Dodging the Issue on Yerima

By

Na-Allah Mohammed Zagga

muhazagga@yahoo.com

 

 

Ever since his controversial marriage to a 13-year-old Egyptian girl, the former Governor of Zamfara State (now a Senator), Alhaji Yarima Sani, has been using emotional manipulation to gain the support of fellow Muslims. It is a trick usually designed to prevent people from subjecting his action to critical inquiry. Even fellow Muslims who now dare questions his sincerity are being branded as enemies of Islam as if Yarima and Islam are synonymous!

 

One of Yarima’s defenders, Safiya Dantiye, warned Muslims against “falling into the trap of undermining Islam and its cultural values.” (Daily Trust Friday May 21, 2010, P.45). This is a good example of deploying emotions to cover-up hypocrisy. Admittedly, it is the duty of every good Muslim to defend Islam. Is it our duty, however, to defend the hypocrisy of our leaders when it is so obvious even to the beetle-eyed? Our leaders tend to exploit our perceived gullibility and use it as a license to insult our intelligence.

 

Senator Yarima has repeatedly told whoever cares to listen that he has not breached the law of Islam on marriage and that he follows the example of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H)! Again, he asserted that he is not bound by the Child Rights Act of 2003 which prohibits the marriage of teenagers. It is true that the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) married a girl of nine years. But why did Yarima and his defenders limit their arguments to only one aspect of what the Prophet (S.A.W) did during his lifetime? Why did they avoid the fact that the Prophet (S.A.W) also married a wife by far older than him – Nana Khadijat who was 45 while the Prophet (S.A.W) was just 25? Was that aspect of Prophet Muhammad’s (S.A.W) marital life not attractive enough to Yarima to emulate? We have no record of Senator Yarima marrying women older than him as the Prophet (S.A.W) did! But we have an indisputable record of him marrying girls by far younger and young enough to be his grand-daughters!

 

He has a particular propensity for marrying teenagers and his record in this respect is indelible, if not notorious. Would he have breached Islamic laws if he had married women of his age or those older than him? Why is such choice unattractive to him? Why does he have extraordinary passion for teenagers? Divorce is one of the most objectionable acts in Islam and should be used as the last resort.

 

In pursuit of his passion for teenagers, however, Senator Yarima doesn’t care a hoot which innocent wife has to be sacrificed to bring in his latest conquest. The young wife that had to go to clear the way for the 13-year-old Egyptian wife was once lured out of school to marry Alhaji Yarima Bakura. But once she had a first baby, little did she realize that with Yarima’s roving eyes, the future of her marriage was doomed. And predictably, the Egyptian girl caught Yarima’s imagination and, since Islam limits him to four wives, he must sacrifice his former teenage wife to accommodate the latest Egyptian conquest!

 

Are Muslims under obligation to celebrate a leader with this record of changing wives at will to gratify his wild passion for teenagers? Are we changing the rules about divorce? Is habitual and frequent divorce no longer objectionable merely because Yarima is the culprit? Do we demonstrate our love for Islam by celebrating and defending the hypocrisy of our leaders? Senator Yarima is a public figure and, therefore, a fair game. He must be a role model but you can’t be one when hypocrisy is your middle name!

 

Yarima’s defenders also insist that spending 100,000 USD as bride price on the 13-year-old Egyptian girl breaches no law under Islam. They are perfectly right, one must admit. But is it necessary to pay N15million for the sake of marrying the Egyptian girl who is said to be his Egyptian driver’s daughter? Zamfara State is one of the poorest states in Nigeria and the picture of grinding poverty confronts even a casual observer anywhere he travels to the state. This profligacy defies reason and it represents callous insensitivity to the suffering of the people of Zamfara State .

 

We have no record that Senator Yarima ever paid N15million to any single individual indigent Muslim as Zakat. We also have no record that Yarima has ever established a foundation of even N100million to lift the life of others. It is sheer vanity to splurge 100,000 USD on a 13-year-old Egyptian girl at a time millions of ordinary Nigerian Muslims are crushing under the oppressive weight of abject poverty. The late Alhaji Wahab Folawiyo and other Yoruba Muslim Philanthropists won our hearts not through their capacity to spend millions to gratify their vanity and epicurean taste; instead, they are celebrated because they gave their wealth to advance the cause of humanity.

 

The former Zamfara State Governor cannot escape scrutiny by hiding behind Muslim sentiments. Unknown to him, marrying an Egyptian girl at a price of 100,000 USD suggests some inferiority complex! He probably believes that marrying an Egyptian girl is a social, economic and political feat. If not, why didn’t he spend the same amount on Black Muslim girls in Zamfara State ? In his curious imagination, marrying an Egyptian girl is a special achievement – a kind of status symbol!

 

Seeking refuge behind the lines of Muslim sentiments may not help Yarima to run away from the contradiction and hypocrisies around his life. It was reported that he paid N500,000 to the former divorced wife as compensation for displacing her to bring in the Egyptian. But can the money assuage the psychological, emotional and mental pain of being forced out of school to marry a man old enough to be your father and then discarded after your first baby? Selective application of the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W)’s examples is the weakest defence Yarima and his supporters can ever offer.

 

One is not obliged to celebrate hypocrisy and vanity, which are the main features of his decision to marry a 13-year-old Egyptian girl. He can’t escape the crucible of critical inquiry. You cannot impress any reasonable man by splashing 100,000 USD to marry an Egyptian girl when millions of ordinary Muslims are squelching in the quadmire of abject poverty. Once you are a public figure, you can’t escape scrutiny whether you are a Christian or Muslim. And that is why sex scandals involving Catholic Priests in Europe and America are under media focus.

 

One of the reasons that led to Muslims being encouraged to marry more wives originated from the two great battles in Islamic history – Badar and Uhud – to tackle the social crisis of too many widows and orphans that arose because of husbands that died in the battle against the Meccan heathens. Therefore, the idea of marrying more wives was not intended as a license to satisfy our lust. Lust, like the desire for money, increases ever with the acquisition of it. When our leaders desecrate the institution of marriage through frequent and habitual divorce, which displeases God, because they have the money to feed their lust, we have no binding duty to defend their hypocrisy. We should stop pretending that Yarima and Islam are inseparable. He claimed that he is not bound by 2003 Child Rights Act but he was never on record as rejecting the law officially. But he is now doing so because it is convenient to escape the heat of the needless controversy he brought upon himself, despite his best effort to avoid the vortex of publicity by secretly marrying his 13-year-old Egyptian wife at the National Mosque, Abuja . Hard as he tries, Yarima cannot escape the perception of being a cradle snatcher! As a Hausa Proverb goes, it tales one step to jump into a well but a thousand more  to come out!