Girl-child and the Senate

To partake in the debate is to dignify the luscious tendencies of the distinguished Senators particularly Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima whose ploy at the making of an Islamic State has been outdone by Jamā’a Ahl al-sunnah li-da’wa wa al-jihād (Boko Haram). Notably, it is not against the abhorrent Boko Haramic methods that the Yariman Bakura […]

To partake in the debate is to dignify the luscious tendencies of the distinguished Senators particularly Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima whose ploy at the making of an Islamic State has been outdone by Jamā’a Ahl al-sunnah li-da’wa wa al-jihād (Boko Haram). Notably, it is not against the abhorrent Boko Haramic methods that the Yariman Bakura is zealously active in Nigeria’s hallowed chambers, but rather, it is over his libidinous frailties, for having “married” his Egyptian driver’s 13 year-old daughter, he is at pains to make legal, the illegality for which he came under the inquisition of the Egyptian legal system and nearly got slammed in their jail. I consider the Senate legislation on marriageable age for the girl-child rather sadly as a cruel diversion from the weightier issue of children’s non-justiciable rights in the Nigerian constitution – rights to sound education and high moral formation; protection from abuse, poverty, and homelessness. Governments share criminal responsibility with parents in the prevalence of juvenile delinquency, child trafficking, 21st century child enslavement and common victimisation of minors through violence. Even as the Senate merely refused to amend the existing law, it would have been a nobler preoccupation debating how positive change can come about in the earlier mentioned inadequacies.
What else can we expect from a Legislature that has without qualms, fixed members’ emoluments in the level of a seventh heaven against the backdrop of zero-ground societal realities? And still not satisfied, has gone on as nowhere else in the world, to make legal, lifetime retirement benefits for legislators in non permanent, and non pensionable political public service engagement! Whereas elsewhere in much of the landscape, high rates of inflation and unemployment are biting hard and low income earners are going for upwards of the 11th month without pay. It is definitely the season of the flight of reason in a morally debased polity that is tearing up at its fragile seams. Yet again, what else can we expect from a legislature made up mostly of politicians who were not elected but purchased or literally stole their mandates from the true choices of the people?
No. No one expects the National Assembly to act with the true interest of the ordinary citizen at heart, I suppose, making true Prophet David’s scriptural rationale for the impropriety of usurping his subject’s spouse and committing the later to his death. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity (electoral malpractice); and in sin did my mother (read-Nigeria’s INEC) conceive me.” ~ Psalms 51:5. The Nigerian lawmakers are too fixated on the lucre of their insatiable appetites to look down and see the needs and aspirations of common folk. That alone, permits a legislation as perfidious as that regarding marriageable age for the Nigerian girl-child.
What is happening in the world today is the onslaught of freedom and liberalism, particularly of the well to do, on basic morality. Unfortunately, morality cannot be legislated, but then, whatever is immoral is easily made illegal. Pity is, with financial muscle, the fusion between law and morality is blurred capriciously, and in the created grey in-between, individuals get away with illegalities (immoralities) like fixing your emoluments by yourself in legalised stealing from the public treasury, abuse of the innocence of the girl-child through the legalisation of the immoral acts, abuse of wealth, power, and correspondent freedom, like Senate President David Mark and erstwhile Speaker of the House ‘Dimeji Bankole appropriating to themselves their State Official quarters in legalised immorality. No illumination is more graphic than the empty heaven-on-earth mansions in much of Abuja built with immorally (illegally) acquired largesse, as set against the backdrop of overcrowded slums in suburbs as well as the deprived, and poverty stricken Gbagyi (Gwari) landowners bewildered and at a loss as to what in hell has happened to their inheritance!
Plato in appreciating the contribution of morality to mankind’s law says “Morality, when it is internalized, (till) it has become habit-like, or second nature, governs conduct without compulsion. The virtuous person does the appropriate thing because it is the fine or noble thing to do.” Viewed against this, reveals the despicable depths our legislators have sunken into and the type of redemption required for them to emerge to heights where they can clearly see for the good of country and society.
Legalised immoralities in Nigeria include resource transfers such as use of money for vote purchase, and the subsequent pillage of the state treasury with impunity; economic policies that transfer state wealth to entrepreneurs at fractions of true value, fleecing of publics through unrealistic tariffs for unsatisfactory services like communication (GSM), electricity, tenement rates, et al; all this and much more, with impunity. The judiciary adopts a snail speed in perverted justice such that criminals walk the streets in freedom. Impunity has become institutionalised, as we see publicly guilty high and mighty get away with it, while the poor are dealt with by the book.
It has become the norm to hide behind religion to seek and secure justification for immoralities that have not been illegalized such as deliberate denial of education for the girl-child and abuses, the commonest being early marriage and trafficking. When Yarima sites the Holy Prophet as model, case closed! The relationship between religious and political communities has been increasingly agitative. We have a rapidly growing population of maximisers of indulgence in decadence, and politicians who rationalise these acts in the consort and quest for votes. It thus becomes legal in much of the civilised world for gay marriages, abortion, cloning of humans, and all forms of abuses made of man’s capacity for misapplication of genetic engineering. Sections of society forced to keep mum in this volatile atmosphere tendentiously act up in brazen rebellion and terrorism.
And what a time for Governor of the Central Bank Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to reel out statistics that should make Northerners have a rethink! 93% Northern Girls lack secondary education; Jigawa school completion rate among female is less than 7%; 70 per cent of women between 20 and 29 in the North-West unable to read; only 3% of females complete secondary education in the Northern states. Does it matter the legislation of marriageable age for the Nigerian girl-child? Does it matter who chairs the Northern States Governors’, PDP Governors’ or Nigerian Governor’ Forum? I will scream! Stop me, somebody!