By Yinka Odumakin
OUR fathers from the  depth of their wisdom say that if you grind pepper with a mortar or pound it with a mortar it would never lose its taste. It is from the same fountain they came up with the truism that if you throw a machete in the air 100 times, it would always hit the earth on its flat side.

So it was with the Nigerian Senate when Senator Abiodun Olujimi from Ekiti last week introduced a bill titled “Gender Parity And Prohibition of Violence Against Women” in the red chambers. Among the supporters of the bill was deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu who argued that Nigeria would develop if women were given equal opportunities with men.

But the bill met stiff opposition from male Senators from Muslim-North. Leading the pack was Senate Leader,Senator Ali Ndume who criticised the bill, and urged Nigerians to stick with either religious or traditional marriage.

The poster boy of child marriage in Northern Nigeria, Sani Yerima, a senator from Zamfara state, condemned the bill, arguing that it was in conflict with the Nigerian Constitution.

He said the bill negates the principles of the Sharia law, which the Constitution recognises.

Secular and Islamic laws

By the time Senate President Bukola Saraki put the issue to vote, it was roundly defeated and thrown into the trash can.

It was not the first victory Yerima and brothers would score in their parallel ideology against the purported secular spirit of the Nigerian constitution. Recall the day the 7th Senate took a vote on the age of consent in July 2013. A decision was taken that the age of consent across Nigeria should be 18. That lasted momentarily until Sani Yerima rose up on the floor to invoke the clash between the country’s secular and Islamic laws. Against Senate rules and procedures, Sen. Sani Ahmed Yerima opposed the age limit, saying it goes against Islamic law.

“By Islamic law any woman that is married, she is of age, so if you now say she is not of age then it means that you are going against Islamic law,” declared Yerima.

In the second vote forced by Yerima, several Muslim senators who had voted “yes” to set the age at 18, changed their minds, and the amendment did not get the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

The use of Sharia to filibuster an amendment to protect the girl-child caused an outrage for sometime but the Paedophile had their way. Now we have seen the fate of the Ese Orurus being forced into unwanted pregnancy by those who hide under religion to ruin the future of young girls.

I do not know whether Senator Olujimi thought that these fellows have departed the chambers when she brought her bill or maybe she was driven by a “leap of faith”(apology to Prof. Wole Soyinka).

Whichever it was,the Mujahideen have shown once again that the clash of civilisations in Nigeria runs so deep and unbridled optimists who think they can push for reforms within a polity where there is no shared value will only knock their heads against the wall.

Values not shared

So many social reformers have walked this pace pushing for values that are not shared across board and have died either in frustration or non-fulfillment because they devoted their lives to fighting the right battles in a wrong country.

I saw Mr. Alao Aka-Bashorun at a detention facility in Lagos towards the end of the Abacha regime and I would not write here what I saw in deference to his dignity. A brilliant lawyer who devoted most of his active years to the struggle to make Nigeria better caught a pathetic image towards the end of his life due to the strains of the maltreatment he received towards the end of his life.

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was a world-class musician whose brilliance was unparalleled. He had global recognition to the point that a Nigerian military Head of State was once introduced as the president of Fela’s country when he visited a Caribbean country. But because he confronted the issues of Nigeria, he was flogged, detained and jailed until he became a recluse.

There was Mr. Kanmi-Isola Osobu, another brilliant lawyer who devoted his life to radical causes. He never had time for worldly possessions and was fond of boasting that he never purchased cement in his life. The last days of Osobu were spent in agony arising from the strains of suffering the pangs of the system.

Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti and Chief Gani Fawehinmi bestrode social activism of the 80s and 90s like colossus and spent the better part of the two decades in one confinement or the other. They both died a few years apart from cancer which inquiring minds still wonder till date if it was not induced.

There are many other more who have knocked their heads against the Nigerian brick walls without achieving much because they fought the wrong battles.

Fighting the  wrong battles

In case Mrs. Olujimi does not know what Mallam Yerima was communicating to her about Sharia being part of the 1999 constitution. Let me help her with how women are viewed under Sharia with the following standards ;

1. There is no age limit for marriage for girls.The marriage contract can take place any time after birth and can be consummated at 8 or 9.
2. Rebelliousness on the part of the wife nullifies the husband’s obligation to support her, gives him permission to beat her and keep her from leaving the home.
3. Women who live under Shariah are no more than a possession bound and hidden behind a head to toe mask.
4. Divorce is in the hands of the husband and is as easy as saying “I divorce you” and becomes effective even if the husband did not intend it.
5. There is no community property between husband and wife and the husband’s property does not automatically go to the wife upon his death .

6 .A woman inherits half of what the man inherits.

7. A man has the right to four wives and none of them have the right to divorce him.
8. The dowry is given in exchange for the woman’s sexual organs.
9. A man is allowed to have sex with slave women and women captured in battle and if the enslaved woman is married, her marriage is annulled.

10.The testimony of a woman is half the value of that of a man in court.

11.A woman loses inheritance if she remarries.

12. To prove rape in court,a woman needs four male witnesses.

I have heard Mrs. Olujimi say she is going to represent her bill. Let me assure her that if she presents the bill at every legislative day for the rest of her tenure she would meet the same response as she would be fighting against 1-12 above.

This is a teachable moment for all those who are carrying all kinds of software about when there is no hardware to put them inside. Such misguided adventures seek to want to make others to live in their own image.

Where do I stand? Women who are not complaining living under 1-12 above should be allowed to live under the civilisation they have accepted while those who seek to be under the civilisation Senator Olujimi espouses should not be encumbered in any way.

Secular but  sharia binds

The reason why this cannot work Nigeria is due greatly to our dual ideology.We say we are secular state but Sharia is part of our constitution.We are a Federal Republic in name but a unitary state in deed.We are Republic where the Emir issues order to the Assistant Inspector General of police.

With our multi-ethnicity and different religious outlooks, the only way we can live in harmony in Nigeria is to be a salad bowl society. To get a mix of salad you need different ingredients-lettuce, tomato, carrot,egg et al.When you mix these ingredients to have salad you can still identify them in their uniqueness. All we will need the centre to be would be no more than dressing!

The idea of a melting pot nation has been proved to be false as one culture will still predominates the way those whose culture permits minor being made mothers now invade the south to prey on child-girls.

The kind of society we should aspire to be is where different cultures exist separately and maintain their practices and institutions. Our unity should not be about uniformity but diversity. Let each group live according to its cultural ethos and let us run limited common services together at the centre without any cultural conflict.

We would remain locked in this love-hate relationship until we accept that a country like Nigeria can only run along federal lines. Every day we delay to toe that path is a continuation on the journey to perdition.