Don’t Mix Criminality With Religion – Soyinka, Falana React To Ese’s Abduction

Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka and activist-

lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) yesterday condemned

the Federal Government’s failure to prosecute

Senator Ahmed Yerima who allegedly married an

Egyptian girl of 13.

Soyinka said failure to punish such acts

embolden others to engage in them.

He also faulted attempts to justify Ese Oruru’s

abduction and conversion to Islam.

At a joint briefing in Lagos, Soyinka and Falana

said Ese’s abduction was an act of criminality that

must not go unpunished.

Soyinka disagreed with a professor of Islamic

Eschatology and Director of Muslim Rights

Concern (MURIC), Ishaq Akintola, who claimed

that Islam has no age barrier in marriage.

“I want to ask him (Akintola), who invoked

religion in the first place? What everybody was

screaming was that this was a crime, a criminal

act. Who brought religion into a purely criminal

act? People should be very careful when they

speak. They should take care not to worsen an

already inexcusable situation by dragging religion

into it,” Soyinka said.

According to the Nobel laureate, specialists in

human physiology had declared that at a certain

age, a girl-child is not fit for sexual intercourse

with “a grizzled, Hot adult”.

“So, who exactly brings religion into issues of

governance, of constitution, of law? We’re saying

that there’s something higher than the protocols

of any religion, and has to be higher simply

because those who inhabit this border called

Nigeria belong to more than one religion.

“There has to be a commonality which directs our

conduct, which organises our lives. As inadequate

as it is, it is the Constitution.

“For me – I don’t know about you – the welfare

of a child is even more important than money

that is stolen. You can always retrieve the money,

but when you damage a child with a fistula,

which ruins a child for life, if you believe in God,

you’re committing a crime against God.

“If you steal money, you commit crime against

the circular society, but when you damage a child

because of your own depravity, you ruin that

child for life, you traumatise that child, so don’t

come and tell me that you’re religious and

pious.”

Soyinka noted that during the Yerima child-

marriage saga, scholars highlighted tenets from

the Quran which proved Yerima wrong.

“A governor, now senator, boasts that he has a

right to marry and consummated a marriage with

a 13-year-old, when it’s proven that he actually

paid the father who was a driver in Egypt, and

we screamed at the time that this was a crime,

not only in Nigeria but in a Moslem country –

Egypt; that this was cross-border s*x trafficking,

in addition to flouting the laws of this nation and

Egypt.

“He took the girl from school and then announces

his right to consummate the marriage – that his

religion permitted him to do so,” Soyinka said.

According to him, acts of impunity inevitably lead

to problems such as Boko Haram.

“When you invoke religion, there are others who

will say: ‘O, you say you are pious, but I am

holier than you, therefore I can interpret that

same source the way I want to authorise me to

kill you, your wife, your brothers, your family;

because I say you’re not holy enough and I can

prove it.’ That is what happens when we allow

people to get away with impunity based on

religion.

“So, let’s take religion out of this. We’re talking

about pure criminality and it is my demand, and

will always remain my demand, that until you

make an example of people like Yerima, there

will be thousands of Yunusa, the man who

abducted Ese,” Soyinka said.

Soyinka said demanding justice for Ese does not

mean being against Islam.

“I sympathise with his (Akintola’s) feeling that

his religion is under siege. But he should look for

other reasons. He shouldn’t try and suggest that

people hate Islam. Don’t say that people are

Islamophobic. That’s rubbish.

“We’re against crimes, defined by the

Constitution, the legal structure that bind us all

together, and we say leave religion out of it. Any

religious practice involves a continuous debate.

But when we’re talking about crime please don’t

diffuse the subject. When we say Yerima should

be prosecuted, don’t diffuse it,” Soyinka said.

He also faulted the idea that it is culturally

acceptable to marry under-age girls. According to

him, culture changes.

“Culture is not static. It’s dynamic. It constantly

evolves. There are hard-core materials in any

culture, but culture itself, especially the practice,

in view of greater knowledge, discoveries, even as

a result of learning from other cultures, we adopt

what we have always considered sacrosanct,

because at the bottom of it all, at the heart of it

all, culture is about human beings, about

humanity.

“There’s no culture without humanity. It’s

human beings who create culture and who are

guided by it and who adapt them.

“So, when I read anything which suggests that a

culture is sacrosanct, I just wonder on what

planet they are living, because history contradicts

this absolutely.”

Falana said under Section 38 (2) of the 1999

Constitution, no child of school age should be

forced to convert to another religion other than

his parents’.

The section says: “No person attending any place

of education shall be required to receive religious

instruction or to take part in or attend any

religious ceremony or observance if such

instruction ceremony or observance relates to a

religion other than his own, or religion not

approved by his parent or guardian.”

Falana said Ese was attending a school in Bayelsa

State when Yunusa allegedly abducted her to

Kano State and forcefully converted her to Islam

without her parents’ approval.

“That is a violation of Section 38 of the

Constitution,” Falana said.

Falana noted that Yunusa’s father had spoken out

that he warned his son not to bring Ese to Kano,

adding that when the Emir learned of it, he

directed security agencies to intervene.

“There is a United Nations convention for the

rights of the child. Nigeria as a UN member

ratified the convention and domesticated the law

in 2003. Since 2003, we have had the Child’s

Right Act. Under Section 15 of the Act, every

child in Nigeria shall be educated at the expense

of the state from primary to junior secondary

school.

“For the avoidance of doubt, in 2004, we also

enacted the Compulsory Universal Basic

Education Act that has also imposed a duty on

the state to ensure that every child is educated

from primary to junior secondary school.

“In fact, under that law, it is a criminal offence

not to allow your child to be educated. What

Yunusa has done by taking that girl from her

school in Yenegoa is a violation of that law.

“About 24 states have adopted the Child’s Right

Act, and under the law, which is applicable in

Bayelsa State, what Yunusa did is purely criminal

– kidnapping, forced marriage, rape, sexual

assault on a girl who was 13 last year. Now she

has been put in a family way. You can imagine

the danger to the health of that girl.

“That is why all Nigerians must rise to retrieve

all under-age children that have been forced into

illegal marriages. We need a national movement

against child marriage in our country,” Falana

said.