Women of Isiagu, a community in Ivo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, are reported to have given a man what was described as a “free ride” in a wheelbarrow as part of a public punishment against him. The women, known as Umuada (a term for the daughters of a community, married or unmarried, who form a powerful traditional women’s group in Igbo society), took this action after the man allegedly beat up his wife and destroyed her shop during a disagreement between the couple.
Being carried in a wheelbarrow and paraded is a traditional form of public shaming in many Igbo communities. It is meant to humiliate the offender in front of neighbours and pass a clear warning to others who might behave the same way. In this case, the destruction of the wife’s shop adds an economic dimension to the abuse, since it was reportedly her source of livelihood.
This kind of community-led punishment is becoming more common and more visible, as videos of Umuada disciplining offenders keep going viral on social media across Nigeria.
Similar cases keep happening across Igbo communities
In Amaekpu, a community in Ohafia Local Government Area of Abia State, the Umuada gave a man 30 strokes of the cane after his elderly parents accused him of repeatedly assaulting them. He was also accused of beating his wife and was fined ₦20,000, which the women said would be used for cleansing rites in the community.
In Ukpor, a community in Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State, the Umuada flogged a young woman accused of beating her brother’s wife and helping her brother abuse his wife. The man himself was handed over to the men of the community for his own punishment.
Not every attempt by the Umuada to punish someone goes ahead as planned, though. In Anambra State, local villagers stopped a group of Umuada from a neighbouring community from publicly shaming a woman over a leaked video, insisting that outsiders could not enforce punishment without following proper community procedure.
Why the Umuada still hold this kind of power
The Umuada trace their authority back to a traditional Igbo belief that daughters of the land, even after they marry out, keep a lifelong right and duty to protect the wellbeing of their birth community. This includes settling disputes between husbands and wives, punishing infidelity, and stepping in on cases of abuse.
In many rural communities, formal police stations and courts are far away, slow to respond, or simply not trusted to act quickly. This has kept traditional bodies like the Umuada relevant, since they can gather, investigate, and punish an offender within hours of a complaint.
Causes and effects
The underlying cause of these confrontations is domestic violence itself, which remains widespread in South-East Nigeria’s rural communities and is often treated as a private family matter rather than a crime. Weak enforcement of Nigeria’s laws against domestic violence, and the slow pace of the formal justice system, push families and victims toward traditional bodies for faster results.
For the individual man involved, public punishment like this brings immediate shame and, in many cases, a real change in behaviour, at least in the short term. For his wife, it can offer a form of protection and validation that the police or courts might not have provided quickly enough. In this case, the destruction of her shop also means she has lost her livelihood alongside the physical abuse she reportedly suffered, leaving her to rebuild both her safety and her income at the same time.
But this trend also has effects that reach beyond one household. It shows that many Nigerians, especially in rural communities, still do not fully trust formal law enforcement to handle domestic violence cases. At the national level, this raises hard questions about how well Nigeria’s justice system serves its citizens outside the big cities, and about whether the country is doing enough to protect women through formal channels, rather than leaving it to community groups to fill the gap. It also raises human rights concerns, since these punishments happen without any trial, defence, or appeal for the accused person.
Possible solutions
The Nigeria Police Force and the Ministry of Women Affairs in the affected states need to build faster, more trusted response systems for domestic violence complaints in rural communities, so families do not feel they have to look elsewhere for justice.
Traditional institutions like the Umuada could be formally recognised as a first point of contact for domestic disputes, working alongside, not outside, the law, so cases are properly documented and offenders can still be legally prosecuted where necessary.
Community sensitisation programmes should continue to educate men and women on non-violent conflict resolution within marriage, to reduce the number of cases reaching this point in the first place.
Legal aid groups should be made available in rural South-East communities so that victims of domestic violence have a real formal alternative to community punishment.
A balanced view: public shaming has power, but it also has limits
There is something to admire in how quickly the Umuada can act to defend a woman who might otherwise have no one to turn to. For many victims of domestic violence in rural Nigeria, this kind of community accountability is the only protection available to them. However, punishment carried out this way skips due process entirely. The accused has no chance to defend himself before a neutral party, and there is no way to be certain, from outside the community, that every allegation brought to the Umuada is accurate. A man could, in theory, be wrongly accused and punished based on rumour alone. Community justice and formal justice both have a role to play, but neither should completely replace the other.
Our thoughts
I understand why many Nigerians online cheer when they see videos like this one from Isiagu. Domestic violence is a real and painful problem in many homes, and watching an alleged abuser get publicly humiliated feels, to a lot of people, like justice finally being served. But I think we should be careful about celebrating punishment that happens outside any formal process, no matter how satisfying it looks on video. The answer to Nigeria’s slow and often unreliable justice system is not for communities to build their own courts with no appeal process. It is for government at every level to make the formal system fast enough, and trustworthy enough, that women do not have to depend on their in-laws’ willingness to act.
Published by Ejoh Caleb
