 2015. Before she wrote her story, she fought the fight and many felt she was defeated. But was she defeated? No! It was a continuous struggle which just culminated in victory. In the end of her story, she wrote: “For all the Nigerian women who have gone or are going through this, we shouldn’t keep quiet about it. The married woman’s name is her name. And her name is her choice.” Aisha Saneey, like Puella Ibraheem advised, refused to keep quite. Now, the battle has been won.

Though Aisha Saneey, Puella Ibraheem, and others like them, stood their ground and argued their points from religious angle, the victory is for all Nigerian women. I do not intend to delve into the Islamic aspect of renaming a woman after her husband’s. What I intend to do is to find out if women are now human or if they are still in the process of transition to homosapiens. A nominal Muslim or non-Muslim who does not know why it is prohibitively wrong in Islam for a woman to change her father’s name to her husband’s name should read my article published about four years ago. It was titled “Should women be owned? And should they bear husbands’ names?“

I know there were debates, in the past, on the humanness of women. Catherine MacKinnon revisits these debates in her book titled “Are Women Human? And other International Dialogue” What I don’t know is if Nigerian women, with this triumph of common sense, are now human. It is perhaps forgivable that, more than a century ago (1911), in “The man-made world: Or, our androcentric culture”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an American humanist, wrote about how woman was regarded as the property of a man in the man-made world. It is rather disturbing and unforgivable that women—even with this fierce wind of modernity that is determined not to spare any nook and cranny across the globe—are still treated as chattels to be owned. Those who do not see anything wrong in a woman bearing her husband’s name, are of course, entitled to their opinion. But it is shameful to think it is shameful for a woman to be ashamed of bearing her husband’s name, as they argue.

Some people are adept at turning logic on its head and still try to convince the unsuspecting that the logic in their argument is standing on its feet. When a woman is confronted and lampooned by her fellow women that she is ashamed of bearing her husband’s name, she should be well-equipped. She should also lampoon her unserious jesters in like manner. She should ask them why they are ashamed of bearing their father’s name. Isn’t that the implication? Since I don’t want to discuss religion, common sense should guide women (and also men) to realize that is unnatural thing to do for many reasons. I will cite just one. Your husband can disown you(divorce you)anytime, but your father cannot disown you.

What if someone says but fathers do disown disobedient daughters at times. We would say that is true. But disowning one’s daughter does not change the reality of father-daughter-blood relation. It can only affect social relation. But when a man divorces his wife, it could affect all relations. I doesn’t just make sense to me that having sired a daughter and nursed her to become a grown up woman, suddenly one day, she will shamelessly and ungratefully abandon my name for a “honey.”

I commend Aisha Saneeya for her doggedness and all those who stood by her. I also commend the NYSC by eating humble pie without kicking back. In an atmosphere of lawlessness, the NYSC could choose to kick back. I hope the NYSC will undo the justices it had done to thousands of married women who were forced to change their names to those of their husbands’. It is like a deep sore in many of them—especially those who got divorced while their NYSC certificates continue to bear their former husbands’ names (which are now ugly names to them). This is traumatic, especially for those who feel cheated inbroken relationship.

It is high time we started treating women as humans with rights. Lest someone think I am a feminist, NYSC should please allow male ‘coppers’ too to serve the nation where their wives reside. “What is good for the goose,” as the saying goes, “is good for the gander.”

Abdulkadir Salaudeen

salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com