Slavery Accusation Litigation and Male Gender Discrimination in Abbi The Case of Egwenu

Abstract

This study interrogates the phenomenon of slavery accusation in Abbi despite the fact that the institution has been abolished many years ago and there are no obvious evidences of its existence except as may be captured in modern slavery. The accusation is also regardless of the fact that there are extant laws of the constitution providing that citizens shall not be discriminated against as a result of the circumstances of birth, ethnic origin or religion. This study chooses, as a specimen from Abbi community, Suit No. NWACC/37/2021 Chief (Hon.) Solomon Egwenu v. Adolphus Okolafor Enueweosu which is founded on defamation of character of the plaintiff for being called a slave filed before the Ndokwa West Area Customary Court, Kwale. The study adopts content analysis within the broad spectrum of doctrinal method. It seeks to interrogate the factual circumstances that led to the litigations and critically raise the nature of the slavery accusation. Attempt was made to capture the evidence of witnesses in whose presence the allegation of slavery was made against the victim. The study finds that the allegations were not well founded in facts but were raised in relationship to communal traditional politics and power struggle and that the conveyors of the accusations were actuated by malice, jealousy and base motives to de-shine the rising political profile and traditional power aspiration of the victim in the locality and the victim’s capacity to bring more enlightened views and practice to native customs on local adjudication and dual-traditional-nativity identities. And to a large extent, purveyors are unwilling to appear in court to defend or ventilate their accusations as found in the specimen. The study also finds that who may be regarded as a slave may not actually have been subjected to the conditions of ‘slavery’ and that the purveyors are not largely ignorant of what the institution of slavery entails but attempts were made to pigeon hole the accusations within modern slavery. It is recommended that Abbi traditional council should put in place, mechanisms to punish exercises in denigrating its chiefs before it Palaces than allowing such infractions to get to the conventional courts of law.