If you want to know the end, look at the beginning.
African proverb.
A little over four years ago, I wrote the
material below in this paper. It was intended to speak against a national
hysteria being fired by our poisonous national patents of ethnic and religious
stereotypes and prejudices. I have since followed this matter even when it
threatened to disappear under our penchant for finding new causes to fight
over. Last week, there was a major development around the story. First, though,
please read my comments on the matter.
“Any responsible parent of a girl of
fourteen that disappears and is then reported to be with an unknown person
hundreds of miles away from home will be beside themselves with worry. If they
also hear that she has changed her religion and is planning to marry the person
responsible for her disappearance, their concerns will deepen. They will do
everything to trace the girl and utilize every available source of redress and
relief to retrieve her and get justice. If they meet their daughter, and then
encounter difficulties in retrieving her from any quarter, they will raise
their voices to the high heavens in protest. Everyone who hears the side of the
parent’s story will line up in their support.
This is what all Nigerians have done in
support of the demand of the parents, relations and the community of 14 year
old Ese Oruru for her return to her home in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State from a
village in Kano State where she has been for the last few months. This
universal support behind the return of Ese to her home is the only peg on which
you could hang some sort of consensus. Ese’s reported ill-advised elopement
with a young man from Kano is presented as abduction, forceful detention, and
conversion to Islam in many versions. Sloppy handling and laxities in the
operations of institutions with responsibilities to protect the weak and
vulnerable are interpreted in other quarters as high level collusion to violate
the fundamental and other rights of a Nigerian minor. A saga that has been
active for months, with many stops and gos substantially outside public glare
suddenly assumed the status of a national scandal with all the trappings and
muck of our politics. A child everyone should look at with responsible sympathy
suddenly became the source of the rediscovery of all that is wrong with our
politics and other values as a nation.
Ese was, a few months ago, one among
millions of Nigerian children from whom you will buy pure water or snacks
without a second look. Today, she is at the center of an almighty row about
faith, cultures and damaging politics. Long after this dust is settled, this
child will deal with the effects of our quarrels over her. Whether she is a
victim of childish impetuousness or adult abuse and cynical manipulation is not
likely to matter. Collectively, we would have further injured a child that
ought to have been in school learning to be a responsible adult, with the support
of her parents and community.
There are quite possibly many angles to this
sad story that would have been permanently drowned by indignation and outrage
from just about everyone who has scores to settle, or a cause to advance. A
range of persons and interests from the Emir of Kano to all Muslims and many
Northerners are likely to feel hard done by because their status and faith are
being portrayed in very bad light. They will attempt to distance their faith
from abduction, forceful conversion or marriage without consent of parents, to
no avail. Palace officials, police and community leaders will roll out all
manner of evidence that they played their parts. No one will care, after the
devastating conclusions of social media warriors has reached many ears,
galvanizing opinions in support of a child who desperately needs to be freed
from abduction and forced conversion and impending marriage.
Ese’s sojourn has attracted to the poor
child an entire army of sympathizers, many of whom she does not need, and they
do not deserve mention. Minister of Women Affairs says Ese is a wake up call to
improve the protection of women and child rights. Hashtags in support of Ese’s
return have been gaining support in social media. Traditional and stereotype
insults against people, regions and religions are being unearthed, with
reminders of child marriages by prominent northerners, the Chibok girls,
sponsored pregnancies, commercial baby factories and entire communities living
off remittances from prostituting daughters in Europe filling all social media
spaces.
In this bedlam which says more about how we
treat each other as adults than how we relate to our young, there are a few
islands of sanity. The governor of Bayelsa State went out of his way to engage
Governor of Kano State and the Emir of Kano, and publicly commended both for
the roles they played in reuniting Ese with her parents. The Kano Emirate
Council released a measured statement distancing the Emir and the Emirate
Council from accusations that they colluded in keeping Ese in Kano State, away
from her parents.
On the other hand, the legion of shrill
joiners piling on sensation and crude opportunism reminds us all that we are
stuck in some deep gutters as far as inter-community relations go. The Nation
newspaper screamed an editorial that should lose it a substantial amount of
respect. It said: “The story which was, at press time still developing, has all
the evil trappings of molestations, child abuse, sexual deviance, abduction,
religious coercion, constitutional violation, a network of shadowy big mean
manipulating the law…” This comment will force all people with a hint of
civilized humanity to grit their teeth and read the trademark drivel rolled out
routinely by Femi Fani-Kayode because it appears that he shares the same space
with this newspaper on this matter. Forgive me for giving this man who clearly
needs help a few minutes of your time, but this is part of Fani-Kayode’s
contribution on this matter: “The truth is that this is not a love story about
two inseparable young people: it is rather a sad and tragic tale about
pedophilia, child abduction, kidnapping, human trafficking, slavery, rape,
impunity, wickedness, religious bigotry and ritual sex. Worse still it is an
unfolding drama at the end of which Emir Sanusi Lamido (sic) may well have a
case to answer. The truth is that the little girl would have been raped over
and over again and she may well have Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
(AIDs), Vesico vaginal Fistula (VVF) or some other strange sexual disease by
now”.
There must be people who enjoy this type of
delusion in print, because newspapers give it space. But Ese does not need it.
What she needs is a quiet and productive reunification with her family, and a
lot of time to sort out deeply personal issues. What we need as a nation is to
move on and find other grounds for a quarrel. Everyone involved in this
sensitive issue should examine their roles, or have them examined by those who
police accountability. Where amends or restitutions need to be made, they must
be made. Ese will develop into an adult and decide what she wants to do with
her life. The best way we can help her reach that stage without further damage
is to create appropriate distance between her life and our many preferences and
prejudices.”
Since this piece was published, Ese was
seperated from Yinusa Dahiru (alias Yello) February 2016 and taken home with a
five months-old pregnancy. She delivered a girl three months later. Yinusa was arrested
and detained in prison custody, and has been on trial until last week when he
was sentenced to 26 years in prison. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
A newspaper that had vigorous championed Ese’s case quoted her father as
saying that an attempt was made to steal the baby at the Police officer’s Mess
in Yenegoa where mother and child were staying. The same paper interviewed the
father in 2018 during which he said all the promises for scholarship and
support made by the Bayelsa and Delta State governments for Ese’s education
were not fulfilled. She is now in SS3, living away from, but being supported
only by her father.
In all likelihood, Yinusa will appeal. But
the court of sectional opinion is already split right down the middle.
Champions of Ese’s case who paid for her lawyers hail his conviction as
rightful vindication. His sympathisers say he has been abandoned and betrayed
by his own people who, in addition cannot raise their voices at the reported
cases of Hausa children routinely stolen and taken to the East, culturally
re-processed and converted.
Yinusa and Ese have played their roles
as pawns, and they will continue to remind us that in most of our fights, there
are no winners. This, however, does not stop us fighting in filth.
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