the man implicated in the abduction of Ese Oruru, we got an
idea of how the case was badly mishandled and the far
reaching implications this case has for the country of Nigeria.
(1) Yellow informed his parents that he was coming home
from Bayelsa to Kano and would be coming with the
daughter of his employers. His parents did not stop him. But
also, many other adults both in Bayelsa and Kano knew about
this planned abduction, but did not stop it. The concern of
Mr. Bala was never that such an act would be illegal or
unconscionable. His concern, even if we believe him, was on
an entirely different thing.
(2) Mr. Bala should have been worried because his son was
about to betray the family he worked for a period of ten
years. Your son was not just coming home to Kano with any
13-year old bride from Bayelsa. Instead he was coming with
his master's daughter, the height of betrayal that should
trouble an average Muslim, if it were not that a young
Christian girl was involved.
(3) For a reasonable man, Mr. Bala ought to have appreciated
the implications. First, he would wonder how there became a
love relationship between a houseboy and the young daughter
of his master. He should worry whether his son was having
sexual relationship with the young daughter of his master. He
should worry what that would mean for his son's safety if the
parents of Ese were to discover the existence of such love
affair. But Mr. Bala was not worried about such. He seemed
aware that his son was answering to a higher calling.
(4) Also, Mr. Bala should have known that his son was a
dangerous young man. How could he (a servant) feel
comfortable enough to even think of marrying the 13-year old
daughter of his employers? It was the kind of thing that
could spell doom for several people. Also, Bala knew there
was going to be a religious issue. Yet, he was okay with that.
And that was because he understood his son was not alone.
(5) Mr. Bala claimed he tried to dissuade his son from
coming home with Ese. But that cannot be honest. Bala was
probably indifferent or even participated in the abduction.
Otherwise, Bala should have had many other ways to prevent
his son from such a risky venture. At the very least, Bala
could have asked to speak with your son's employers.
(6) He accepted the flimsy excuse by his son that Ese was
threatening to commit suicide if she did not follow Yellow.
That was a 13-year old. That could not have been logical.
Bala would have known that she was too young to think like
that. So Yellow was a crook even to his own father. Indeed,
according to Mr. Bala, the couple showed up that night, while
Bala thought they were still far away from Kano. That
suggests that there were other adults helping Yellow out in
this planned abduction.
(7) At this point, things even got complicated. Bala could
have had a direct link or communication with the parents of
Ese. But he did not. Instead, he began to seek ways to
launder the situation. They were interested in converting her
to Islam far more than getting her back to her parents.
(8) From his own testimony, Bala knew there was something
fundamentally wrong with Ese's presence in Kano. They
attempted to cleanse it a bit, they began to take this girl
from one authority to another - district head, Imam, the
sharia council and ultimately to the Palace of the Emir and
the police.
(9) It is surprising what gave these low level, ordinary folks,
the courage and confidence to get the Emir involved. One
would have expected that the Emir would be so highly placed
that these men would not have had such an easy access to
the Emir. So, the question is: what is it that made the Emir
sufficiently interested in Ese's case. This was a 13-year old
child for goodness sake.
(10) Many people must have been curious as to why Emir's
interest. This curiosity has triggered an extreme rumor that
the Emir himself was the beneficial old male. Was the Emir
the recipient of the young bride, as a way of stocking his pile
of women in his halem? But it could be that the Emir's
interest is somewhere else. Maybe that has to do with the
fact that this was a Christian girl converted into Islam.
Maybe the Emir has a religious or traditional role to play
when Christians are forcibly converted in Kano. Compared to
the rumored role of the Sultan of Sokoto in another saga
involving the abduction of another Christian girl, it would
appear that the Emirs have to be involved in these
outrageous acts. In the case of Sokoto, the Sultan was said
to be the automatic father of every Christian child upon
conversion to Islam. Standing in such fatherly position, the
Sultan would be able to give out such girl in marriage to any
man he is pleased with. So, marrying off these girls seems to
be the objective of the abduction and conversion and the
assumption of parental rights over them by either the Emir or
Sultan.
(11) The Emir of Kano, even though aware of Ese's problem
actually failed to do the most reasonable thing, if he was to
do anything at all. He did not try to get Ese to her parents. It
was clear to the Emir that Ese's parents were reasonable
and responsible people because Yellow (the abductor) was
actually their houseboy. So, the Oruru's had the ability to hire
Yellow as a houseboy. The Emir must have known that. It did
not bother the Emir that a houseboy had abducted the
daughter of his master, a clear act of betrayal which any
person in position of authority would shudder at.
(12) Rather than making effort to reach the parents of Ese,
the Emir rather chose to send the matter to the police, but
without clear instruction for immediate action. Indeed, it
would appear that the Emir's referral to the police seemed
not to have been intended to help Ese, but rather to confuse
the entire issue and make it even harder for her to reunite
with her parents. Even when the Emir finally had the
opportunity to intervene directly with Ese's mother, the Emir
and his staff did not allow Ese to speak or to deal with her
mother.
(13) Why would the Emir appear to hinder the reunion of Ese
and her mother? Is it because Ese told them her parents
would kill her? Would the Emir have believed such obvious
fear of a child and taken steps to protect the child from her
parents? If that was the case, how come the Emir did not
confront Ese's parents directly to ensure that they would not
harm Ese? Also, why wouldn't the Emir contact the Governor
of Bayelsa or the police authority in Bayelsa to ensure that
Ese was not harmed upon coming home? What is so special
in keeping Ese in Kano away from her parents?
(14) There is something particularly troubling. How do the
Muslim leaders view Christians? Do they think they don't
deserve their children or that they would be doing a child a
favor by separating her from her parents, but uniting her with
the Islamic faith, all by force? In order words, do Muslim
leaders believe that becoming a Muslim is so important to a
child that such child could be removed from her home and
parents in order to be converted to Islam? If that were really
the case, why the emphasis of girls? Why are boys not being
abducted and made the sons of the Emir or the Sultan? Well,
that could be because the boys could not be married off to
some reach Muslim men.
(15) What else does the case of Ese tell us about Nigeria and
human rights? How many other young girls are disappearing
into the palaces? Ese's parents are not poor. They were rich
enough to keep the houseboy for ten years, who was not
their relative. For them to have such a hard time in finding
their daughter despite such intense efforts, what about poor
people who lack the resources to fight such battle? That
means that girls from poorer homes are easily ending up in
palaces and sharia council all over the Northern Nigeria.
(16) How can we relate this incident to the fate of the
Chibok girls? There must have been conversions of those
girls. There must have been a ready pool of powerful Muslims
who would have created a demand market for such young
girls. Whichever way you look at it, you must come to
recognize that certain things are practicable in the Muslim
North, which will be totally unimaginable in the Christian
South. One such thing is the idea that you could take a girl
permanently away from her parents and marry her off to a
man. It would take quite an array of players and supporters
for such to happen. If there were not Emirs that support such
practices and there were not men willing to pay for such
girls, there would have been no need to kidnap nearly 300
girls from a secondary school and disappear them in broad-
day light. Ese's case has opened a line of question that is
bound to go far.
(17) And finally, who is responsible for Ese's pregnancy?
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