IT is rather irksome and regrettable that at a time when it is fast becoming the culture in saner climes for citizens and organisations to devote attention to tackling problems that could impede rapid human progress or slow down improvements in Human Development Indices (HDI), the atmosphere in some other climes is being fouled by stories of a people who are still stuck in stone-age cultural practices that cast a pall of doubt on any claim to decency and modernity. For instance, how does one juxtapose the mentality of a 54-year-old man who is at the centre of a revolting story of a marriage between him and a four- year-old baby in Bayelsa State with that of men and women whose efforts led to life-altering scientific break-through and technological advances like Artificial Intelligence (AI)? There is no gainsaying that these two categories of human communities are poles apart. It is really sickening that this kind of repulsive narrative keeps emanating from Nigeria, a country that has been rightly, albeit regrettably, tagged the world’s poverty capital.
A 54-year-old man marrying off an impressionable child of four? What kind of culture would permit an adult in his 50s to enter into a contractual agreement with a child of four, whether written or unwritten? Could that mean that under this controversial, queer tradition, children are capable of giving consent? And how and when would the marriage be consummated? Or will this obviously undisciplined man wait for another 14 years for the child to become an adult as stipulated by law before touching her? A child who is yet unconscious of her environment would be called someone’s wife? It is a sad commentary that some irresponsible adults could acquiesce to this type of ignoble and obnoxious arrangement under the guise of customs and tradition, namely that the man had been the child’s husband in her previous life, and that she would die if he did not marry her!
It is, nonetheless, gratifying that the Bayelsa State government has already waded into the issue, distancing itself and the state from the insidious child marriage and publicly admonishing all in the state not to be part of any backward culture and cultural practices meant to exploit girl-children. The state government has also reportedly invited parents of the girl and the man allegedly involved in the purported marriage in Akeddei community in Sagbama Local Government Area of the state. In a statement jointly signed by Dise Ogbise-Goddy, chairperson, Gender Response Initiative Team, Bayelsa State, and Paniebi Jacob, director, Child Development in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Children and Social Development, the state government condemned the show of shame. And in the specific words of the signatories to the official statement: “The state government frowned on the “illegal marriage” which is based on tradition and customs, saying it was repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience.”
The statement noted that the Bayelsa State government would not support child marriage under any guise, adding: “That is why the state government did not hesitate to assent to the passage of the Bayelsa State Child Rights Law. We are taking steps to rescue the child from all the key actors in relation to this illegal ceremony that they tagged a mere spiritual affair.” This is good and comforting, and Nigerians will be happy to see the government put its soothing and reassuring words into action.
Meanwhile, the relevant agency of government in Bayelsa State has also acknowledged receipt of a formal complaint from the child rights advocacy group, DO Foundation, on the controversial marriage. And it would appear that the state government has set the ball rolling to launch an inquiry into the act of illegality by reaching out to all actors involved in the marriage. According to Jacob Ogbise-Goddy and the state Human Rights Commission, the traditional ruler of Akeddei community honoured the government’s invitation and promised to produce the child, her parents, the groom, the youth leader and the chairman of the Community Development Committee. It is unfortunate that even with the early contact that part of Nigeria had with the literate world, such cultural practices still exist.
We recall the case of Ese Rita Oruru, a young child who was kidnapped on August 12, 2015 at her mother’s shop in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. Ese, who was 13 years old at the time, was abducted by a man named Yunusa Dahiru (alias Yellow) and taken to Kano, where she was raped, forcibly Islamised and married off without her parents’ consent. The conversion and marriage took place in the palace of the then Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and, for a while, efforts to return the girl to her parents were unsuccessful. However, on February 29, 2016, the Kano State command of the Nigeria Police came to her rescue. She was later revealed to be five months pregnant with her kidnapper’s child after being released. Given the instant incident, it may well be that the national and international outrage that attended 13-year-old Ese Oruru’s abduction for early and forceful marriage then did not mean much to some of her compatriots in Bayelsa whose culture ostensibly permits fathers and grandfathers to take girl-children as brides! This type of cultural practices are too dark and should be permanently shelved.
The Ministry of Information in that state and the National Orientation Agency (NOA) have a lot of work to do on this. What manner of parents would agree to marry off a four-year-old girl? And what manner of a man would accept such offer? Something is wrong with the people involved in the bizarre spectacle: the illegal action actually has all the ingredients of child/sexual abuse and pedophilia. These adults evidently need to be sensitised to embrace value reorientation and moral reset. Children are to be molded and helped to grow into responsible adults for their own benefit and that of the society, and not to be sacrificed on the altar of wayward oldies. We urge governments at all levels to live up to the responsibility incumbent on them under the Child Rights Act and actively work to prevent the continued exploitation of children by parents and adults for conjugal entrapments. It is the height of irresponsibility, insensitivity and wickedness for parents and adults to rob children of their childhood and stampede them into adulthood through child/baby marriage dictated by some dark customs.
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