The recent weeks have been tough for Nigeria and Nigerians. With the strangest of shameful news making the headlines and drawing negative attention to a nation already haemorrhaging uncontrollably from economic collapse, social decadence, brutishness of state agents and common criminals as well who murder fellow citizens in their hundreds in mindless and needless exhibition of naked power.
The latest of all these ills is one which has been going on for a long time but has only recently attracted interest because parents of the victim decided not to allow this one pass just like others. They cried out to the public for help when the powers that be had made it clear that it was going to be impossible to rescue their daughter who was abducted by a morality-deficient man in fulfilment of a mandate to abduct Christian girls and force them into marriage with the purpose of converting them to Islam and siring offspring through them to outgrow the population of Christians in Nigeria except if certain powerful individuals intervened.
This was the case of Ese Rita Oruru, the 14-year old Bayelsa school girl, who was abducted by one Yunusa Yellow and ferried to Kano where the abductor received emirate protection to the extent that our police appeared helpless on rescuing the girl. It is even laughable, yet, scornful of our collective intelligence when the police, at a point, said they had written a letter to those holding and protecting abductors of Ese to release her. And one asks, when has it become a practice to write to kidnappers and abductors appealing to them to release their victim especially when the whereabouts of both abductors and victims are known?
If it was in the creeks of the Niger Delta or Aba in the South East or Abeokuta in the South West, a combined detachment of the police, civil defence, navy, air force and army would have been unleashed on the abductors without notice and the girl rescued. But since the abductors are from the north, hiding in the north, we have to write them begging them to let go off their victim. Obviously, the rule for the south is different from that of the north! If a monarch from south west could be made to face the law for allegedly raping a former youth corps member, the case of the Emir of Kano should not be different for his role in Ese’s abduction. The claim by the police that the emir’s intervention was helpful in the release of Ese is unacceptable. Let the emir go and explain himself in court.
How can an abducted girl be in your domain for good six months until public outcry became too loud for comfort before she was released? If the emir was that innocent, and was not used to harbouring abducted Christian girls for the purpose of “converting” them to Islam and forcefully getting them married, how come this abductor had the temerity to even take and keep Ese in the emir’s palace in the first place for as long as they did without any qualms? So many questions for the emir to answer!
It is the same thing with one Patience Paul, another Christian girl from Benue State who was also abducted and forced into marriage in Sokoto State by another Muslim family, coincidentally, in August 2015, the same month Ese Oruru was also abducted. That case had remained under the carpet until inspired by the Ese story. The question is, how many of such abduction and forced marriages as this have been going on and for how long?
From Agatu massacre to the abduction of Ese Oruru, the plan is clear to the discerning: Nigeria’s Islamisation by some Muslim fanatics has just assumed a more brazen dimension. The plan has always been there and the strategies have been multi-dimensional.
This was how Boko Haram started with churches being their main targets as they sought to Islamise Nigeria starting with the north east, and with time we are beginning to know those who are behind these elements and their agenda. They are all northern Islamic leaders and some of them are in court over the matter.
Since the Boko Haram strategy has failed as the terrorists have turned their guns on their sponsors and adherents of same faith as them, the new strategy is to abduct Christian girls, ferry them to the north and forcefully get them married while receiving emirate protection. I am also aware that sumptuous business opportunities and financial empowerment are dangled before Christian men who are ready to convert to Islam. This sort of desperate “evangelism” is sickening, to say the least.
The other strategy is to operate as Fulani herdsmen who would invade Christian communities, murder the hosts and take over their communities under the guise of a vengeance mission over flimsy excuses.
The latest of these mindless killing of Christians by these Fulani herdsmen is the near-decimation of Agatu, a sleepy community in Benue State. These murders are executed for hours, yet, the people received no help from the security forces. Women are not spared; the lives of innocent and harmless crying infants are cut short in a most macabre manner.
Unfortunately, nobody would be arrested for these acts as the police have already called a “peace” meeting between representatives of Agatu and Fulani herdsmen in that area. The peace meeting would end, the people from across the sides would shake hands, everyone would go home but no one would be arrested to account for their evil deeds. It is the same story, from Enugu to Delta to Ondo etc. The Fulani herdsmen would be allowed to keep their sophisticated weapons so they could attack tomorrow, and the vicious cycle continues. What manner of country is this?
In the place of the cathedral in Agatu, a central mosque would spring up, and in the place of a priest giving his homily on Sunday, an imam would give a Friday sermon because Christians in the community have been murdered in cold blood and their Muslim brothers have taken over their land. It is a strategy of some Muslim leaders, just like the issue of abduction and forced marriage, it is a strategy to decimate Christianity and Islamise Nigeria.
We may now conclude on why the Chibok girls who are predominantly Christians were kidnapped. It is all part of the Islamisation agenda. Going by what happened to Ese, most of the Chibok girls would by now have given birth to children of their abductors!
Not all Muslims are involved in this dastardly plans and acts, just a misguided few who are also unfortunate to have access to power and wealth. These are the fanatics; they are not different from terrorists. They kill Christians, yet, they do not want us to talk, and they do not want us to write about it. They might send the security agents out against those of us who are writing and condemning all these but then that would be the opportunity to further expose the connivance and failure of these security agencies who allow illiterates to wield deadly weapons openly in the public all in the name of cattle grazing without confronting them. It would be a time to expose their repeated utter failure to protect the gullible in the society.
How could our police have been aware of Ese’s predicament, her abductors and location since August last year, and had to wait six months after public outcry to swing into action? The days of fear are gone. No man dies twice. If we are silenced, our blood cannot be silenced. This injustice and evil have to stop now!
As for those who have been labouring so hard to justify the abduction, “conversion” and forceful marriage of Ese Rita Oruru, would you be able to say “amen” if I pray that the same fate befall your daughters?
I just hope that all these do not lead to sunset at dawn in Nigeria! We love peace but we also want justice. Let all those responsible for these dastardly acts be brought to book immediately, that is the only way those who are aggrieved can be assuaged; that is the only way we can continue to keep our country together!
