Women as Auditors

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

Tangiiri, a Yoruba (Nigeria) movie about seven kids fighting for their mother’s corpse, is a reminder that theoretically, women have a choice. They can self audit or take the group audit format.

However, the reality is that group audit is the preferred column for most women globally because self audit leads to isolation from the group. That column is fed at birth by mothers who got it from their mothers, who got it from billions of mothers before them.

Ibiyemi, the main character in the movie constantly audits her life. When she feels that a man doesn’t live up to his promises, she leaves him. She definitely does not tolerate being beaten. That is how she ends up with nine children with different fathers.

Ibiyemi dies and seven of them fight for the right to bury her. Her body is stolen, re-stolen and finally secretly buried. It is fiction yes, but it is very disturbing seeing a coffin manhandled from pillar to post, with guns drawn.

Pic: Nonqaba waka Msimang

Ajala, her eldest son, kills five brothers and sisters because a traditional doctor told him that burying his mother will bring him fame and fortune. The director has a scene where Ibiyemi is in heaven with her five dead children. They don’t see her, but she can see them.

Another woman, Abayomi’s mother sees her in a dream (In Africa, women are not called Mrs. They are called Mother of ……). Abayomi’s mother criticizes Ibiyemi about how she audited her life, and relates her own story, full of physical abuse and shame because her husband went for other people’s wives.

Abayomi’s mother says she stayed for the children because that is what marriage is all about. Abayomi’s mother tells Ibiyemi that the turmoil about kids fighting over her corpse is the result of how she audited her life.

She says her children cannot see her in death because she did not abide by the group audit and stayed with one man. The movie seems to be a warning for women that self audit is a No! No!

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.