The rape of innocence

When you think you’ve seen the worst in our country, Nigeria has a way of proving you wrong. The last absurdity usually pale in comparison to the latest one and the pathetic cycle continues predictably. We shake our heads, lament and wail on twitter and Facebook, generating hashtags without galvanizing us into any tangible action. But this one might just be different, note the word ‘might’ as the drama is still unfolding and nobody is sure if it will end differently.

So much has been written about Ese Oruru, 14, the little girl who was abducted last year in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State and taken to Kano. Perhaps, the only institution with any credibility left in the ongoing saga is Punch newspapers that started the campaign that got the young lady freed from the clutches of her kidnappers. The rest of us in the media cannot take credit for Oruru’s freedom because the story is not a new one at all. Towards the end of last year, another newspaper broke the story but did not deem it fit for a follow up or a social campaign that can draw attention into the plight of the girl child in our country. It was with gladness I learnt that the editor was furious with some of his colleagues upon discovering that his newspaper had the story before others.

A point worth making is that the media remains a strong ally in the crusade of giving the girl child her just due in this dangerous society. It also shows how powerful the media is in championing social justice and shaping our society, an editor who knows his onions is a social change agent who can draw attention to critical issues. Too often we are fixated with politicians, and rightly so at a level, but many times we ignore other critical issues.

By now we must have had enough of the abduction story that it is not worth a rehash here, however, we cannot be tired of talking about it. If you are thinking that we have had enough of Ese Oruru, you are wrong as there are many Orurus we have not heard about, whose fate could be worse than hers. With the police admittance that it did not handle the case well and some Taliban commentators claiming that the parents were at fault just as some religious fundamentalists telling us that we cannot tell them when and who to marry, the girl child will continue to be at the mercy of paedophiles and religious extremists.

Too much seems to be against the female folk in our society that even literate adult men could be discussing about female spokespersons of the Nigeria Police Force solely on the basis of beauty and complexion and not the grey matter in their brains. We are fixated with stereotypes about women that we still see them solely on anatomical level in the 21st century. That’s why a loud mouthed senator without any modicum of respect could rise in the senate chambers last week and said that Nigerian men must ‘patronise’ made in Nigeria women as though his mother and other women are now products and services that could be bought off shelves. None of his fellow senators felt any sense of shame by asking him to apologise for the inane utterance, even women senators joined in laughing at themselves.

One of the questions I asked when the news broke that three students of Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary, Ikorodu, Lagos State have been abducted was, “Why girls and not boys?” What makes the girl child attractive to kidnappers and abusive folks that they are always on the receiving end? Why must girls be treated like trophies that men will go to any length to acquire? Of course age long oppression cannot just disappear in a whiff, but our march towards progress in gender sensitivity is slower than snail speed.  We’ve seen how religious and traditional institutions could be instruments of oppression that continually make women the dregs of our society. This was clear in Ese Oruru’s case and the others featured in Punch on Sunday yesterday. It’s high time we started treating criminals as criminals and not just religious zealots who might be misguided, good enough that justice has been served in the so-called Rev. King’s case which involved the death of a woman and also the abuse of other women. Our constitution is clear on this matter just as the Child Rights Act is sufficient enough to try the criminals involved in these cases of abduction.

I hope Ese will be able to pick pieces of her life and forgive the society that let her down when she needed it the most.