By Charles Kumolu

LAGOS— NOBEL laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, and human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana, have cautioned against dismissing the abduction and forced marriage of 14-year-old Miss Ese Oruru as a religious matter, describing the issue as a criminal act that must be lawfully prosecuted.

The duo fumed that the mastermind of the act, Mr. Yunusa Yellow, may have taken a cue from the failure of concerned institutions at sanctioning similar acts in the past, especially Sen. Ahmed Yerima’s reported marriage to a minor in 2010.

Yunusa Yellow and Ese Oruru

Briefing newsmen, yesterday, in Lagos, Soyinka said attempts at giving the issue a religious colouration would further encourage similar acts in future, adding that rather than making Islam the crux, efforts should be made to save the religion from those who are hiding under it to perpetrate crimes.

Soyinka further said the role of the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammad Sanusi, might have been misunderstood, noting that the emir did not come across as someone who would support child abduction, marriage and forceful conversion to Islam.

In addition, he noted that if proven wrong on Sanusi’s role, he would apologise, stating that the Police should primarily be blamed for not doing a thorough job.

This came as the Hausa Community in Bayelsa State blamed Ese’s parents for the girl’s travails, stating that they failed to provide adequate parental care and vigilance.

Chairman of the state chapter of Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, Nuhu Ibrahim, who said this, regretted that blames were being shifted to only one direction.

According to Soyinka: “For me I don’t know about you, the welfare of a child is even more serious, more important than the money which is stolen.

You can always retrieve the money but when you damage a child, especially with that common vaginal fistula, it ruins the child for life.

“If you believe in God, you are committing a crime against God. If you steal money, you commit a crime against me, against the circular society but when you damage a child because of your own depravity, you ruin that child for life, traumatise that child. If you say you believe in any deity, you are committing a crime. Don’t come and tell me that you are religious.

“In addition, scholars like Madam Uwais during that episode brought out tenets from the same Quran to prove that Yerima was lying against the Quran. He was lying against Islam. He was interpreting Islam for his own private ends. If you remember all the arguments then, Islamic scholars stated that yes Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) may have espoused his young wife, that he never consummated it. I remember those arguments vividly.

Lying against Islam
“Even Haruna, the great defender, said Yerima was on his own, that he went and brought an underage child and should not claim protection under Islam. So who failed since there were so many voices? Who were those who failed that child who was brought from Egypt? The society. Me and you. Women organisations especially.

“I remember I berated them at a time that they should take the lead in these battles. Whether you talk about Women Arise or whatever, I told them that they failed. We all failed but your responsibility is worst than ours. For me, that case is not yet over.

“You will understand how conduct, impunity like that of this legislator, former governor led inevitably to Boko Haram because when you use religion, there are others who will come and say that if you say you are pious, you are holy, I am holier than you and, therefore, I can interpret that same religion the way I want.

“That is what happens when we allow people to get away with impunity based on religion. Let us take religion out of it. We are talking about pure criminality and it is my demand and it has always been my demand that until you make an example of people like Yerima, there would be thousands of Yunusa, the man, who abducted Ese.

“I sympathise with his feelings that his religion is under siege but he should not try to say that people hate Islam. And I say this that it should not be said that people are Islamophobic. We are against crimes committed, defined by the constitution the legal structure that binds us all together and we say, keep religion out of it.

“When we are talking about crimes, don’t diffuse the subject. When we are saying that Yerima should be prosecuted, don’t diffuse. And above all, don’t try and quote literature to diverse.”

Rescind decision on Ransome-Kuti
While speaking on the demotion of Brig-Gen Enitan Ransome-Kuti to the rank of colonel by the Nigerian Army Council, the duo called on the military to rescind their decision, adding that Ransome-Kuti did the best he could under the circumstances he found himself.

Speaking in that regard, Falana said: “During the week, Brig-Gen. Enitan Ransome-Kuti was released on the orders of the Army Council. He was jailed by a special court martial, he was charged with cowardly behaviour for failure to carry out his duty and loss of equipment.

“At the trial, we made it clear that in the circumstance which he found himself, if he had not withdrawn his troops, we would have had a case of massacre because they were ill-equipped and not well motivated.

He was imprisoned for six months. At the time the Army Council met last week, they quashed the imprisonment. They said they are demoting him from the rank of Brigadier General.

“Again, it is a case of injustice because he performed his duties within the ambit of the law, so there can be no justification for humiliating him by reducing his rank while he was serving his fatherland.”

Hausa community blames Yunusa, Ese’s parents

On Ese’s abduction, Ibrahim said: “What Yunusa did was very bad and condemnable. I married from Bayelsa and my wife is from here. We have been living together peacefully for a very long time until this unfortunate incident. We should not allow this sad incident to tear us apart. As leaders of the Hausa community, we were not happy with what happened and we worked to see that things did not get out of hand and we thank God that she is back.

“This incident shows that there is need for everyone to brace up to their responsibilities, all hands are pointing at Yunusa and no one is looking at others.

“The parents have their blame as well as all others that had one role or the other to play in all these. I also did my own investigations before briefing the national headquarters of the ACF in Kaduna on this matter. Yunusa was not a stranger to the Orurus. He is well known to them and that brings the issue of parental care and vigilance which is lacking in our society today.”

He assured that the leadership of the Hausa community in Bayelsa would continue to promote peaceful coexistence among different ethnic groups in the state.
The Police in Bayelsa have shielded Ese from the media and the public since her arrival from Abuja.