A Contextual Evaluation of Edo Women (Nigeria) in Illegal Migrations as Response to State and Societal Failure

Аннотация

This paper reviewed the failure of state and society to influence illegal migrations through frustrations engendered by lopsided development and infrastructural decay coupled with irreconcilable endemic corruptions in Nigeria. It adopts the content analysis and evaluation of available resource such as text books, journals and newspapers, explorations of lacunas in older research in this environment and explorations of oral interviews to substantiate other available evidences. A failed state cannot provide assurance of a good future for its citizens and future generations in that society. African states grapple with endemic problems such as corruption, little or lack of infrastructural development, lopsided political and state structures, recessions, unemployment and gross human rights violations with pervading real and imagined civil wars, further evidenced as insurgencies. These situations particularly pervade the country Nigeria and illegal migrations provide opportunities for frustrated citizens to run in desperate search of the Golden Fleece. In the Edo traditional society of Nigeria, the peculiarity of notoriety in this context is further grounded in what I refer to as societal failure. Benin traditional patrilineal conception celebrated male dominance and total subjugation of women, a situation that does not give the woman the right to family sustenance and nobility title (chieftaincy). However, new environmental challenges have resulted in problematic cultural readjustments that make women to take up the role of bread winners. As such, this illegal migration frenzy is higher in the Edo society because of these enlisting factors, as mentioned above. As international and domestic media and organizations turn a negative light of attention on this historical colossus (Edo land) it becomes necessary for the author to seek scholarly answers and solutions to redefine the state/society citizenship relationship and postulate suggestions to avert the influx of migrant returnees from creating further challenges. The lacuna of this research is better evaluated in historical meanderings of Benin (Edo) gender relations within the context of Nigerian society’s reevaluation for developmental improvement.