The Ese Oruru story, simple as it looks, is an intriguing piece told in dark episodic flashes. She was a 13-year-old living with her parents in a rustic community in Bayelsa State. Then she was abducted to Tofa, another rustic town in Kano, forcefullhy converted to Islam and ‘married’ by her abductor as a child bride. In a brazen move to legitimatise an illegality, her captors even sought the imprimatur of the Emir of Kano right in the presence of her mother who had come with a contingent of police to whisk the child back to Bayelsa with no success in spite of a belated Emir’s directive that she be returned. It’s the kind of tales you watch on Nollywood.
In fact, Ese wouldn’t have burst into our consciousness if one of the nation’s leading newspapers, The PUNCH had not boldly taken up her case to confront an uncaring elitist society and a docile populace that sniggers at every heart-wrenching rendition as merely another sad dent in the Nigerian narrative. But for providence and the angst in the social media, Ese’s case could have vaporised into thin air like many other countless cases before hers. Why should the society care about the tale of a 13-year-old that was allegedly abducted from the innocence of her Bayelsa home by a supposed lover, to a culture and religion which pounced on her seeming precociousness to wrought an everlasting damage on this child’s psyche. Is it not the same society that lived in denial for months until the Chibok girls’ abduction saga became a faint appendix in our national discourse? We may shy away from it for now, but something tells me that the Ese that was returned to her parents last Wednesday was a different person. This prodigal that reluctantly came back to her doting parents is a rebel at heart– -a child suddenly thrown into complicated adult roles!
Still, we need to ask the hard questions. This is not just about castigating a ‘wayward’ teenager for allegedly eloping with a much older lover through enticement, inducement or hypnotism. Unless we want to change the rules or succumb to primordial sentiments, the Ese Oruru story is a clear case of criminal breach of trust. As far as I know, a 13-year-old is not fully mature to take informed opinion on issues of religion, sex or even marriage. Therefore, when Inuwa Yunusa Dahiru, alias Yellow, relocated to Kano with the Oruru’s daughter without their consent, he has clearly crossed the bounds of decency. Without impugning whatever role Yunusa’s religious beliefs could have played in the whole saga, there is an urgent need to put an end to this crass madness in which certain persons criminally perpetuate evil and tarnish the beliefs of millions of others. Under our law, there could be no justification for the outright abuse of our collective humanity. Reading through Mrs. Oruru’s experience in the hands of her daughter’s abductors, it was clear that some powerful forces gleefully supported Yunusa’s criminal conduct. She could have been by a mob who gathered at the Emir’s palace, daring her determined resolve to free her daughter from Yunusa’s grip! Some men of the Kano Police Command also have questions to answer.
What was stolen from Ese with that singular act is not only her innocence but also her humanity. She is a victim of a deadly abduction surreptitiously packaged as love. She is caught in the trap of decethe it set by Yunusa and his band of demented supporters who think that she was a willing ally in a fairy tale of elopement. They forget easily, as someone puts it, that Ese is just a “pliant and impressionable teen” hoodwinked by a fully-grown man who, in less than seven months, changed her faith and her name without the consent of her parents. Add that to the rumour that she was handed back to her parents as an expectant mother at 14 and you would grasp the extent of damage wrought on the Oruru clan. By the way, what part of our laws empowers a stranger to commit such atrocity and justify it with his religious beliefs? From the little she has said, we now know that Rita Ese Oruru did not know how she got to Kano. It was not surprising that a routine meal of bread and rice in those seven anguished months had transformed her into an old woman even at 14. She could remember that she drank mixtures occasionally but could not recollect for what purpose. She was just there, a baby who was a full time housewife in a strange land where her opinion never counted. That’s her sorry tale.
When I say I weep for Ese, it is because I could imagine the trauma of a parent whose child has been callously deflowered, diminished and dehumanized. We all have children living under our roofs and we know the depth of the bond that pulls us together. We are a critical part of the whole, forever foraging for fate. Like all parents, Mr and Mrs Oruru had lofty dreams for the teenybopper growing under them. They may have been crammed up in that nondescript structure called home but they trudge on, clinging onto hope. That was why Ese and siblings were put in school. They know that, with education, their story would change. All it takes is perseverance and a commitment to the dream. In their wildest imagination, they would not have thought that 24-year-old Yunusa was waiting in the wings to change the trajectory of young Ese.
When he spoke, Mr Charles Oruru sermonized about the Ese he knew. He waxed lyrical like many fathers would. Listen to him: “I don’t think a 13-year-old who is just in her early puberty stage will do something like that. A girl that does not know how to bathe well! I don’t believe she could be in love. I am very joyful that she has been released. I am waiting patiently to see her. I have missed her dancing. She is fond of dancing whenever she hears the sound of music”.
You know what hurts? It’s not the noise in the marketplace where sentiments are being whipped up over religion, cultures and the despicable roles believed to have been played by some notable Nigerians in the prolonged, nay shameful saga. What riles one is the fact that we have become too placid as a people to understand the damage we violently inflict on the psyche of our youth, especially vulnerable children. We give impetus to paedophiles to go away with their despicable act by our inaction. Therefore, it was enough that Ese knew Yunusa and ‘voluntarily’ eloped with him to become a child bride in hijab? Where then is our sense of shame, angst and utter disgust? How many of us struggling to exculpate Yunusa would do same were our daughters to be the victims of the heinous crime? In fact, how many of us still maintain this conspiracy of silence even when we know one or two families in our areas who keep child brides as mementos of their carnal rascality?
Mr. Oruru spoke about Ese’s love for music and her passion for dancing. That, to me, is a very moving testimonial. Unfortunately, he was merely reminiscing about a daughter he knew some seven months back, before her innocence was plucked before it could mature. From the little we have heard from Ese, that anticipated family bonding might not be a smooth ride. The transformation of the last seven months haunts her. This girl is now a woman with a different orientation, beliefs, religions and ideology. Ese may still dance to music. But would she dance to the sound of music she was used to, post-abduction? She might as well still be that girl learning how to bathe. However, is it not possible that she will inevitably be on the verge of learning how to bathe the baby in her womb? The girl is the mother of the child. She may even desire to continue her education. However, what kind of education would she crave for having gone through a life-changing experience of fate and faith? Ese may still understand the significance of family love and bond. But now that she has ‘tasted’ a different kind of bonding outside her comfort zone, which one would she cling to?
Yes, Ese may be back to Bayelsa. But can we, in all honesty, say that her spirit is back to her roots? Where is justice for killers of dreams who walk off without punishment due to prisms that are, at best, laughable technicalities. Will Ese, who said Mathematics was her best subject in school before August 12 last year, ever grow out of the double personalities that now struggle for a space in her soul due to the callous act of a criminal underling? Only time will tell as we pray for the Orurus in this moment of joy mixed with heavy dose of sadness.
