By Ben Etaghene

WITH this headline, any critic could conclude that this writing is late but not lost in the underlying effort of some laws in the land which are either duplicates or not too necessary. There are a plethora of them in the country which are mere paper works or an exercise in legal intellectualism. When the anti-sexual bill (to deal with randy lecturers in our universities) was passed into law by the Senate being his (Senator Omo-Agege’s) second in one year, much adulation was poured on him particularly in his constituency as a local homeboy. But my reaction was different not for its sagacious input but on the need for such a law. Shall come to this later.

Permit me to recount an incident in a drinking hall at Ibadan in the early 1980s. We were seated round a table when a six-year old boy walked in to purchase some bottles of beer and a few sticks of cigarette. With a pack in my pocket, I reflected on the West African economics, which we read. Intuitively I turned to the policeman by my side and asked “why do you allow such a minor to come in for the purchase of alcohol?” He merely turned to me and said, “you’re really new in this country. Am I supposed to be  there in uniform?, he asked rhetorically. “We have these laws for these prohibitions in the statutes book. Most were drafted during the colonial days without any review or modification. They are just there as moribund laws,” he lamented.

In 2005, I wrote an article in some national dailies titled: Bills (laws) we can do without, Then a, female legislator moved for the “banning of VVF and assistance to those affected. The principal cause of VVF is early marriage of girls who are quickly put in the family way. In the process of childbirth through their immatured bodies develop this health challenge because their tender bodies cannot endure the long painful obstructed labour. A genuine approach should have been a bill to ban early marriage. There was the case of Senator Ahmed Yerima, a two-term governor of Zamfara. After his coming into the Senate, journeyed to Egypt in search of a 13-year old girl whom he married with pomp and pageantry attended by our senators and other lawmakers.

In a well-run society, this is a constitutional rape. It is an offence. A simple visit to any hospital where these women are treated reveals that they are mostly very young mothers who suffered avoidable injuries during childbirths. Numerous women live with this obstetric fistula – a disturbing childbirth injury that is commonplace in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. These are regions of the world where early marriage is celebrated. Recently, the world celebrated International Day  to End Fistula. Nigeria called out its need on how to stop it. But basically the easiest way is a strong law to arrest child marriages.

File Photo: Cross section of House of Representatives members at the National Assembly in Abuja Photo : Gbemiga Olamikan

A “few years after this VVF bill, another female lawmaker introduced another bill aimed at banning female circumcision tagged in the west “genital mutilation.” To them we have no right to decide on what is good for us. And many of our ladies abroad have sought asylum based on if they came home, they would be forced to circumcise. It should be stressed, that it is purely optional. I have a daughter Yvonne living in the US. We have not one day talked about this issue though my auntie was a traditional midwife. She could tell how old a foetus was in the womb by merely placing her fingers on the woman’s belly. All her instruments were made locally. She had a way of sterilising them. This is one criticism of the West that the instruments used in these labour rooms are crude. The issue for those writing and making these assertions is: Have you seen them? Remember late Elizabeth Kafaru Culture Clinic in Ikeja or Dr. Kings Clinic in Lagos? How they modernised their herbal cure system?  Or Dr. Jom in Agbarho in Delta State in the 1960s – 1980s?

We should learn to take what the West says about Africa with a pinch of salt. Take your mind to the 1980s when the first case of HIV/AD broke. There was the announcement that it originated in Africa where a specie of monkeys were the carriers. But the ailment debuted in the USA. It was the then USSR scientists who told the world that it was an experiment in the US military laboratory on chemical weapons that escaped into the society. That doused the source of the ailment as Africa. But till date, there are still die hard American “researchers” who still continue to point to Africa. Just watch them, when they are through with women, they will switch the searchlight to make circumcision in Africa.

About two years ago, the National Assembly passed laws on homosexuality, lesbianism, same sex marriage. These are irrelevant laws. Does the government have to tell the people how to live their lives? It’s a law gone out of direction. Same sex marriage was an issue that was never in the horizon of our social attitude. But since the enactment of the law, two young were contemplating marriage to tempt the law. Examine this scenario: In many Nigerian cities today there are a lot of sand gathering on the walkways. Go to Jigawa. Ordinarily smart people could turn those sand moulds into business. But no one bothers. Assuming the NASS passes a bill tomorrow that nobody should temper with those sand. Then watch it, Nigerians will over night turn it into a lucrative business.

Not all laws are needful. The other year a member of either the sixth or seventh House boasted we passed over 60 bills this year. This is rubbish. How did those laws impact on our lives. Do not just churn out bills that do not impact on our live? It is not the quantity but the quality. Another example of an unnecessary law. When The Gambia was in turmoil  and their leader, Yahay Jameh undecided, our House members, Hon. Sani Zoro quickly introduced a bill offering him an asylum without his asking. That was cheap. Hear Barak Obama in his book The Audacity of Hope. “Despite the hectic schedule, I found the work fascinating, if occasionally frustrating. Contrary to popular perceptions, only about two dozen significant bills come up for a roll-call vote on the senate floor every       year ….”

The amiable Senator representing Delta Central District on arrival in the senate in one fell swoop proposed some five or six bills. No sir. Eme me rha. His proposal on the Okwagbe River port was excellent, then the revisit to PUFRE and the unfinished business at DSC Ovwian-Aladja. This could do it for a time. We want you to form a cluster with fellow senators to be able to insert projects in the federal government budget that could be benefitting to your constituency. This padding thing has become a convention and there’s nothing anybody can do about it anymore.

Then the controversial anti-sexual law aimed at prohibiting sexual harassment in educational institutions across the federation: on the face value the law could be said to be very good. But already there is the law on rape which stipulates a 14-year jail team. Why another law on the same periphery should have a much lesser jail term of five years? It is a mockery of the judicial system. Any unwanted sex; whether your wife, husband a minor – constitutional rape, student, et al is rape. Whatever any form of consideration the drofters had in mind, anyway it is a duplication of an already existing law.

As a senator with deep affection for his people I would have expected him to organize workshops or symposia for students (especially girls) where they could be educated about randy lecturers vice versa. Give lectures on how to indicate a sexual predator. There is such a case of a student who noticed unwarranted advances of a lecturer. She reported to the police who monitored the rendenzou and he was arrested. This is the kind of knowledge awareness these students need to put them in good stead against unwanted sex advances because this sex or gift for mark’s is generally becoming a bad stigma. In Malawi where this type of practice is commonplace, girls are being taught defensive tactics against rape and unwarranted sex advances. If Senator Ovie Omo-Agege could reason along this line for the higher institutions within Delta Central District, he would have established an enduring reference point instead of a law, a replica the tendency to ignore would be replete. Ben Etaghene is the editorial director of The Bulletin.