PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA

 

Still on the Yunusa/Ese saga

ndajika01@gmail.com

 

 

Today I am devoting virtually the entire column to ten of the scores of responses to my piece last week on the Yunusa/Ese saga. Of the ten, the first is the most pertinent to the central point of my article; it’s wrong to blame a whole people, region or a religion for the apparent transgressions of their members.

 

The professor is right about his Yoruba proverb which says in effect that treating a symptom never really cures the illness. I am afraid, however, that it is the professor, not me, that is more concerned with the symptom rather than the illness. Religion, region and tribe are, of course, real. They are, however, not our problems in themselves. The problem is how we use them as façade to cover up our shortcomings, especially as individuals. This much is obvious from the professor’s emphasis on Yunusa’s religion and that of his apparent victims, rather than on their humanity, or their lack thereof.

 

If an Efik boy took away my teenage daughter from my Nupeland to Calabar, my instinct, of course, would be to blame everyone else but myself. But that would be dishonest. A more honest reaction would be to ask myself what I was doing - or not doing - as a father that an Efik boy from far away Calabar could come to my land and so easily steal away my daughter, assuming that is he indeed stole her, because it is not impossible that, as Ese first claimed before her story changed, my daughter may have followed the Efik boy of her own free will.

 

However, whether the Efik boy stole my teenage daughter or not, it certainly would be dishonest of me to blame the Efik boy’s action on the entire Efik nationality. It would then also amount to double standards for me to NOT blame all Nupes were a Nupe man to steal an Efik teenager.

 

The fact is that long before the Yunusa/Ese affair there have been widely reported cases of so-called baby factories involving teenage abductions prevalent in certain sections of this country. In all these cases little or nothing was ever said about the ethnicity, region or religion of the suspected abductors even though their apparent intentions couldn’t be more dishonourable.

 

All of which is to say in the end the disease, as our learned professor should know, lies more inside us as individuals rather than in the tribes or regions we are born into or the faiths we chose to adhere to.

 

And now to the reactions:-

 

Consider this scenario: Your 13 year old daughter is taken away from Nupe land to Calabar by an Efik boy without your knowledge by and you learn that the boy had married your daughter and got her converted from Islam to another faith and she has made her pregnant

Would you be pleased to read the type of stuff you wrote on the subject matter?

 

Yoruba has a proverb for your article: you left leprosy untreated and started treating ringworm. Your article absolutely left out the salient issue and went on to defend your faith even when a Muslim boy has committed a heinous crime against Christians and against tradition and against the law of any and every civilized country.

 

Prof Babajide Lucas

bajlucas@yahoo.co.uk

 

I just read your column of March 9. I totally agree with the position that the media, civil society and other commentators have over sensationalized the issue. From my point of view however, the issue is neither religious, nor tribal, NOR CRIMINAL! At worst it is a MORAL case: the mistaken indulgences of two teenagers, the ENTIRE details of which the world may NEVER know. 

 

It has taken this dimension because Yunusa and Ese are from two (opposing) parts of the country and it involved an elopement. Otherwise, there are similar situations happening in many small communities (young girls moving in with young or older men) without parental approval all over the place.

 

So when I see the police parading the misguided Yunusa as a kidnapper, I think they miss the point because an issue that would have been resolved through counseling and alternative dispute resolution tools is overblown into what it is not. And until we learn to respect the universal precept that true love knows neither Islam nor Christianity, neither tribe nor status, we shall continue to experience these and similar shocks that drive everyone insane. 

 

Julius Ogar

Sniperj2002@yahoo.com

 

Did the abductors of Steve Nwosu's wife marry her? Did the abductors of the three girls in a missionary school marry them? Commercial kidnappers are not the same as Yunusa's and his like who kidnap for marriage and wear them hijab. You still do not believe that Chibok is real. Just as you never believed Boko Haram was wrong?

 

Alabi Williams,

The Guardian

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Thank you for the write-up on the Yunusa/Ese saga! However you should have commented on other cases of abducted Christian girls by Muslims reported by Punch newspaper of 6/3/16. As a Muslim I am embarrassed.

 

Abdul-lateef Olabisi

Port Harcourt

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You can’t be wrong by stating the obvious: Nigerians exhausted more of their strength on Yunusa/Ese saga than they have ever done to move this country forward. While some people are busy arguing with facts, some are taking their stands based on assumptions. Others are thinking that it is an opportunity to paint those they dislike in black paint.

 

Personally, I was (and still is) against what Yunusa did because of some reasons. 1. Ese is a minor. 2. He took her away from home while she is not his sister, wife or relative. 3. His stubbornness in not listening to his father’s advice not to bring Ese to Kano. Etc.

 

The media, on their part have really exhibited a great amount of hypocrisy by ignoring Ese's side of the story. They hated spreading Ese's statement that it was her decision and that she didn’t want to go back to Bayelsa. 

 

It is quite unfortunate if events as important as this would be discussed not on the rational basis but on sentiments with the sole intention of rubbishing a section of this country. 

 

Cmr Muhammad Sambarka 

Lagos.

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The media feigns tolerance towards the hundreds of bastard in their midst. It is a joking matter in the East for a man to kidnap a dozen mistresses and beget a dozen bastard children every year. Such lecherous creatures are proudly labeled as "BABY FACTORIES". And the religion, tribe and section of the kidnappers are never questioned. Why do they make fish of one and fowl of the other?

 

Mansur Kotorkoshi 

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I always see you as a great political analyst, but whenever it comes to religious matters, you always mess it up. That was how you tried to justify a criminal action against a Redeemed Pastor's daughter at the Etsu Nupe's palace few years ago. What a shame! The social media will continue to expose people like you. Thank God, there is nothing you can go about it.

 

Laide Balogun,

Dutse, Abuja.

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I agree with you religion and tribe should not come into the Ese and Yellow Affair. But unfortunately the bumpy road has come to stay.

 

Some years ago, the bourgeois class used tribe to make a coup by soldiers to look like an Ibo affair. It worked splendidly. The problem is that religion and tribe will always be used by the satanic ruling class until neo-colonialism and imperialism are destroyed by the oppressed and exploited.

 

Amos Ejimonye,

Kaduna.

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 The Ese/Yunusa saga exposes the hypocrisy of the Nigerian politician and the media and rights groups. Were Nigeria truly a democratic state, someone should have been punished for not sending Ese to school at 14 and at 24 Yunusa should be pursuing his PHD instead of riding a KEKE.

 

Shame of a state of failing youths.

 

Osaiya Sedi Aminu 

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I found your column quite instructive especially when it happens that we have a media in this country that is polarized along religious sentiments. Every citizen deserves a hearing before conviction but the media have already convicted Yunusa of abduction and forceful marriage.

 

I pray our media would be more proactive in creating a united Nigeria. This is what we need in this country now.

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