It does not take a genius to know that the idea of sponsoring the wedding of over 100 girls orphaned by bandits in Niger State is ill thought.
It is unkind, born out of greed and lack of empathy for the girls being married off.
Who says going into any form of marriage after losing their parents so brutally to bandits is what these girls need?
Who has prepared these girls for the roles they are about to take on as wives and soon-to-be mothers?
Who says these girls have healed from the trauma of being snatched, some of them, while still suckling their mothers’ breasts, to be married to some stranger they have to slave for the rest of their lives?
Who made the Speaker of the Niger State House of Assembly, Abdulamalik Sarkindaji and his unlettered imams the final answers to these girls’ trauma?
Has the Speaker in his “benevolence” tried to provide some form of counselling for these girls?
Has the Speaker in his “benevolence” sought to get these girls back to school?
Has the Speaker tried skills acquisition for these girls?
Has the Speaker in his “benevolence” sought to ensure these girls are rehabilitated with families, friends or organisations that will enable them to live their lives once more?
So the Speaker and his cohorts’ best idea is to sponsor their weddings?
Pray, after that, what?
Give them employment opportunities?
Give them monthly stipends?
Is there no one with any understanding?
It’s like shooting them before they grow. These girls will never be valuable citizens of the state. Why?
Marry them off and they will bear children almost immediately, just like their captured counterparts in Sambisa forest. They will bear children who will carry bowls and beg for the rest of their lives. They will not be educated and thus never know the value of ensuring an education to their offspring. The vicious circle continues.
Thankfully, though, the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy- Ohanenye has dragged the Speaker spewing nonsense to court! However, I read the state’s council of imams has given the Minister a one-week ultimatum to withdraw her comments over the Speaker’s planned sponsorship of the wedding.
Is this a fatwa? Is this a threat to a sitting minister of the federation?
Truly, that naija saying of “Wetin Musa no go see for gate.” applies here.
As in, so no one has seen the nonsense in this arrangement?
I schooled in Niger State, while in school, way back in the ‘80s, some of my northern classmates would not return for the new term. I recall a sweet-looking young girl in my class in form one. Her name was Aisha. Aisha was passionate, beautiful and devoted to her studies. She told me she wanted to be a doctor. All of us wanted to be doctors until we couldn’t pass math and chemistry…well, that’s a story for another day.
When I returned for the third term that year, Aisha didn’t return. I was too young to understand why she didn’t return until years later. I learned Aisha was married off.
I was later to find out that a few others, too, who had not resumed school had been married off…
Niger State lost out on what I consider a compassionate female doctor. Niger State will lose out much more in the following years, with Boko Haram running rampage…oh, I forgot we call them bandits these days. Bandits are invading communities, taking whole schools captives. But even before banditry, let’s not kid ourselves, there were other extenuating factors. There were selfish politicians and corrupt imams, ignorant, too, who were bent on using the Almajiri for political gains, thus ensuring the younger generation never produced in the near future, educated, credible and compassionate leaders.
They kept the people poor and uneducated enough not to demand their rights.
One would think that the state, which has seeded a good portion of its sovereign land to bandits, would be looking to end banditry. No, the best idea is to marry the orphans off!
This is killing them before they grow.
Hell! This is banditry all over again, like we say in Naija, Banditry pomp and plain in political garbs!
This also stinks!