8.3 C
New York
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ese Oruru Abduction: The Complicity Of A Journalist And Human Rights Lawyer [MUST READ]

Must read

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]y attention has been drawn to an audio recording published by Premium Times in which a 14-year-old girl, Ms. Ese Rita Oruru is being interviewed at a police station. Ms. Oruru, a Christian, was 13 years old when her abductor took her from her parents in Bayelsa State to Kano where she was forced to convert to Islam, and marry her abductor.

After the spirited intervention of human rights and child rights activists and the media like The Trent and Punch who campaigned for the release of Ese from her captors, the Emir of Kano whose domain she was forcibly being held was forced to intervene and allow the police access to Ese. It was at the police station that Ese was ambushed by a Premium Times reporter, Jafar Jafar, her photo taken, and this illegal interview of a minor in the absence of her parents was conducted and “leaked” to Premium Times by the Nigerian Police in Kano. You may read more about her story HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Anyone who believes this attempt at damage control by the hardline Islamists who endorse and defend the abduction and forced child marriage of little Christian girls needs to be excused from decent society. Human rights lawyer, mentioned and quoted in this disgraceful news story, Huwaila Mohammed needs to also be excused from decent company. A human rights lawyer who is interviewing a child in the absence of her parents? A human rights lawyer who accepts a 14-year-old claiming to be 17-years without recourse to the child’s birth certificate?

The journalist who made that recording of a child without her parent’s consent should be sanctioned. The human rights lawyer who organised this charade of an interview should be sanctioned too.

How come they – and not Ese’s parents – were the first to surround Ese at the police station and obtain “evidence” to buttress their ridiculous and criminal claim that a 13-year-old “eloped with her lover”. What is a 13-year-old doing with a lover? Can Huwaila Mohammed’s 13-year-old daughter elope with a keke driver, convert to Christianity, and move to Warri and get married?

Huwaila Mohammed should be ashamed of herself for accepting to play this devilish role of protecting paedophiles and criminals. She should know that a child has no ability to take the decision to move to any place without her parents permission? She should also know that it is a crime to take a child anywhere without her parents permission? And she should know that under the laws of Nigeria, a child below the age of 16-years cannot be married off by her parents, talkless of by herself without parental consent.

Ms. Mohammed ought to tell us – As a woman, what is her honest estimate of Ese’s age? Not to repeat some madness that Ese has been coached to repeat. Also, as a lawyer, Huwaila Mohammed should know that you run with facts – e.g. a birth certificate of a child to determine the age – not “estimates” by a person who looks at the child.

Also, the abductor can only prove his age with documentary evidence and not suggestion. Be that as it may, it is a crime to abduct a minor from her parents – whether the abductor is 18, 25, 30, or 60. What Yunusu did was a crime and he should be told the same.

My investigations reveal that what is playing out here with little Ms. Ese Rita Oruru is a common script in Northern Nigeria where a Christian child is brainwashed, converted to Islam, married off, and kept incommunicado from her parents and her community. She often emerges to deny being coerced, inflates her age to cover up the criminality of her abductors, and in some cases, she even denies her parents before the authorities claiming a Muslim man, a stranger to her, but an accomplice in the crime – as her father before the Sharia council.

What’s more, the paedophile captor-husband of the girl, always ends up downgrading his age to make the abduction look like a love affair.

This method of evangelism by these hardline Islamic fundamentalists in Nigeria is downright low-life and it needs to be called out for what it is.

Edikan Uko is a business strategist. She tweets from @EdikanUko

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. 

More articles

- Advertisement -The Fast Track to Earning Income as a Publisher
- Advertisement -The Fast Track to Earning Income as a Publisher
- Advertisement -Top 20 Blogs Lifestyle

Latest article