By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
In April 2020, then governor of Kano State in north-west Nigeria, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, took time without work his costly preoccupation with denying the ravages of the Corona Virus on his state to preside over the “conversion” to Islam of two adolescent females.
Governor Ganduje, who later turned the Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), was not well-known for his studying or piety. As a substitute, he was notorious for having been caught on digital camera stuffing what gave the impression to be wads of overseas forex into the capacious pockets of his conventional robes.
As a substitute of creating an effort to clear his identify, Ganduje procured a court docket order 4 years later in March 2024 to preclude an investigation into these scandalous allegations. Why he felt certified to turn into the vulgar face of ostentatious proselytizing within the conversion of the ladies could, subsequently, stay a thriller. Following the conversion ceremony, nevertheless, there have been recommendations that the younger women had been then married off to males in Kano.
One month after Governor Ganduje’s enterprise into “Conversion TV”, on 21 Could, on the reverse finish of the nation, Jane Iyang, a decide of the Federal Excessive Courtroom sitting in Yenagoa, capital of Bayelsa State within the Niger Delta, convicted Yunusa Dahiru (also referred to as Yunusa Yellow) for the crimes of trafficking in and rape of Ese Oruru, a toddler. The court docket sentenced Mr. Dahiru to 26 years in jail. The Courtroom of Attraction subsequently lowered the jail sentence to seven years and, in June 2023, Mr. Dahiru regained his freedom from the jail in Kano on the finish of his abbreviated jail sentence.
Whereas the nation was caught within the maelstrom of the misadventures of Abdullahi Ganduje and Yunusa Dahiru respectively, most forgot in regards to the women who had been their victims.
In August 2015, Yunusa had taken faculty lady, Ese Oruru, from the household dwelling in Opolo, Yenagoa, with out the consent of her dad and mom to his dwelling state in Kano, the place he claimed to have transformed her to Islam earlier than “marrying” her. She was no more than 14 years outdated, and a few reviews urged that she was in actual fact youthful. Thereafter, he impregnated {the teenager}. In Could 2016, she gave beginning to a child lady. For a lot of women, this could have been the tip of their ambitions.
On the trial, the state charged Yunusa Dahiru with 5 counts of legal abduction by the use of coercion, transporting and harbouring Ese in Kano, illicit intercourse, sexual exploitation and rape of a kid. When he took Ese from her household, Yunusa was 22.
At its starting in 2015, the Ese Oruru case degenerated rapidly into the standard Nigerian polarities of north in opposition to south and Christians in opposition to Muslims, which did profound injustice to the info.
In September 2015, the Kano Emirate Council issued an announcement detailing the steps taken by the Emir, Muhammadu Sanusi II, on the matter. On the request of the Emir, an investigation by the Shariah Fee within the State had concluded that the lady was not but of “the age the place she might take the choices attributed to her with out the approval of her dad and mom.” These had been the choices reportedly to alter her religion and to get married. Consequently, the Emir directed that she ought to be handed over to the police “for return to her household.” In March 2016, Ese lastly returned to her household in Bayelsa.
On all sides of the advocacy and the controversy that ensued, the complete panoply of Nigerian inartfulness was on show with non secular, ethnic and different epithets freely traded. Conveniently, a lot of this noise was designed intentionally to keep away from the problems or wield disgraceful trumps to masks over them.
The case of Ese Oruru clearly raised profound coverage problems with social, authorized and ethical significance that go to the guts of Nigeria’s coexistence.
Let’s start with the social. Marriage is on the basis of the household as a primary unit of society. Nonetheless, the events to a wedding have to be folks with the capability to consent to it. In Ese’s case, she was no more than14 when she was taken from her state, Bayelsa, which defines the age of consent as 18. It ought to be clear to all however a pervert {that a} 14-year-old is hardly a place to consent to marriage nor to bear the physiological, emotional or psychological burdens that include it.
To keep away from these strictures of social coverage, Yunusa determined to relocate Ese in 3 ways. First bodily, he eliminated the kid from her household and from her state to Kano the place there was no Baby Rights Legislation on the time. The State adopted a Baby Rights Legislation solely in 2023. Second, he re-located her when it comes to her civic rights from a statutory regime to a theological one. Third, to finish her metamorphosis for the needs of his carnal pursuits, Yunusa presupposed to relocate Ese’s religion identification from Christianity to Islam.
So, to keep away from a transparent authorized prohibition in opposition to baby marriage, he willfully undertook the crime of trafficking in a toddler with a view to facilitate the invention of a theological trump that excuses baby marriage. However this scheme bumped into an issue: Ese was a minor. She didn’t have capability in theology, physiology, and psychology to alter her religion identification. If she couldn’t, then the invented trump was fantasy. Yunusa’s response to this was to say Ese was above her actual age with a view to confer on her a authorized capability that she couldn’t have.
For the folks invested on this sequence of weird contortions, their plea was that they had been on a mission to win souls for the Almighty with what should have been a holy phallus. But, nowhere within the Holy Books of any of the nice faiths is there any help for a mission of genital conversion of minors or, certainly, of anybody.
What occurred in Ese Oruru’s case was fairly plainly the trafficking of a kid for the aim of sexual exploitation beneath the artifice of religion. Each particular person of true religion ought to have been appalled at this counterfeiting of theology for baby abuse. Faith just isn’t imagined to be a defence to baby abuse and can’t be.
In Nigeria, nevertheless, in any other case enlightened folks appeared prepared to be corralled into this debasement of religion. The day after the conviction of Yunusa Yellow, on 22 Could, 2020, presidential aide, Bashir Ahmad, promised an admirer on a social media platform that he would “attempt to contact these” who might assist to alter the decision of the court docket in opposition to Yunusa. The response of the Presidency to this was eloquent silence. Mr. Ahmad’s foray into the realm of rigging the courts ranked second in infamy solely behind what have to be taken as his confession of help on the highest ranges of energy in Nigeria for a notion of kid abuse within the identify of the Almighty.
The conviction of Yunusa Yellow was, subsequently, a sign second for authorized and social coverage and for the safety of coexistence within the enjoyment of the best to freedom of conscience and faith in Nigeria. It confirmed what ought to have been evident to everybody: that the Almighty just isn’t a toddler molester.
The sequel to all this has been nothing wanting inspirational. This month, Ese Oruru graduated with a second class higher division diploma from the Division of Schooling Expertise on the College of Ilorin. This attainment attests to her mind and resilience. It’s a exceptional story of what’s attainable when a rustic ensures for its younger women equal alternatives within the pursuit of their fullest potentials.
A lawyer and a trainer, Odinkalu might be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu
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