Ese Oruru and other stories

The story of Yunusa Dahiru Bala, 25 and his kid lover, Ese Oruru, 14, is a very pathetic one indeed. Thus far, a few facts are known to us: Yunusa was well known to Mr and Mrs Charles Oruru and the family was aware of the relationship between Yunusa and their daughter. Yunusa used to […]

The story of Yunusa Dahiru Bala, 25 and his kid lover, Ese Oruru, 14, is a very pathetic one indeed.
Thus far, a few facts are known to us: Yunusa was well known to Mr and Mrs Charles Oruru and the family was aware of the relationship between Yunusa and their daughter. Yunusa used to be a water vendor and had supplied water to Ese Oruru’s family and other people in the vicinity. He also sold water to Ese’s mother, at her food shop and since Yunusa used to eat there, sometimes the girl served him.
In August last year, Yunusa, who had graduated from a water vendor to a tricycle rider, was said to have“abducted” Ese Oruru, 14, from Opolo area of Bayelsa State.
The two travelled to Tofar-Danga, in Kura Local Government Area of Kano State. Yunusa and Ese were in “love” and had planned to marry. As part of the preliminaries for marriage, Ese, accepted Islam and according to Yunusa’s father: “The only thing I know is that the girl (Ese) was converted to Islam by the Chief Imam of Kura Local Government Area after she declared interest.” However, Yunusa and Ese never got married.
After they got wind of their daughter’s location, Mr Charles Oruru and his wife, Madam Rose, travelled to Kano to see Ese but they failed to persuade her to follow them home to Bayelsa. 
Participants in the saga also acknowledged that when the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, learned about the Ese matter, he acted like a father. This is contrary to the Femi Fani-Kayode’s charge that Emir Sanusi was “culpable” in the Ese case. Sanusi is too refined, too civilised to negatively involve himself in this matter; he is so far above Fani-Kayode that he doesn’t join issues with him on any matter. Whereas Fani-Kayode thrives on vile name calling and yields so much to conspiracy theory, everything about Sanusi’s conduct in the matter demonstrated that he acted in the best interest of his religion and culture. Emir Sanusi got to know Ese’s issue only on 11th August, 2015 when she was brought to his court. He immediately ordered investigation into the circumstances surrounding the presence of the girl in Kano. When the report was presented to him on 7th September, he instructed that “the girl should be handed over to the AIG in charge of Kano Zone with a request to hand her over to AIG in charge of Bayelsa for return to her family.”
The Emir’s first consideration was that Ese was under aged and couldn’t have on her own taken the critical decision to change her religion or enter into marriage contract. Similarly, Emir Sanusi knew that even for fully mature ladies, the consent of parents was necessary before a marriage was contracted. How then did Emir Sanusi act in contravention of the law or tradition? But because Fani-Kayode takes delight in evil narratives and likes to forcefully insert himself into things he does not understand, he sought to disparage Emir Sanusi who is by far his superior.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Ese “did not leave her home freely or of her own volition” or that someone forcibly took her to “the other side of the country.” It is idiotic of Fani-Kayode to state that “Ese’s mother claimed that her daughter’s abductors said that it was the Emir of Kano himself that ordered her daughter’s abduction and that she was kept in his Palace for over one year”, doing what?
If Fani-Kayode is “demonised, hated, despised and more often than not, threatened with violence, persecution, intimidation, arrest, spurious criminal investigations and baseless court actions”, it is because of his hysterical, infantile and needless maleficent behaviour. 
The Ese saga provides a convenient cover for divisive elements who needed such incident to reinforce their evil narrative that Islam and Hausa-Fulani people condone and in fact encourage the capture of under-aged girls by Muslims for the satisfaction of their worldly pleasure. Otherwise, forceful possession of women is part and parcel of some cultures both in the northern and southern part of the country; but as long as some of this practice was done inside the same culture, there was no problem.
Nothing I have said exonerates love-stricken Yunusa; it is absolutely traumatising to elope with someone’s under-aged daughter, facilitate the change of her religion and possibly impregnate her. If this is what Yunusa did in contravention of the law, let him take the full measure of punishment. However, those who seek to turn criminal offences into some inter-ethnic and inter-religious altercation are doing a lot of disservice to our quest for national cohesion.
What do you say about the happenings in Enugu where people hired commercial tricycles on charter, killed the drivers and stole the tricycles and sold them in neighbouring Anambra State? Just last month, seven youths of northern extraction were butchered and their tricycles were made away with. Last weekend, the Police was able to arrest two of the criminal perpetrators. Our compatriots will do well to allow criminal actions to be determined by the rule of law rather than base emotions.
Here is hoping that abductors, whether they do it for love or for cash, are dealt with by the law irrespective of whom they worship or which side of the country they come from. Here is also hoping that Ese’s reunion with her parents will rekindle love in the family and make it whole again. It is wrong for Yunusa to elope with Ese; it is wrong to use the Ese saga to fuel ethnic and religious antagonism.
Twitter: @ComradeAbubakar