Who pressured Minister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye to renege?
Minister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye should hear this very clearly: her inability to forge on with her creative rebellion against an anchronistic system will cost the nation in huge terms.
My writeup headlined "More of Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, less of Tinubu", had hardly been published when news came that the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye had soft-pedalled on her worthy and bold stance that the 100 orphaned girls be not just given out to husbands in a mass wedding but rather be sent to school. Her phrase "mass education before mass wedding" drew my attention and fascinated me as a good policy for a Nigeria looking for ways to be great. I had praised her, I had also praised the traditional ruler of Kontangora, Alhaji Muhammad Barau Mu'azu II and the speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Abdulmalik Sarkindaji for their humility in leaving their cozy palace and office to travel to Abuja where they both met Mrs Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye to resolve the crisis.
But the ugly news is that as I write 4.33 pm, Friday, 24, May 2024, these unfortunate girls would have been given out in marriage. The marriage which has received a court injunction to put it on hold and over which many Nigerians had collected signatures urging the minister to stop it had received the blessings of the minister and has taken place. The minister's Special Assistant on Private Sector, Adaji Usman was dispatched to announce scholarships for whomever would want to pursue education up to the university level and also other items like wrappers and 350 bags of rice were presented to the orphaned girls. Once again, progress has taken the backseat in Nigeria. It is glaring that the girls' hope and the nation's hope of building a structure to care for such cases has again been defeated. Nobody should think any of the girls will go to school; we should only prepare to receive at least an additional 100 babies to our already overbloated population. And the 350 bags of rice? Who suggested that? And who received that? The girls, their husbands or some smart government officers? I doubt if the girls did. I also doubt if their husbands did but I am very sure it is a bonanza for the officers who arranged the donation and those who received them at the Niger State end. This should not take anybody by surprise that the bags of rice and the wrappers will go the way the government palliatives went.
These girls according to news were ophaned by a phenomenon which is bizarre but which is ravaging fathers and mothers all over the country especially more in the North. They could still have been in the comfortable homes of their parents but their parents were killed by bandits, a group produced by Nigeria's neglect of her citizens. The bandits are boys and men who rather than attend school were left to roam in the bush herding cows for most of their growing years. One thing led to another and these neglected adults got guns and having been toughened by wildliving in the bushes began banditry.
Banditry is lucrative because the bandits catch men and women, demand ransom to release their victims. Ransom can run into millions of naira. What an easy way of making money which every Nigerian now worship. Sometimes women and ladies caught are made to satistisfy the sexual pleasure of the ever randy bandits. In Nigeria banditry is no risk at all even though the law is very stringent on it because the bandits are hardly arrested because security is not effective, we still use primitive security system. President Bola Tinubu is deploying drones to target these bandits whose abode is in the forest but rather than kill the bandits the drone killed in Kaduna State, innocent citizens, 85 of them in Tundun Biri, 3rd December, 2023 who were celebrating the birthday of Prophet Mohammed. Banditry has consumed two governments and is ravaging the sitting government; Dr Goodluck Jonathan, Muhammadu Buhari and his successor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Banditry is the reason no foreign investment is coming to the nation because no investor would want to be kidnapped. Tinubu more than Buhari has been literally begging foreign nations to do business in Nigeria but they won't come because of insecurity consequent on banditry and boko haram. Nigeria, once the darling of other nations has become a pariah.
Earlier Abdulmalik Sarkindaji, the once humble speaker of Niger State, had removed his garment of humility. Shouting on top of his voice, he accused Minister Uju Kennedy - Ohanenye of neglecting to make proper investigation of the circumstances of the girls before she ran to the court. The speaker also said he was the victim of his political enemies in his constituency who fed the minister with wrong information. The minister said she was out to kick against underage marriage but she has been made to know that the girls are not underage.
In Nigeria the marriage age by the marriage act is 18 but in the North, only 11 states in the North have included the law in their own laws as required which means if the girls are 12 years they will by Islamic law be qualified to marry. But that is worrisome, it divides the country into two broad halves in terms of provision of welfare for citizens. While it should be considered that a girl who should busy about acquiring education at her young age should be made to enter marriage while her other colleagues elsewhere are acquiring education. How can this kind of girl compete with her colleagues in other parts of the country. This is a major cause of inferiority complex which divides the country and prevent it from becoming a true nation, it is the reason why less qualified persons from the North are made to be boss of other more qualified persons from other parts of the country. It's the argument for quota system entering into employment, a system which does not allow merit to be basis of employment. It culminates eventually in poor policy formulation because poor quality personnel who are poorly educated are recruited into policy making bodies.
The scuttling of this vital move of Minister Uju is the reason for the enthronement of mediocrity in the country. It denied the country the opportunity of devising a good system to take care of an emerging scenario. It couldn't have been that the issue has Islamic solution to manage it. Africans have our extended family system that handles such cases but in this case it does seem that existing structure cannot handle the situation any longer. Those who will be honest will admit most of the issues now cropping up not only in the North but in all parts of the country can no longer be handled by the traditional systems. So new systems must emerge. Our academics, one wonders what they are doing in the universities, just dubing papers and researches done elsewhere when there are lots of challenges facing the nation.
The intervention of MURIC, Muslim Rights Concern headed by a retired professor of comparative theology, Ishaq Akintola is a sad reflection of academic indolence in our universities. Rather than suggest a structue that will promote healthy welfare in such situations, MURIC as usual became vocal over an issue that cannot be handled by appropriate Islamic culture. It is not abnormal for old structures to breakdown from time to time but progress demand that thinkers come up with solutions. Asking for a relapse into the unworkable design by MURIC is a testimony to lack of academic prowess by that organization. Even Saudi Arabia is innovating within the context of Islam. Ladies now drive cabs in Saudi Arabia and the nation is entering into beauty pageants while during Covid 19 pandemic it didn't just open it doors to everybody to come in for the pilgrimage as usual.
Minister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye should hear this very clearly: her inability to forge on with her creative rebellion against an anchronistic system will cost the nation in huge terms. Almost all of those unfortunate girls will come back on the streets as divorcees by the same system that marry them off to men who may be already married to a number women they don't have the financial muscle to take care of. Since by the Islamic system as we hear, it is as easy as saying, "I divorce you" three times for a woman to be divorced from her husband. It is the height of intellectual dishonesty and highwire hypocrisy to think women should be made chattels to some randy men.
Mrs Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, you have denied Nigeria the opportunity to grow a domestic welfare system. If those girls get thrown back on the streets as divorcees as it is certain to happen, after being married off to some irresponsible men against their choice, men who may be bandits that killed their parents, your conscience would torture you for being responsible for their plight. Why you chickened out is befuddling. But one can reason it out. You probably did because your principal, Bola Tinubu, a known political schemer, perhaps asked you to renege and you did. You probably bowed to the usual ethnic pressure. Being Igbo, a tribe struggling to breathe, some of your kith and kin probably whispered to your ears; "Uju wetin concern you self, why you no leave those mallams alone and mind your business. You know you be Igbo." Is it possible, it is. Sitting governor of Anambra State, Professor Charles Soludo, brilliant economist, said at a public lecture that when he was appointed to serve in the economic team of former president Muhammadu Buhari, some of his Igbo compatriots told him "why you want take that job where money no dey." Madam if any of these propositions happened, the best thing you should have done in the first instance was to resign and in the second, you should have blocked your ears and be part of the builders of the new Nigeria whose names will be written in gold.
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos