How Cattle Rustlers Killed My Uncle

For the residents of Matso-matso in Jibia Local Government area of Katsina state, the morning of Sunday the 7^th of August 2016 was anything but bright. As early as three o clock they began to hear the sound of gunshots. Although these sounds are not new to the villagers, they strike fear whenever they are heard; either one or more people will die or some animals will be rustled, but usually the latter. The former is normally the case when a farmer resisted or when, like in the present case, the bandits are on a special mission.

The mission of the bandits on Sunday night was obviously one; to kill the Imam of the village and his friend. The Imam, who incidentally doubles as my maternal uncle, has been outspoken against criminal activities in the area always organizing prayers and encouraging his people to stand firm on the way of crime. Their first point of call was his house. They shot him eleven times and one of the bullets brushed over the face of his 10-year old son who was with him in the same room. The boy sustained an injury that was treated, but he survived. Next, they moved to the house of his friend in which they found no human presence. The man and his family had vividly escaped into the surrounding bush after hearing the sound of AK-47. More than most of us who live in the comfort of our safe havens in the city, these villagers can now distinguish between the sounds of different guns with confidence. The criminals did not waste any time before they burnt down the house and immediately left the hamlet. However, they did not leave for good. They invaded surrounding hamlets and embarked on a raping spree. At least I was shown a young woman that was seriously beaten by the bandits when she resisted the act. Of course, for cultural reasons women in this area and their families will not disclose details of rape when they are victims.

Since there is no security presence in the area despite Government propaganda, the villagers used the antiquated steps-tracing method of determining the destination of a thief. They successfully traced the steps of one of the bandits to a house in one of the hamlets and caught the head of the house. It was after they arrested him and some youth were insisting that he be lynched that the police arrived from the local government headquarters some 12 kilometres away. The only thing they did in the village together with the soldiers that came with them was to rescue the suspect. They left with him after about 30 minutes. Contrary to expectation, the combined security team of Police, Army and DSS did not conduct any thorough forensic investigation. For example, they did not visit the scene of the murder nor interviewed the victim’s wife who was with him when the murder took place. It was even some of the villagers that brought them sample of the ammunition recovered from the scene, but they never asked for it. Furthermore, the security men did not visit the hamlets in which women were allegedly raped.

The local Government team comprising of the Acting Chairman, Local party chairman and other local politicians later came and advised the defenceless villagers to be vigilant and engage in local policing. However, no attempt was made by the authorities to give medical treatment to the alleged victims of rape.

Liman Danlami is not the first victim of criminal attack in the village. Within the past one year Matso-matso has been attacked at least five times during which over 100 cows were taken and three people killed. In all cases the security people only arrived when concerned individuals within Jibia town called them and they generally come when the dust has already settled.

Other villages that have been under incessant harassment in the area include Zandam, Kwari, Dan hako, ‘yar lumo, Garin Kerau, ‘yar gamji and Shekewa. All of these communities fall within three wards in Jibia and Batsari Local Government Areas. In fact, hardly will two weeks pass without a case of banditry, cattle-rustling or other forms of criminality in the area. Dear reader should not assume that the villagers have no clue as to who these criminals are and where they come from. It is however the fear of what has just happened to this Imam that has made the people to seal their mouths.

While these criminalities are taking place in remote locations, there are not less than 10 checkpoints of gun-wielding soldiers, police, Immigration and Customs men on the 42 kilometre long Katsina – Jibia road. The military operation recently launched in Gusau only served as a notice for the robbers to restrategize and safely continue with their business.

In Katsina the Government is fiddling away as the people live under constant fear. For example, none of the three governors that governed over the past 17 years went beyond local government headquarters and villages on the highway to see how these innocent, defenceless farmers are doing. This is true even when there is a massive attack like the one that almost displaced the entire Shekewa community two months ago.  In Abuja it is a tale of budget padding, prosecution of looters, assurances of better future, etc. But for my people in the villages, all these do not make any sense. Their concern is the security of their lives and property.

Nine Years of Anguish for the Killers of Sheikh Ja’afar

Exactly nine years ago on Friday the 13^th of April, 2007 a renowned Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ja’far Mahmoud Adam was assassinated. The murder took place in Muntada Jumuah mosque located in Dorayi quarters of Kano.

It was in that early morning when the Sheikh was leading the subh prayer that the assassins numbering about five drove to the mosque. They shot at his chest and stomach and killed two people who attempted to stand in their way.

The 47 year old Sheikh was immediately rushed to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) where he died before he could receive any medical attention. According to the people who took him to the hospital, Sheikh Ja’afar kept repeating the kalimah until his last breath. Thus the Sheikh has many virtues. He died while observing subh prayer on a Friday which very few people achieved in history. Again, he died with the kalimah which all Muslims believe that anybody who has it as his last word in this life will enter paradise.

Born in Daura, Katsina state in 1960, Sheikh Ja’afar completed his memorization of the Quran in 1979. In 1984 he enrolled as a student in the higher Islamic section of Government Arabic Teachers College Gwale in Kano city and upon completion in 1988 he secured an admission at the prestigious International Islamic University Madinah where he studied Quranic Sciences until 1993.

 As a young man, Ja’afar Mahmoud Adam actively participated in Qur’anic recitation competitions and once represented Nigeria in the International Quranic recitation competition in Saudi Arabia where he took the third position after being the best in Nigeria. He was also an active participant in the activities of Izala group before his journey to Medina. However, Sheikh Ja’afar was unknown to many before his return from the Holy city in 1993. His unmatched eloquence coupled with an outstanding mastery of Qur’anic interpretation attracted many students to him from within and outside Kano as soon as he started his lessons in the famous Gadon Kaya mosque which he founded after his return. Within no time, Mallam neutralized the influence of nearly all the Islamic scholars in Kano as none attracted followership like him. With Sheikh Ja’afar in town, people began to challenge Darika scholars, a thing hitherto impossible in the ancient city.

The influence of Sheikh Ja’afar was not limited to Kano. There was hardly a Muslim community in Northern Nigeria where Sheikh Ja’afar was not invited to speak. Sheikh Ja’afar attracted large crowds wherever he went and outshone any scholar or emir whenever they had to meet at a public occasion.

Sheikh Ja’afar was not territorial. While many scholars are not interested in bringing peers close to them, Sheikh Ja’afar introduced other scholars, some of whom were thought to be more learned than him to give lessons along with him in his mosque. Not only did he do that, he always extolled their virtues in public. That sincerity further garnered even more respect for the late Sheikh. 

While the North-west gave birth to and housed Sheikh Ja’afar, North-easterners requested the Sheikh to be spending the Holy month of Ramadan in their midst, and he obliged. Thus, until his death the Sheikh always spent one out of every twelve months in Maidugri where he gave lessons in Tafseer every day.

Like any human, Sheikh Ja’afar had his shortcomings. Many people were disappointed when they came to visit Sheikh Ja’afar and did not get the kind of reception they got from other scholars. The fact, however, is that Mallam Ja’afar was a good time manager and unlike many other public figures had no time for gossip or idle talk.

But who killed Sheikh Ja’afar? The answer is simple; his enemies or better still people who considered him an enemy. And there were many of them. No one will lead an outstanding life like that of Sheikh Ja’afar without making enemies.  This piece is not meant to speculate on the possible killers of the Late Sheikh as that has been done many times with many believing that the sophistication with which the murder was carried out could only be the handiwork of Government.  In fact, on April 12, 2009 two years after the assassination, an online news medium linked a former governor of Kano state to the murder of the erudite Sheikh. The police had on a number of occasions come out to clear some influencial people in Kano from the murder of Sheikh Ja’afar. But they fell short of identifying the actual killers.

Another question is, have the killers of Sheikh Ja’afar achieved their aim? Certainly no, whatever it is. Sheikh Ja’afar became even more popular after his death and his recorded tafseer lessons are still broadcast at least weekly by over 50 broadcasting stations in Nigeria and neighbouring countries. If the killers killed him because they saw him as a potential security threat, they must have realized by now that peace cannot be achieved by murdering innocent people and nemesis will never allow any nation that condones the murder of people like Mallam Ja’afar to have peace.

Published in Blueprint Newspaper of Wednesday 13th April, 2016

The Change We Need In Education II

The tale of the tertiary education sector is not any sweeter. Everyone is now allowed to set up a university if they have money to ‘start’. While in developing countries like Malaysia it is youth who do not have the requisite qualifications to go to public universities that enrol in private universities, reverse is the case in Nigeria.

Even the universities that are established by the Government, especially state governments, are not good enough. Many of our state universities are better described as unemployment factories. The programmes run in those places are mostly programmes that will not enable students to be absorbed by the private sector or stand on their feet upon graduation. Professional faculties like Medicine and Engineering that require a lot of investment to establish are missing in most of our state universities. Yet politicians continue to deceive gullible parents that they have established universities to educate their children.

Polytechnics that were originally established to provide middle level manpower in technical areas now run courses in Marketing and Banking. Even in technical areas, the contents and educators are not far from what obtains in the universities. Many Polytechnics are now headed by University lecturers with no iota of experience in the Polytechnic system but who are appointed as a reward of their contributions to the electoral success of some politicians or being close to them. That is why many unions have sprung up over the years agitating for equal status between products of Polytechnics and those of universities.

It is unfortunate that in an average of every four years our universities are closed down for a few months of ASUU strike. This has demoralized youth and parents, with many parents who can afford it sending their children abroad for degree programmes. The bitter fact, however, is that it is those strikes that have attracted the very little funding enjoyed by universities. For example, the Tertiary Education Trust fund (TETFUND) which has turned out to be the main financier of projects, research and development in our tertiary education sector is a product of ASUU strike. Successive governments have admitted that ASUU is a patriotic union which, unlike other trade unions, is genuinely concerned about the nation’s education sector and not just the condition of service of its members. Yet, the same Governments have always reneged on their agreements with ASUU.

Yes. TETFUND is only supposed to complement the regular funding of tertiary institutions from budget but it is now the mainstay for funding universities, polytechnics and colleges of Education. The budget mainly takes care of personnel cost plus a paltry overhead. As essential as staff development is to universities, neither federal nor state governments have a comprehensive programme for it apart from TETFUND. The scholarship scheme of the Federal ministry of education is used to sponsor children of politicians and senior Government functionaries to study abroad. Same can be said of the more transparent PTDF scholarship scheme.

Our universities now award honorary degrees to rich people of questionable sources of income in order to attract monetary donations from such people. Commercial programmes have become the order of the day in our tertiary institutions with quality sacrificed for revenue in many cases. Colleges of Education that are statutorily established to train teachers are now running commercial diploma programmes. All these are happening because the Government has abdicated from its responsibility of funding education.

In sum, the crisis in the education sector is pervasive and if the change agenda of Buhari administration is to apply to Education, every stratum of our educational system requires a complete overhaul. While the Government should continue to support primary education for all Nigerian children, use of public fund to support post-primary/post-basic education should only be limited to children with minimum aptitude to proceed to such level. This will decongest public secondary schools and enable proper teaching and learning. The current unwieldy nature of public schools, especially states-owned schools, does not warrant learning and it is a great disservice to our nation to continue with it. One way to effectively do this is by reviving vocational training centres where the other children can be trained to acquire skills.

Considering our earlier observations on some of the fundamental problems bedevilling the Polytechnic sector, it is worthwhile to follow the footsteps of countries that have abolished polytechnics. Our polytechnics have outlived their relevance and the best solution is to merge or convert them to universities as the case may be. Details of this must however be carefully worked out considering the fundamental differences in the administrative and academic structures of polytechnics and universities. Colleges of Education remain relevant and valuable if they restrict themselves to their mandate. Monotechnics may continue as long as they remain specialized and are adequately funded.

Early signals point to an impending showdown between ASUU and Buhari administration. The budgetary allocation to Education sector is a meagre eight percent contrary to extant ASUU-FGN agreement to progressively increase it to the UNESCO minimum of 26 percent. There are also other aspects of 2009 agreement that have been neglected by Government.  Are we ready for another ASUU strike?
Published in Blueprint Newspaper of Wednesday 6th April, 2016

The Change We Need in Education I

For those of us who spent only five years in secondary school in my own part of the country, our school days were very nice times to remember. The period was shorter than what we have now, but the gains were more and the days even more beautiful.

There are better stories to tell as well. For example, from my primary one to form five my father never paid a dime as school fees. In addition, neither he nor anybody acting for him had to buy me a textbook. All my books were provided by the school at no cost to my parents. My teachers were employed by the Government and they were all qualified. In my primary school, only those with Grade II Teachers Certificate were recruited by the Local Education Authority to teach me. In my secondary school, the situation was even better. For instance, the people who taught me English and Mathematics in my first year had higher degrees in those fields. Where the Government could not find a highly qualified teacher for a particular subject in Nigeria, they will go to any part of the world to get one.

That is not all. As a boarding student in a rural secondary school, I was given three square meals with nothing missing. The food was enough and well-prepared. In addition to the food itself, we were given things like oranges, banana, groundnut and other refreshers. The school uniform I wore and the soap I used to wash it were given by the school. All these were done to me at no cost to my parents.

We were taught discipline as well. There was a time for everything and everything was done at the time set aside for it. When it was time for lessons, everyone must be in the class and pay attention. We all must eat at the time set aside for eating. When it was time to sleep, everyone must be in bed and lights switched off. Making noise after “lights out” as it was called attracted different punishments depending on the school Principal. In some cases, the father was invited to come and witness the punishment. We were taught neatness. There was a day in every week set aside for sanitary inspection with prizes given to the neatest house and neatest student.

The academic standard was very high. Common entrance examination was prepared by WAEC and after passing it the pupil had to go through oral interview to get admitted into secondary school. Those who failed at either stage accepted it in good faith and their parents would always find for them something to do or send them back to school to take the exams the second time. At the end of fifth year in our secondary schools we sat for SC/GCE examinations organised by WAEC. There was no other option and there was no cheating. Examination malpractice was unknown to us in this part of the country and it was a thing of shame for any young person to be associated with it. We didn’t know JAMB. We never had to register for it.

Alas! Suddenly, and like an earthquake, things began to turn upside down. One of the first and greatest harm done to our educational system was the scrapping of Grade II Teachers colleges. In the old good system of those days, pupils at the end of their primary schools were taken to different schools based on their potentials as assessed and decided by panels of seasoned teachers. It was at this level that future primary school teachers were picked and sent to Teachers colleges. The NCE of nowadays is not as good as the Grade II certificate of those days. In most cases, the young people that follow NCE programme now do so only after failing to get admission into Universities and polytechnics. The meaning of this is that it is people of lowest intelligence that teach our children in primary schools.

Unlike the old good system in which only those who passed a standard entrance examination and a competitive oral test proceeded to post-primary schools, nobody will agree to see his child having primary school leaving certificate or junior school certificate as their highest qualification. Every child must be a university graduate whether or not they are the right stuff for it. That is the philosophy of today’s parents. This has resulted in an avalanche of private schools and an explosion in the number of pupils in public schools. We now have a situation in which public money is used to fund schools that admit unqualified children who end up either as failures or holders of fake results which they obtain through examination malpractice.

Cheating in examination is now taught to post-primary school pupils as if it is part of the curricula. It has reached the level that the best schools are those whose proprietors know how best to connive with officials of examination bodies to award grades to their final year students.

(To be continued)

Published in Blueprint Newspaper of 30th March, 2016

Buhari and the Reformed Izala

Last week there was an International Islamic conference in Abuja. It was organized by Jama’atu Izalatil Bid’ah wa ikamatissunna, or Izala as it is popularly known. Virtually all those who call the shots in the Nigerian Muslim community were there. In addition to the President himself, the senate president was in attendance. So were governors, ministers and other politicians. Traditional rulers led by the Sultan were conspicuously present. This is in addition to foreign participants like the Executive Secretary of the World Muslim League.

The gathering is an indication of the tremendous transformation that Izala has gone through over the years. Izala was formed in the 1970s by some students of Late Sheikh Abubakar Gummi with the sole aim of eradicating innovations in Islamic belief and worship. The founders of Izala believed that the only route to the practice of true Islam is by strict adherence to the teaching of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). This brought the new group at loggerheads with various Darika groups, especially the Tijjaniyya group. Roughly a decade before the formation of Izala, a Senegalese scholar by name Ibrahim Inyass had gone round West Africa to spread his version of the Tijjaniyya order. In the process, he made a good number of enemies like Sheikh Abubakar Gummi who saw him as a heretic and his calling unIslamic. Some even believed that Sheikh Inyass might have been sponsored by the French to divert the attention of West African Muslims from any possible agitation for Shariah Law at a time when African countries were gaining independence.

But what set Izala against the majority of Muslims was their mode of preaching which was characterized by rudeness and name-calling by some of her most vocal preachers. Emirs, traditional scholars and ordinary people were not spared. Many people that would have ordinarily helped Izala were repelled by this approach. As a result, a wide gap was created between those who accepted Izala and those who rejected it with the former seeing the latter as apostates.

Two things helped Izala out of her initial mess. One was the very bold decision to stop some of the rude preachers and the other factor has to do with the new crop of more learned scholars that later joined the group. Thus for sometime Izala has been involved in fence-mending with various groups and individuals by trying to convince them that it is no longer the Izala they used to know. Even their approach to Darika has become softer with the two groups intermingling and attending meetings on different platforms. Of course, Izala has never initiated any violence and even when faced with it in the course of her preaching, members have always been disallowed from taking revenge.

One of the people that Izala had to reconcile with is the former Head of state later turned politician General Muhammad Buhari who for a long time Izala group considered as an adversary. During his reign as a military ruler, General Muhammadu Buhari took several decisions that did not go down well with Izala. A case in point is the retirement of Sheikh Abubakar Mahmoud Gummi, the main patron of Izala, from his position as the consulting Grand Khadi of Northern Nigeria, a position Buhari administration considered redundant because there was officially nothing like Northern Nigeria. Each of the then Northern states had a Grand Khadi and a Sharia court of appeal but there was no similar court at federal level. What, however, attracted the attention of Buhari Government to Sheikh Gummi, as said by the Sheikh himself, was his criticism of the Buhari Government for detention of politicians without trial and the conviction of those tried to outrageous jail terms that ran into tens of years.

Another problem that created disharmony between Izala and Buhari was his ban on preaching which was the main activity of the Izala group. Since Izala could not stop preaching, the group had to hide under the war against indiscipline of the Buhari administration to continue with its activities. But even then the anger was well pronounced in their preaching. That is why the group was happy with Buhari’s immediate successor who did not only let Izala and other preachers to continue with their preaching business but also allowed Izala to be registered as a recognized group, a thing they were denied by previous governments.

But the relationship between Buhari and Izala has since changed for the better. For example, throughout his four attempts at the presidency, Izala did not only indicate her support for Buhari, it openly campaigned for him at no cost. President Buhari must have realized how strategic the Izala group is in the Nigeria’s political equation of today. As arguably the largest organized Islamic group in Nigeria, this group that started as a handful of preachers forty years ago is not a thing any Nigerian politician can afford to ignore. 

Published in Blueprint Newspaper of 23rd March 2016 

Begging as a Failure of Leadership

Recently, His eminence the Sultan of Sokoto was quoted saying that almajirci has nothing to do with Islam and that it is people who are too poor to send their children to school that resort to sending them for begging. He said it while chairing a meeting on the girl child education in Kaduna.

Let me start by saying that I respect the office of Sultan and that my intention here is not to malign his person or the traditional institution that by the circumstances of our history provides the leadership of the Ummah in this part of the world. 

The notion given by the traditional ruler that almajirci and begging are the same is the kind misconception that has impeded the solution to the problem of child begging in Northern Nigeria. Begging is the act of seeking assistance from someone often in form of money, food or clothing. Begging is not Islamic and the Holy prophet (peace be upon him) spoke against begging with such a frequency and emphasis that most of his companions stopped from making even ordinary requests for the rest of their lives. The very few exceptions to this rule are detailed in relevant Islamic books.

Almajiri on the other hand is the distortion of the Arabic word almuhajir, meaning someone who has left his home in search of security, food, knowledge, etc. Commenting on the first Hadith of his popular collection of 40 traditions, Imam Alnawawiy listed many reasons for which Hijra is recommended in Islam. One of them is search of knowledge. The Qur’an (Q9:122) has made it an obligation for each community to sponsor people from among themselves who will engage in such movements in search of Islamic knowledge. As a matter of fact, the founders of Sokoto Caliphate belong to this group.

It is therefore necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff. While almajiranci is Islamic, begging, whether it is done by children or adults is unislamic. A collective, thorough and sustained effort must be made to see to the end of this menace without affecting Islamic scholarship. As the spiritual leader of the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria, the Sultan is supposed to lead the way.

And when His eminence spoke about sending children to school, which school is he referring to? Is it the western education type popularly called makarantar boko by his people? If so, he doesn’t have to worry. There is currently a big Federal ministry of Education, 36 state ministries of Education, 774 local Education departments with thousands of teachers, curriculum experts and other employees aimed at promoting those schools. What is missing, which is what everybody expects to be the Sultan’s business, is a comprehensive guideline on the establishment, running and content of Islamic schools. Because of the absence of such guidelines, every community operates their Islamic schools the way they like. At the grassroot level where Islamiyya schools are established and run, the NSCIA and JNI are vividly absent. In many cases, even the Headmasters do not have a blueprint of what is supposed to be taught in their schools.

When referring to the conventional western-style schools, what I thought should be the worry of the Sultan is the Islamic studies content in those schools. Apart from IRK (or IS as it is now called), there is no other subject or program aimed at teaching our children about their religion, especially in public schools. The IRK is deficient in many ways. For example, it does not make the child to be able to recite Qur’an. Again, a child may pass IRK in flying colours without knowing how to write their names in Arabic, which is the language of Islam. The JNI/NSCIA is supposed to come out with a realistic framework to correct this anomaly for adoption by state governments especially in Shari’ah states. One of the best models I have seen is that of a private girls’ school in Kano. The school has a comprehensive program by which a child will complete Qur’anic recitation in the second or third year of their senior secondary school. In addition, whether a girl is in Science or Arts option, she must take Arabic. Thus, by the time they finish the school, all pupils are able to recite Qur’an correctly and know basic Arabic that will help them learn their religion from the source. My reader will be interested to know that the percentage pass in both WAEC and NECO is always 100.

My advice to the Sultan and indeed the JNI/NSCIA is to first and foremost realize that it is their inaction that has made begging to persist among Nigerian Muslims. The more they cry aloud about this problem, the more ridiculous they appear. They should therefore stop living in the past and live up to their responsibility. That is the only panacea for integrity and well being of their people.

Published in Blueprint Newspaper of 16th March, 2016

THE ORDEAL OF AISHA ORURU: WHY PMB MUST INTERVENE

Sometime in February 2013, a lady by name Charity Uzochina then a student of the federal Polytechnic Bida embraced Islam. As is the practice, she changed her name to Aisha, a popular Muslim name. At that time, Aisha was 25 and thus by any standard an adult who could decide for herself.

In a nation whose constitution allows for freedom of religion with respect to its choice and practice, one would expect no dust to be raised at that development. However, the father of Aisha, who is also a pastor tried to forcefully take back Aisha in order to force her back to Christianity. He was backed by the Christian Association of Nigeria and all manners of so-called human right activists. Out of fear for her life, the lady approached a Shariah court in Niger state which asked the Etsu Nupe to give her protection. She thus dropped her studies and took refuge in the Emir’s palace. A year later, she got married to the Muslim lawyer who handled her case. It is important to note that Aisha succeeded only because of the resilience of the Emir of Nupe who refused to release her to those wolfy set of people who were not ready to accept anyone of them to embrace Islam even if their conversion is as Aisha herself put it, “strictly personal, gradual and well thought-out” and even if no law of the land prevents it from taking place. One irony is that none of the so-called human right groups came out to defend the right of adult Aisha to decide for herself the religion she wanted to follow and indeed the husband she wanted to marry.

If the Emir of Bida stood his ground to protect a helpless lady who was adamant on exercising her right of choice, the Emir of Kano was not forthcoming in this regard. I m particularly referring to the story of Ese (Aisha) Oruru which has dominated the headlines over the first several days. This story is one of pity and persecution. It has also revealed the timidity of the Nigerian Muslim community and the dysfunctionality of their leadership. Ese Oruru is a teenager born to a Christian family in Bayelsa state. At a stage in her life she decided to change her religion to Islam. Conversion to Islam in Nigeria is not new. Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth that people across all continents continue to embrace. In the case of young Ese she embraced Islam through one Yunusa who is a native of Kano state. Not only did the young man preached Islam to Ese, he took her to his village and married her. According to the news, there was an attempt by Ese’s family to take her back to Bayelsa but she refused because she was comfortable living as a Muslim with her husband of choice.

Like the case of her name-sake in Niger state, the story of Ese has attracted a lot of noise by the traditional noise makers in Nigeria. A lot has been said to the extent that many people who should ordinarily sympathize with Aisha for her ordeal have become confused and are busy condemning people whose guilt has not been legally established.

Here, there are many questions in need of answers. First, how old is Aisha? The initial story was that Ese is 18. But later we were told that she is now 14 but was 13 as at the time she was ‘abducted’. There has been no independent investigation to determine her actual age. What I expect the self-acclaimed champions of child right to have done is to launch and publish an independent investigation to ascertain the actual age of Aisha (Ese). This will clearly establish whether or not she has the right to decide for herself.

And what determines the age of maturity?  It is relative depending on the issue at stake and the legal system in place. According to the laws we inherited from the British, a girl who willingly submits herself to a man is not considered to have been raped unless she is below the age of 14. In other words, marriage aside, if Ese willingly submitted herself to Yinusa for sex at the age of 14, he can validly accuse anyone who calls him a rapist of character assassination. This is obviously the reason why our so-called advocates of child right reduced the age of Aisha to 13 in order to have a reason to make the public believe that the ‘minor’ was abducted and raped.

Now, how neutral is the Nigerian Police? Anyone who has listened to the explanations of the Nigerian Police would doubt the neutrality of the Force on this issue. For example, since the ‘rescue’ of Aisha and her return to Abuja, they have been hiding her from the public and disallowing her access to the press. In spite of this, a national daily published an interview purportedly given by Aisha in which she corroborated the claim that she was hypnotized. The ‘interview’ is available on the popular Linda Akija’s blog as I am writing this piece.  If the Police truly allowed the interview to take place and denied other journalists access to her, then it is not fair. And if the interview is false, I expect the Nigerian Police to arrest the publishers for misleading the public and ridiculing the Force.

Another threat to the well being of Aisha is the statement from her family that they will be taking her to TB Joshua.  This is because according to her father Mr. Charles Oruru, “Ese had declined to come home after being released into the custody of the Police, fearing she may have been hypnotised”. This statement from Mr. Oruru, published in the Vanguard of 2^nd March 2016 raises another dust. The Police must have forced Aisha to Abuja and that is why she has been hidden from the Public. And why take her to TB Joshua? TB Joshua is a Christian preacher who does not share the same faith with Aisha. Assuming Aisha is bundled and taken to TB Joshua who is believed by his admirers to have extra-spiritual powers, how will he react when she refuses to accept his advice to return to Christianity? Can we rule out torture? Who is there to make sure that this young person is not maltreated? Her desperate parents who have been made to believe that their daughter has been hypnotized by Muslims and want her to be hypnotized back to Christianity by TB Joshua or Joshua’s disciples who believe in the supernatural powers of their leader? Nigerians would definitely be interested to know TB Joshua’s method of hypnotisation to make sure that it does not contain any form of maltreatment.

In conclusion and with due respect to the Emir of Kano, he should not have handed over Aisha (Ese) without getting assurance that she will be safe and following to make sure that she is not tortured for her belief whether or not she has reached the age of puberty. But it is not late. He, along with other leaders must follow this matter to logical conclusion and make sure that Aisha stays alive and safe. But above all, Mr. President should come in to make sure that this helpless Nigerian has been safely handled.