The Misogynists In The Nigerian Senate By Reuben Abati

What Senator Biodun Olujimi (PDP, Ekiti South) did with her presentation of a bill on gender and equal opportunities on March 15, is the equivalent of trying one’s luck. But she deserves praise for her courage and progressive views, and for forcing the issue so well. 

The subject has generated useful debate and the Senate President has been forced to reassure the public that the bill will be re-presented, after it has been re-drafted “to address some of the reservations that were expressed on the floor of the Senate.” 

       This is the third time that the Senate will throw out this same bill.  Senate President Bukola Saraki knows too well that to address the expressed reservations is to kill the bill completely. There may be no hope of a misogynistic Senate passing a Bill that seeks to empower women and the girl-child, protect them from discrimination and violence, rescue them from being treated like chattel, and ensure that women play more prominent roles in public and private decision-making processes.  The Bill further seeks to protect the rights of women in marriages.

     It should not be surprising that the male-dominated Senate (102 men to 7 women) rose against the Bill. A few male voices supported Senator Olujimi, but those against the Bill were determined. They quoted the Bible. They cited the Quoran. They dismissed any thought of women having more powers or voice or being treated like equals to men. They even cited culture and tradition. One newspaper stated matter of factly, that Senator Olujimi “incurred the wrath of Northern Senators”. 

 When the matter was put to a vote, the naysayers of course won. So, given the gender imbalance in the Senate and the shortage of enlightened men on the floor, if that Bill is presented a thousand times, the outcome is predictable. It is perhaps for this reason that a different kind of strategy will be required to make any progress in the important fight for the treatment of women’s rights as human rights.

       Nigeria is signatory to different international conventions on the elimination of all forms of violence and discrimination against women. The Constitution also forbids discrimination against any person on the grounds of gender and circumstances of birth. Long before the internationalization of the struggle for women’s rights and its NGO-nization, there have been records of valiant Nigerian women pushing the envelope and demonstrating through advocacy and individual accomplishments that women are capable partners in society’s development, and that they deserve full citizenship rights.  

      But just as was demonstrated again on the floor of the Senate, religion, culture and male chauvinism are major stumbling blocks. Even some of the most educated men around cannot stand the idea of women being given more opportunities. Those male Senators who shot down the Olujimi Bill must have been wondering what gave her the effrontery to suggest that men and women should begin to share power and opportunities as equals.

 The man who led the assault against the bill and who reportedly later celebrated the victory is actually the same man who was once publicly upbraided for marrying a 13-year old girl, a girl about the age of his granddaughter! In that same Senate, one of the members while declaring his assets sometimes last year, listed his two wives as part of his assets!

       A gender and equal opportunities Bill should help provide stronger legislative framework for protecting women from all forms of discrimination, but legislative intervention may well not be enough. The real battle-field is in the identified areas of religion, culture and tradition, and the absence of political will to enforce relevant laws that promote social justice. Societies don’t just move from one level of enlightenment to the other: leadership is required. But as it is, Nigeria has leaders who are male chauvinists, whose attachment to culture and religion prevents them from understanding the true meaning of human rights.  This is why it seems so difficult to convince Nigerian patriarchs that certain religious and cultural practices simply do not make sense. 

        What kind of culture or tradition allows a man to marry a child, for example?  What kind of tradition recommends that a widow should be humiliated and subjected to inhuman practices in 2016?  In some communities in the East, a woman cannot taste the new yam of the season as they call it.  Men must taste it first. Among Igbos, even the most enlightened man will not allow a woman break kolanut in a gathering of men. Leviration is still practised in some Nigerian communities.  One year after the millennial deadline on gender equality, there are still families in Nigeria where the girl-child is considered fit only for marriage, and so when male children are sent to school, the girls are asked to hawk wares, until they are ripe enough to be married off.

 In other places, wives cannot inherit their husbands’ estates, and daughters are disinherited on the basis of gender. Patterns of this discrimination against the female gender exist even in workplaces today, and significantly in politics. I recall the case of one of these banks, which once instructed female employees not to get pregnant, within the first year of employment! And in politics, women are organized as separate groups with someone called Woman Leader, whereas there is no such equivalent for men.

       The manifold existence of constructive gender discrimination explains the speed and alacrity with which the gender and equal opportunity bill is always dismissed whenever it is brought up in the National Assembly. The advocacy for women empowerment and an end to gender discrimination is also severely limited. It is restricted to non-governmental organizations, and a few influential voices in society who understand the issues, attend international conferences and who over the years have been organizing workshops and rallies to conscientize political, religious and traditional leaders.  But this has not quite helped, and this may well be because the majority of the core affected women are excluded from the campaign.

      The Biodun Olujimis of Nigeria are not necessarily the ones seeking freedom from discrimination.  They can hold their own, they can negotiate power at many levels; the ones in need of help are the poor women and girl-children who are trapped under male domination, poor, disempowered, voiceless, and incapable of realizing their potentials to the fullest.  The ones in need of help are those poor widows who are humiliated by in-laws, the millions of girls who are out of school just because they are female, the under-aged girls who are married off to old men, against their wish, and the army of dispossessed women whose lives have been condemned to a routine of raising children, fetching water and working on the farm.

       These victims themselves need to be mobilized into the struggle for the full recognition of the human rights of women.  They need to be given a voice.  It is not a task for NGOs alone. The struggle must become more inclusive. We have Ministers and Commissioners in charge of women affairs and social development.  They are busy travelling from one international workshop to the other. Such a department of government can do a lot more. To get Nigerian men to respect the human rights of women, the womenfolk must work together and support each other, and develop the kind of advocacy that was defeated last Tuesday into a sustainable, organized movement.  The tone of the advocacy should also change: too often, gender and equal opportunity issues are presented as pleas, as if women are seeking favour and understanding from the men: please-give-us-more-powers, allow-us-to-also-exercise-authority; we-want-more-women-in-government. For as long as the language of negotiation sounds that beggarly, not much progress can be made.  Nothing short of an organized women’s movement around the core issues is what is required.

        In the long run, education is probably the best policy option. Every child must go to school and no child should be allowed to be an artisan until after secondary school education.  Once upon a time in this country, the social welfare department used to arrest any child found on the streets during school hours. The disparity in the education of men and women in Nigeria is alarming, given the fact that women constitute about 50% of the national population. The school drop-out rate for the girl-child is as high as 44%! There are extant laws, which prescribe punishment for parents who keep their children out of school; such laws must be enforced. State governments should vigorously promote education at all levels.

 Education is the strongest weapon for liberating people from the clutches of harmful religious and traditional practices. Education in this regard means being enlightened enough to know what parts of religion and tradition are humane and progressive. Even where these prove resilient on the basis of social legitimacy, the truth is that it will be difficult to maltreat a woman who is fully aware of her rights. The Senators opposing gender equality and rights would never allow their own daughters to be exposed to any form of indignity. They quote culture and religion out of sheer hypocrisy. Their reliance on the Holy Books to justify the inferiorization of women as the weaker sex is dubious.

        Successful women should be prepared to support other women. More women should take interest in politics, and seek political power at all levels. Nigerian women must get into the arena and seek decision-making positions, to enable them influence and implement policies.  Let Nigerian women form their own political parties and contest the public space with the misogynists. The women’s movement in Nigeria has lost its steam. Some Nigerian women are involved in partisan politics but they either end up behaving like the men, or they claim they are technocrats with no interest in feminist matters. They reinforce stereotypes and even work against the interest of other women seeking progress. Such women cannot lead the struggle; new recruits and role models are needed. To give meaning and bite to Senator Olujimi’s kind of intervention, progressive Nigerian women must unite and re-organize.

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Why Nigerians Are Special By Reuben Abati

Whatever problem we may have in Nigeria at this or any other time, this country is sustained by the fact that we are indeed a very special people. We have been described as the happiest people on earth, we have also described ourselves as resilient, gifted and determined, and in one report, Nigerians are said to have the strongest shock absorber against some of the deadliest diseases in the world. If anyone doubted this last point, well, recall that we won the battle over Ebola virus, and polio.

The more you look at it, the more it seems as if there is something in the Nigerian DNA that defies defeat, that automatically deletes any virus that can result in system shut down, there is that X-factor in our affairs that rises when hope seems lost, and life seems tragic.  Somehow, the Nigerian spirit regenerates, recreates and reinvents itself, turns failure into possibilities, pessimism into new expectations, andtomorrow into an anchor for renewal. 

 

We are at such a crossroad, right now. But in the midst of the despair, the listlessness, the anxiety, the what-happened-to-us and what-the hell-is-going-on, you can’t miss the fact that the average Nigerian has not lost his bounce. The biggest tragedies that can hobble other nations happen here and we just shrug them off.  Boko Haram alone has claimed thousands of lives. Hun hun. Herdsmen have killed men and women in their hundreds. Hun hun. More lives have been lost to vehicle accidents on our poorly made, badly maintained roads. Well, hun hun. Many fingers have been caught in the national cookie jar. Ha. What is this? Who dunnit? But, o ma se o.  hun hun. The national leaky bucket has a thousand holes. Ha, no country can live with this? Still, hen hun hun.  We voted and there were promises of a new spirit of the age. But that spirit is yet to manifest. So? Nothing good comes easy, therefore. No miracles in the new agenda. So, ni igba yen wa n ko? So, life goes on.

 

Whatever life throws at the average Nigerian, he protests, he complains, but he accommodates it.  It is the reason why nobody will throw stones because power supply is at the worst level in years. It is the reason why workers who have not been paid for months after months will still see the same Governor who is responsible for their misery, after collecting Federal money to help them, and has refused to deliver and they will still scream: “My Excellency, sir.”  When workers go on strike, someone calls them together, says something nice, provides something nice and everything falls nicely in place. The late Chief MKO Abiola was quoted saying “eto ni gbogbo e”, that is anything in Nigeria can be arranged nicely. 

 

The June 12 debacle sadly could not be arranged nicely. It cost the Chief of native wisdom and martyr of Nigerian democracy his life, but many lessons have been learnt.  And one key lesson is that in this country, the people are determined to live no matter what. They can grumble as they wish about the public space but Nigerians are not ready to give up their will to live, their right to live and their understanding of how to live.  And if you put your neck on the line on their behalf, you will be shocked that you will the subject of memes and what’s app jokes. The people laugh at martyrs and heroes because they see no reason why anyone should commit suicide, defending Nigeria, when there is so much life to be enjoyed.

 

Nigeria is probably the global headquarters of enjoyment.  The way the ordinary man has complained in recent times, about political change and the socio-cultural changes it has brought, you would think Nigerians are in serious trouble.  But that is not the case. The foreign exchange market has gone into a crazy overdrive impoverishing the whole nation. Parents whose children are schooling abroad are afraid that they may no longer be able to pay fees. The manufacturing sector is abusing the Minister of Finance-what’s-that-her-name-again? and where-did-she-learn-finance-public-policy-and-economics, but I beg, look around, more businesses are actually springing up and all those foreign investors who are supposedly monitoring the Nigerian market are actually clinging to this market.  Why do you think MTN wants to remain in Nigeria till death do them part? Why do you think all those foreign countries want President Buhari to visit? The banks have retrenched a lot of staff but the same banks have started recruiting again. In this country, what you see is not what you get. There is problem with foreign exchange but activities at the ports have not ceased. Wait till September, you’d be shocked the number of Nigerian children heading towards Europe, North America and other parts of Africa in pursuit of expensive, forex-backed education.

 

I beg, leave matter. And if you don’t want to leave it go to the nearest fuel station where many Nigerians are queuing up for fuel with power generating sets and jerry cans. The people are going through the hardship but they are laughing at their leaders. You think you can mess us up, na lie. If you people like, sell fuel for N150, we go survive. They stay in front of that fuel station and they review Nigeria’s history and lament the choices they have made, but their spirit remains strong. That is what makes them Nigerian. Go to the vendors’ stand. The crowd of poor people who cannot afford to buy a newspaper copy, have all the same listened to the news and the only place where they can compete as pundits is that roadside corner, where sometimes one drunken idiot loses control behind the wheels and sheds human blood, wasting those who have gathered not to buy any newspaper but to debate Nigeria. This special crowd knows it all. You don’t want to get involved with them. They will remind you that a Ph.D holder is actually a real idiot, and that nobody needs certificates of any type to be a Nigerian, and well they add too, that if you ever worked in government, then you are a confirmed idiot, and a professional trickster.

 

Nigerians are so inventive, they find every way of beating bad news, bad experience, or anything that tries to defeat them.  Everyone says there is no money in town, they claim things have gone from bad to worse but the parties have not stooped. Go to any of the joints around Lagos, nothing has been spoiled. Isi ewu, nkwobi, asun, sawa, orisirisi, point and kill have all defied the Forex market. Yes, the price of staple commodities has risen, but that has not stopped the people from throwing lavish wedding parties. Nor has it stopped anybody from marrying three times when once is enough: our people do traditional wedding – valid, they go to the registry: valid, they rush to church- valid: rather than marry once, they do it thrice all within a week. Nor has the austerity in town stopped anybody from burying the dead as if the more money is thrown at the grave, the likeliest the possibility of the dead suddenly becoming a Lazarus of the 21^stcentury.

 

Is there poverty in town? You answer that question based on the evidence of your eyes. What I have seen is that Nigerians are still living as if there is too much money in the country. Take a look at the garments Nigerians wear every week. We certainly don’t look like electricity is a problem or that money is in short supply. Soon it will be another Ojude oba among the Ijebus, for example.  You go and check them out. As a teacher at Ogun State University in those days, (I served later as member of the Governing Council), we used to go from one party to the other, guzzling free food and quaffing free drinks. Today, those lavish parties have not ceased. Nobody eats like that in Europe or North America. When you go to all the old joints, in Agarawu in Lagos or Tarmac, nothing has changed either. The music still flows, the swag is on. Elsewhere, new buildings are springing up; new cars are being “washed”, additional wives are being acquired. Leave matter, I beg. Nigeria will survive, and these same people who are complaining about change, you’d be shocked, they’d still vote for their stomachs in 2019. 

 

And that is why Nigeria is one country that beats all the textbook theories. We are just something else. There is more in the social arena that defines who we are, than in the theoretical arena.  The same people who are complaining that they have not seen change are actually hoping for more. They are not ready to adjust. They are not ready to make sacrifices. If they have an opportunity to be close to government in any way, they will jump at it. The corruption that we talk about is not just in government corridors, it is in society, but the one inside society is so difficult to trap because it is amorphous and inchoate in so many respects. Invariably, the snake feeds on itself: mobius strip.

 

What we are left with is the image of the people laughing at government and themselves. Have you taken time out to check what happens on social media?  Anybody who ever ventured into governance is easy game. The people design caricatures and mock them. Nigeria produces more memes and graphics than any other country in Africa not necessarily because of the events that happen here but because of the people’s consciousness, and if I may add, private greed. In that other world, political change is ridiculed, poverty is deplored, GEJ is becoming a saint and PMB a villain, but the people are still having fun, and blaming Nigeria and the politicians.

 

I tell you, the problem with Nigeria is not the politicians but the people themselves. We are very special people, but we don’t really know what we want, and because we are like that, we confuse the politicians and the nation. But for as long as we can wear those impressive attires and throw those parties and dance to old music and pay our private bills, we see no reason to care enough.  Pity is: no country can ever move ahead if the people do not care enough. For us, life goes on, no matter what. 

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The Road Lies In Wait By Reuben Abati

“May we never walk when the road waits, famished” – Wole Soyinka, The Road

 Two major road accidents in the last week brought to the fore again the dangers that lie in wait on Nigerian roads.  The Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, James Ocholi, SAN, his wife and son lost their lives in a vehicle accident that occurred on the Kaduna- Abuja road, when their Lexus SUV vehicle somersaulted, following a burst tyre and the driver’s loss of control. 

There was also the death on the Maiduguri-Damaturu road of Major-General Yasha’u Abubakar of the Training and Operations Department of the Nigerian Army. Both accidents have been a source of enormous grief, perhaps because of the status of the persons involved, but the truth is that Nigerian roads are treacherous and deceitful, marked as they are everyday, by a harvest of deaths and sorrow. 

To report that the state of the roads is bad is to proclaim the notoriously obvious, and to say that more people die every minute on our roads is to iterate that the road in Nigeria is no respecter of persons or class. In its annual reports, the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has tried to identify the primary and secondary causes of road accidents, and in the current Ocholi case, it has offered a preliminary report, which reinforces the notion about every death being in the long run, a revelatory comment on man’s existential crisis.

The regret is that the death that occurs on Nigerian roads, is more often than not, man-made, regretfully self-invited and for that reason, mostly avoidable.  Anyone who has ever travelled on Nigerian roads would readily admit that going onto those roads is like taking a risk and no man can call himself safe until he returns home in one piece at the end of the day. Many of our roads are pothole-ridden, bumpy and poorly maintained. Before the ad hoc resurfacing of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway from the Lagos end, there were uneven portions, which always made it seem as if the road was struggling with the driver to seize control of the steering wheel.

One moment of distraction, you could find yourself careering off the road. From the Ibadan end of the Expressway, there were hidden, deep potholes. Many motorists found themselves suddenly landing into those potholes only to lose their tyres or lives. So bad is this dilemma that many motorists require prior knowledge of the state of the road to be able to drive on it; that knowledge means knowing where the potholes are at what point and where dangerous contours need to be avoided. Years of neglect and lack of maintenance have reproduced this pattern across the country. It takes repeated and costly accidents before the appropriate authorities would rush to mend the roads. And this is not just on the highways; even inner city roads are problematic. When it rains in most Nigerian towns and cities, life grinds to a halt, because the roads are transformed into streams, overflowing with water, due to poor drainage, and from struggling to turn the vehicle into a boat and avoid unseen potholes, the worst may happen. We are almost in that season again, and soon the stories will be told, of accidents caused by slippery, water-logged and dangerous roads.

This fact of administrative and official failure is an important footnote to the FRSC report in the Ocholi case which draws attention to the driver’s negligence, over-speeding, his criminal conduct -driving without a licence (but note that he is a government driver!- who on earth assigned him to drive an official vehicle without a licence (?) and then, the non-use of seat belt by the deceased persons, who in the event of the accident were flung out of the vehicle, in addition to the wrong orientation of the vehicle’s tyres. The revelations by the FRSC Investigation Team should serve as necessary warning to drivers, passengers, vehicle owners and all road users, indeed all of us.  Too many Nigerian road users behave as if life has a duplicate. I have seen drivers who insist “Oga don’t worry”. When you remind them about speed limits, their standard response is “Oga don’t worry”.  Every Oga who sits in the owner’s corner should worry.  There is no guarantee that accidents won’t occur. Reckless driving is the bane of the Nigerian road.

Commercial drivers are drunk most of the time, or they are under some kind of influence including the metaphysical which induces them to tell you that the vehicle is covered by the “blood of Jesus”, or that ‘No weapon fashioned against them shall prosper.”  The more traditional ones insist that they have killed a dog for Ogun, the god of iron and so, Ogun will not forsake his own. As the FRSC has indicated, there are thousands behind the wheels on Nigerian roads who have never bothered to undergo a driving test, and these include persons working as official drivers.  There is also the problem of vehicle maintenance.  Half of the vehicles on our roads are either not roadworthy or they are poorly maintained.  Have you not heard the drivers who are fond of saying: “we can manage Oga; I fit manage am”. The tyres are worn out, the wheel balancing and alignment are bad, but the Nigerian driver will rather “manage”. Even when the brakes begin to fail, the natural response is to “manage.”  We don’t “worry” enough about safety;  we cut corners and procrastinate, when the vehicle gives warning signs, we ignore, when the road breaks down, we look the other way.

It is this mentality that has made many of the employed drivers corrupt. When you give them money to buy fuel, they short-change you; when the vehicle is to be taken for repairs, they undercut you; when anything goes wrong, they refuse to inform you until it is too late. And yet, there are too many big men in Nigeria relying on drivers and not paying enough attention. It is a sign of status and class, to employ a driver or to be assigned one, but very few big men and women bother to monitor the men into whose hands their lives are entrusted.

The point about seat belt deserves to be properly underlined.  Following the accidents under reference, there has been much talk about the importance of seat belts.  According to the FRSC, “the ejection of the minister and his son, who occupied the rear seat, confirmed the fact that their rear seat belts were not in use and on the contrary, the driver and the orderly survived because the front seat belts were in use”. It is sad that many big men don’t worry about using seat belts. It is considered too much of an effort for a man to own a vehicle, or be big enough to be driven by another, only for him to tie himself down in the back seat. The widespread assumption is that the space called owner’s corner is meant for sprawling; it is regarded as a place of comfort from where the master backs orders at the assistants in the front seat! This owner’s corner syndrome has caused the death of many “big men and women”, there must be a vigorous campaign launched at all levels by the FRSC, civil society groups and other agencies to remind everyone that it is better to be a big man or woman alive than to ignore a simple safety task and lose one’s life.

The FRSC is threatening to prosecute late Minister Ocholi’s driver as soon as he is discharged from the hospital.  But the FRSC must see in this experience, further justification for it to be more vigilant and assertive with its vehicle accident prevention strategies. It must launch a fresh and vigorous campaign against reckless driving, set clear speed limits, acquire the relevant technology to determine the abuse of those limits and raise its organizational capacity to prevent motorists from willfully committing suicide or killing others, by apprehending the reckless and enforcing the relevant laws. This should include descending heavily on persons who use the phone while driving. I can’t count the number of times other motorists nearly drove into a vehicle or constituted pure nuisance, just because they are busy driving with one hand and using the other hand to wield a phone while chatting heartily as if they are in their living rooms. When you call such persons to order, they have no qualms telling you to get lost or mind your own business!   

The FRSC used to have many volunteers, otherwise known as Special Marshals, who effected citizen arrest or helped to make the roads saner either by controlling traffic or checking the excesses of other motorists. That volunteer corps should be re-energized. And anyone who does not have a driver’s licence should be sanctioned. The current penalties appear cheap, and so motorists are tempted to do as they wish. Speed violation attracts only a fine of N3, 000, driving under the influence - N5, 000, vehicle license violation -N3, 000, driving without seat belt – N2, 000; use of phone while driving- N4, 000; only dangerous driving attracts a fine as high as N50, 000, but of course by the time that N50, 000 is paid, lives may have been lost! These fines and penalties should be reviewed. Nigerians often choose which laws to respect or not and damn the consequences, particularly if they can easily pay a fine and walk away.

The various tributes on late Minister Ocholi have been touching, the story is sad, and may the Lord grant him, his wife, and son, peaceful repose, but after all the tears have been shed and the tributes delivered, what must be done is not to walk away until another tragedy occurs, but to take concrete steps to prevent similar accidents in the future, especially for the sake of the many unknown victims who die daily on our roads, and whose tragedy is unreported and unmourned. At the level of policy and action, note this: the first step is to separate the all-important task of making our roads safe and motorable from corrosive, partisan politics, itself a principal stumbling block. 

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Ese Oruru, The Girl-Child And A Nation’s Shame By Reuben Abati

Three different incidents in the last week cast, poignantly, in bold relief the plight of the girl-child in Nigeria. Thanks to The Punch newspaper which launched the #FreeEse, #JusticeforEse campaign and the civil society groups that took up the fight in a spirited manner. With the outrage and outcry that followed, within 72 hours, this same 14-year old girl who was abducted from Yenagoa, Bayelsa state and taken to Kano, seven months ago, by one Yinusa Dahiru alias Yellow, is now free.

While we were still grappling with this bizarre story, on Monday, a group of criminals stormed a school, Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary in Ikorodu, Lagos state and abducted three girls. 

And if that was not shocking enough, on Wednesday, there was this other report about a 15-year old Benue girl, Patience Paul, who had been abducted by two neighbours and married off to a certain “Sarkin Musulmi” in Sokoto state. Her brother cried out, obviously motivated to do so by the Ese Oruru story. Set against the background of the abduction of 219 Chibok girls in 2014, a story that is well known internationally, Nigeria must by now appear in the eyes of the world as a large den of sexual predators, who seem to be obsessed with young, under-aged girls, and the adolescent female. 

The international community would be correct to conclude that something terrible is happening here. Indeed, can we blame any analyst who may soon conclude that a girl child is abducted, assaulted or violated per minute in Nigeria, and that Nigeria is not a safe place for either a girl child or a female? The sanity and moral temperature of a society should be measured by the manner in which that society treats its underprivileged and vulnerable members. The powerful trample upon the weak, the privileged despise the less fortunate; a long journey to Hobbes’ apotheosis, which is in truth a comment on the state of our development as state, country, people, and society. 

It is instructive, for example, that the girls that end up being abused in the manner of the aforementioned are usually from poor backgrounds and perhaps this makes them specially vulnerable. But all the adult males who abduct other people’s daughters, marry them by force, put them in family way and convert them to Islam, not only make the entire country look bad, they give the rest of us a very bad name indeed. In the end, Nigeria is the victim, and this is why the various government agencies, which were in a position to make a difference when it mattered most in the Ese Oruru case, or similar cases, and failed to act, did the entire country a disservice. In some other countries, certain persons would have honourably submitted their resignations. 

But you can be sure, it won’t happen here. The standard response in quarters that should be responsible is likely to be: “ah, wetin? So? “I beg”; Nigeria go stop because of one girl wey follow man?. And life will go on and go on, and the tragedy foretold gets moved to the future. Which is why the protesting small community of men and women with conscience, who have helped to rescue this one girl from sex slavery and forced conversion to a religion that is not of her choice deserve special praise. 

The Ese Oruru case is a metaphor for the plight of the Nigerian girl-child. She is a living symbol of the assault on the integrity of the girl child and her hopes and aspirations in a deracinated, dispossessed and conflicted society. She was taken away from her parents at 13 by a man who of course was well-known to her family as a tricycle rider. Initial reports identified the abductor and tormentor as Yinusa Dahiru or Yellow, but from that moment, the story further got coloured by the usual politics of identity, ethnicity and religion. Yellow was branded “Kano man”. There were also references to a North-South cultural divide: a Northerner stealing a Southern child! And then of course, Ese’s conversion to the Islamic religion was a source of boiling anger - most abducted girls tend to be Christians. 

There is also the role of the Emir of Kano in the matter. Too many loud and silent indications: conflict between traditional and modern institutions, with particular accent on the relevance, influence, and undue superiorization of the traditional institution in the North, ethnic and regional dichotomy, power dynamics, distortions and historical fault lines and the power of the media, old and new, to change trajectories. No one should fail to notice in this entire saga, how Nigeria and its many ugly complexities are again, sorrowfully on display. But the more urgent and painful part is that the life of a young girl has again been scarred forever. Ese could well have been one of the Chibok girls! Everyday, we are back to Chibok either as symbol, metaphor, painful reminder or elemental fact. 

Mr Yellow not only abducted her and turned her into a Muslim, all without her parents’, consent, he also allegedly put the girl in a family way. She is said to be five months pregnant. How sad and annoying. Perhaps if there had been a strong follow up mechanism in place at the Kano Emirate Council, the Emir’s order that she should be released would have saved her the ordeal of being turned into a sex slave. Perhaps if the police in the Kano zone had done their job, seeing that this was nothing but a crime in the eyes of the law, and they had remembered that the primary job of the police is to protect lives and property. But sorry, they just all forgot! 

There must be sanctions and civil society must not get tired of this case. There are many other Eses out there, whose future hangs in the balance because certain persons remain morally trapped in the Stone Age. The atrocities that have been committed against innocent children in this land, are despicable: in Ese’s case, her right to education was truncated, she had to miss her JSS 3 exam because a man was busy changing the course of her life; she was subjected to undue imprisonment, and now she is a child bearing a child. 

It is shocking to say the least that some persons, carried away by religious and ethnic prejudices, chose to justify this madness. Now that the truth is known that she is indeed a minor, and that Yellow is an adult who took advantage of her, I hope such persons will be reasonable enough to apologise, hide their heads in shame and return filthy lucre. The point has been made ad nauseam that Yinusa Yellow must not be allowed to get away with his brazen crime. The Zimbabwean sit-tight ruler has recommended castration as punishment in this kind of context, but castration not being part of our extant criminal law, we take solace in the realization that there is more than enough in the statutes to put Yinusa Yellow away for a long time, to serve as a deterrent to his ilk. He should be tried expeditiously and a proper closure put to this particular case in line with natural justice, equity and good conscience. His accomplices if there are any, no matter who they are, should also be identified and made to face the full wrath of the law. 

This is clearly a case of man’s cruelty to man. In an interview with The Sun, her innocence and vulnerability shine through, as compellingly as the madness of her tormentors. She knows Yinusa as one of her mother’s customers who comes around to buy food at their shop, and she being with her mother at the shop knows and relates with everybody, without any special relationship with Yinusa. “He is not my boyfriend”, she tells us. “I just followed him. I don’t know how I followed him.” She says she doesn’t even know how she found herself in Kano. 

She was obviously hypnotized or bewitched. Her kidnappers made her to recite lines she did not understand. They even gave her some strange water to drink. They changed her name to Aisha. She comes across as a child whose childhood and spirit have been polluted by wicked souls. When Ese saw her mother at the Emir’s palace during an earlier attempt to rescue her, she had been so polluted she could not even recognize her mother: “I just looked at her. I did not know her and I did not talk to her.” 

She has now regained her senses enough to now ask her mother for “Banga soup and starch”, but there are many lessons involved. She offers advice, for example, to young girls like her: “They should be careful with the people they play with or talk with because it’s not everybody that is good.” Indeed, we live in a society where “not everybody is good” and that includes those callous ones who turned this episode upside down and spilled much ink trying to protect a fictitious Northern interest. At stake is the human interest, and it is not geographical. 

Child labour such as the type Ese was involved in, assisting her mother in her food vending business is, let’s admit, culturally correct in Africa, but it also comes with grave dangers. The children are exposed to risks and accidents: crazy customers who can’t keep their eyes or fingers off the female child labourer and kidnappers like Yellow who go the extra length. Parents must be careful. They must be vigilant. The need to survive and deploy all possible hands in the house may be given as an excuse, but the truth is that children lack such negotiating skills that could protect them in an adult context. Caution is the word. 

The argument that obsession with children as brides is cultural and religious is the most unreasonable thing I have ever heard and to think that some of the most enlightened and privileged men in a part of our country are part of this, beggars belief. The girl child is a child, not a bride, not a sex slave: she deserves her rights to human dignity, access to education, freedom from discrimination, a decent life in a decent society and the right to fulfill her potentials as a human being and a citizen. From Chibok to Kano, to Ikorodu, to Sokoto in the episodes under consideration, we lament the shame of a nation, and proclaim the right of the girl-child to dignity.

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Davido, Baby Mamas And Other Stories By Reuben Abati

Former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity,Reuben Abati. has written an interesting article on the saga between Davido and his baby mama Sophia Momodu.

Read below...

“What a relief, my friend!”

“What are you relieved about?”

“It is this David Adeleke and Sophia Momodu soap opera”.

“I tell you. It is a perfect subject for a good home video. But what is your own?”

“No. Nothing. I am just relieved that the parties involved have agreed to let peace reign”

“This will be about the third time I would hear of that matter being resolved.”

“Well, I think the Momodus and the Adelekes should just spare us. 

They should not forget there is a child involved. They have suddenly made Imade Adeleke, the most famous victim of Baby Mama-Baby Papa palaver in Nigeria. Both Davido and Sophia and their supporters’ clubs should please protect the baby, and not make her a poster child for that kind of subject.”

“But me, I am enjoying the story oh.”

“Of course, too many sadists in our land enjoy other people’s misery.”

“But really, it is a simple matter. “

“If it were that simple, the drama wouldn’t be so entertaining. “

“What Davido wants, Davido gets. His father is rich. He is a famous musician. Davido says he wants custody of his daughter.”

“By taking her away from her mother by force, and giving her to his half-sister, and threatening to travel out of the country with the baby for medicals, without the mother’s knowledge or consent? A seven-month old baby, abducted at two months?”

“He gave reasons for that. He is talking about the biological mother taking cannabis and risking his daughter’s life”

“Cannabis?”

“Yes. Igbo”

“You seriously mean marijuana?”

“Yes, gbana as in Indian hemp. And Davido provided a medical report to confirm his claim.”

“You saw the medical report. You are sure it is genuine? Because I understand Sophia Momodu’s lawyers have written the lab to produce the original report of proof of drug abuse.”

“This their matter sef.”

“That’s why it is the child that is most important.  I don’t like the way they have turned the young girl into a trophy to be fought over in a blood sport. We are in the age of the internet. Twenty years from today, someone could print out these funny details from the internet memory bank. A father, grandfather and a half-sister fighting a mother and her family over a baby and making sordid claims: It is not a fight that can be easily won.”

“I hear Davido says the Momodus cannot force him. He may even release a special song to make his position clear: No be by force.”

“Nobody is forcing him and his family to marry Sophia Momodu. They are just saying custody should be mutually agreed upon.”

“And he and his family are saying they want their daughter properly brought up. They too have a point. You should not take sides.”

“Ok. He is talking about Marijuana. When he was head over heels in love with the Momodu girl, he didn’t smell marijuana? I am sure if he was given Marijuana before he was allowed to inhale, he would willingly exhale?

“He insists he was just 21 years old. And that he was seduced by a full-grown woman who took advantage of his youth and innocence.”

“Innocence, indeed. Was he raped? Did he not have a relationship with her, and did he not showcase her everywhere? He was 21. If he could be tricked at 21, then he should live with the consequences. “

“You are taking sides. I know why. You are Dele Momodu’s friend.”

“I am making uncommon sense. I am saying why is Davido asking for Sophia Momodu’s birth certificate after the fact? When the thing dey sweet them, they no dey remember say na the thing wey fowl chop, him go shit.”

“But you can’t force any man to marry a woman.  Why the girl too go carry belle for him junior brother? She suppose know say Davido sef him na pikin. You no see as him papa they follow am, make dem no carry big yansh, big chest, fine face, cheat him son for Lagos”

“Him try well, well. But Davido, your boy, him no sabi use rubber?”

“That girl look like person wey go gree rubber?”

“You dey craze”

 “My own is that fathers should just keep an eye on their sons and daughters. Let mothers also keep an eye on their daughters.  To avoid stories that break the heart like this one, fine girls should just know that you can’t detain any man with a baby.  Er beg.”

“The values of the younger generation are different.”

“Some strict parents will still never have allowed this to happen.”

“Some of these children are beyond control.”

“But we all suffer for it. This is why Ghanaian ladies insist that Nigerian men are unreliable. They say they use and dump women.”

“They say they…?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“They or we?”

“They.”

“You mean you have tried the Ghanaian market too? Tell your brother something about ECOWAS romance?”

“You are an incurable gossip. Ashawo, somebody.”

“But talking seriously, it won’t be fair to condemn Nigerian men. I think this is a thing about Nigerian musicians.  Those people too like women. Young women, old women oh…any woman. Even the women musicians sef, any man wey stand well… fiam”

“That is more important to them than their art? No wonder many of them sing such trashy songs”

“There is even one of them who has seven children from five women or so.  And there is one they call Whizkid”

“Superkid?”

“Whatever. But there is this kid musician who also has a child from an older woman. There is this joke that when his parents heard, they quickly took charge of the situation, by telling the Baby Mama that while they would accept the baby, everyone could see that the Baby father is himself still a baby, too young to take care of another baby, not to talk of a grown woman. They pleaded that no woman shouldpakurumo..ko…”

“ Nice joke. I laughed. Him sef na pikin, he never grow finish to take care of pikin. The girl fled.”

“That’s why I say it is a simple matter. Davido should have consulted his seniors in this matter. That one that has seven children from five women did it so well, today all his Baby Mamas married or single, are friends.”

“Wow. That’s a real Baba of the matter. Who is he?”

“I can’t mention his name. He is happily married now to one of the Baby Mamas. I don’t want to be accused of disrespecting another man’s wife.”

“Let Davido and Sophia just make peace for their daughter’s sake. And when the matter is settled, Davido knows where to go for tutorials if he really wants to fish in this type of troubled waters.”

 “But our musicians sha. They can fight?”

 “Who again is fighting?”

“Olamide and Don Jazzy.”

“That face-off over awards at The Headies event? But they have apologized”

“No. You don’t get the point. Why should artistes or producers or label owners fight over awards? What I have seen is that our young artistes are obsessed with awards. They seem to be more interested in being given a plaque than developing their real work. It is this same problem with Nollywood actors. Any small award is treated as if it is the Nobel Prize.”

“I see that too. It is the Grammy award disease.”

“No true artist should work with an eye on winning a plaque. The best award is the acceptance of the market place, not by a group of biased judges. If you are good as an artist, you are good, nobody can take that away from you.”

“Quite true. But it helps to have some plaques on the wall, I must say.”

“How many of those musicians who were called the best new acts on the block in the 80s and early 90s are still making any impact today? When a work of art is good, it will be evergreen; when an artist is good, his talent will endure.”      

“Some of these new kids are great though. World-class talents. In the last few years, there has been an explosion of real talent.”

“I want to hear more about talent.  Great art.  Not drama kings and queens, not Baby Mamas and Lab Reports.”  

“You are just old-fashioned. Controversy is part of art. Life itself is about controversy. Controversy produces great art. In the world of artists, all things work out as raw material.”

“That’s why people insist artists are mad.”

“But it is not only artists that generate or attract controversy. Politicians do.”

“I know. Controversy is the soul of politics, but here it produces stress and oftentimes, tragedy.” 

“I’ll give you one example.”

“Which is?”

“In Oyo State, Governor Abiola Ajimobi is trying to embarrass the Olubadan in Council by trying to determine how existing vacancies within the hierarchy are filled. He is introducing INEC guidelines to Ibadan Chieftaincy affairs!”

“How can he possibly do that?”

“He is asking for certificates of mental, physical and marital fitness before Ladoja and Balogun can fill the Otun Olubadan and Osi Olubadan vacancies.”

“Marital fitness?”

“When people ask for physical fitness, don’t you know it is all encompassing?”

“All that is politics. I am sure it will be amicably resolved.  Ajimobi is smart enough to know that you don’t fight the traditional institution. Governors will come and go, the Olubadan is the owner of Ibadan”

“Don’t tell me. Go and tell Ajimobi”

“Don’t worry. He knows.  He just dey make body. Body language, they call it.”

 “But what is happening in Bayelsa is not body language oh. When the people of Southern Ijaw go to the polls tomorrow to determine who will be the next Governor of Bayelsa state, they won’t be joking; the state will be at war.”

“May be not real war; let’s say blood sport.”

“You are speaking grammar. I just hope the election won’t be inconclusive again.”

“It is a combat for political supremacy.”  

“Put it like this: the outcome may determine the future of Bayelsa state.”

“No. Put it like this: the outcome will determine the future of the PDP.”

“You are quibbling.”

“Dickson is core Ijaw. Timipre Sylva is Nembe.”

“I don’t get it.”

“The mind of the core Ijaw voter will make the difference. We pray for peace.”

“I have an idea now. Yes. All things being equal.”   

“That’s politics for you.”

“But there are other forces.”

“That’s why there is so much at stake, and a question of where the stakeholders stand.”

“I know. Stakeholders matter. They have just allowed MTN to buy Visafone.”

“Really? Is that a reward for the fine MTN is supposed to pay?”

“It is a business transaction, nothing about government.”

“Everything is about government. Has MTN paid its fine, before being allowed to take over a home-grown company?”

“We should study what happened. Why do Nigerians get licenses and approvals, run a business for a while and then sell to foreign interests? HiTV. Now Visafone. ”

“One glaring failure of local content!”

“Look, let’s discuss that after MTN must have paid the fine.”   

“I hear they have sacked 2, 000 Nigerian workers at Visafone, already. They have taken over.”

“What?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Oh no”

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