[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ith the abduction of Miss Habiba Isyaku Tanko, a 14-year-old Christian girl in Katsina State, her alleged conversion to Islam and forced into marriage with one Jamilu and the silence of the powers that be to secure the release of Habiba to her parents tells a lot about the conspiracy of silence that is going on about the needless abduction of young Christians girls, their forceful conversion to Islam and subsequent giving of their hands in marriage to Muslim men without even informing the parents.
[pull_quote_center]”….In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are simply protecting their trivial age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn[/pull_quote_center]
Grace Alheri Bawa
On the 13th day of April in the year 2016, Miss Grace Alheri Bawa left Miya town to visit her uncles in their family compound in Siri, a village in Bauchi State. Information from her father had it that she later followed one of her uncle’s children to spend the weekend in Bauchi City in one of her uncle’s house.
The father, Elder Bawa Buba, an ordained elder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Miya, in Ganjuwa LGA of Bauchi State, thought she was in the village until he received Grace’s message of Grace following his brother’s children to Bauchi.
Elder Bawa put a call to Dauda Buba, his elder brother, to whom his daughter has gone to visit to enquire whether Grace was with him as reported. To his surprise, he confirmed the information but was also told that he, Dauda, has also Islamized her and that he should forget about seeing her any time soon.
Shocked and thinking it was a joke, Bawa could not believe his ears when Dauda went further to tell him confidently to forget about having back Grace as his daughter as she is now a Muslim and has no dealings for an “infidel” like him!
Elder Bawa reported the issue to some of his brothers who were not pleased with what Dauda did. They all expressed displeasure over the issue and called upon Dauda to return Grace to her parents but Dauda told them that he wouldn’t and that the Bauchi State Sharia Commission and other big names were aware of the girl’s change of faith and how nobody can do anything to change it.
Elder Bawa’s family members were helpless and advice Bawa to take the case to Hakimin Miya (Village Head of Miya), Alhaji Sulaiman Yakubu.
From his story, it was clear that there was a conspiracy of silence as security agencies which were contacted and the Sharia Commission kept on passing the buck of securing Grace’s release to her parents to one another.
At one time, when he, in company of his pastor and a deacon from his church, went to Dauda’s house to secure his daughter’s release, the Sharia Commission threatened to arrest Grace and punish her if she dares have close dealings with her “infidel” father.
To cut the story short, Miss Grace was finally re-united with her parents after much pressure from her pastor and the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Bauchi State chapter. Interestingly, the police initially asked the father to take the issue to court as it was, according to them, a civil case!
Ese Oruru
Narrating his experience about his daughter’s abduction, Mr. Oruru said: “On August 12, 2015, when I returned from work, I was told that Ese had gone to see her classmate who had an accident at Tombia.
“When she did not return home, we began a search and one Mohammed (alias Daidi) informed us that one Mr. Yunusa (alias Yellow) had taken Ese to Kano to convert her into Islam, recruit her into an Islamist fanatical group, and marry her!
“I want to make it clear that no one consulted me or paid me brideprice for my daughter. Besides, she is too young, just 13, and is still in school. I do not have any prior knowledge or consented to what happened.”
Mr. Oruru hails from Delta State and lives in the neighbouring Bayelsa State, eking out a living. He stressed that his wife is a food vendor and her customers are mostly Hausa men, who she sometime gives free meals. He made it clear that the said Mr. Yunusa does not have a steady source of income.
“Sometimes my wife gives him free meal,” he added.
“As much as I know, he was not having any affair with my daughter and I am sure that he must have used charms.”
Acting on the above information, Mrs. Rose Oruru, Ese mother, approached one, Dan Kano, who not only confirmed the story but also promised to take her to Kano to recover Ese.
Dan Kano reneged on his promise and rather sent one Rabiu to accompany Mrs Oruru to Kano.
“We were advised that only my wife should go to Kano”, the Orurus later revealed to human rights activists.
On August 14, 2015, Mrs. Oruru went to Kano in the company of Rabiu who took her to the chief of a village called Tufa in Kura Local Government Area of Kano State.
After relaying the purpose of their visit, the said chief was furious with Rabiu for bringing Mrs. Oruru to Kano and told them that Ese had been converted to Islam, renamed Aisha and married to Yunusa and that Ese was no longer a child of the Orurus!
It took pressures from Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State who had to contact his Kano State counterpart; executive director, Kindling Hope Across Nations Initiative, KHAN, Kizito Andah; initiators of #BringBackEseOruru campaign; co-ordinator, UNICEF Child Protection Network and Bayelsa Legal Aids Council, Kombo Eze; Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Bayelsa State; Arch Bishop Jacob Akpiri; vice president-general, Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Bayelsa State Chapter; and South-South commissioner, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, Alhaji Abdulrahman Eneware among others, to secure Ese’s release.
The Urhobo Monitoring and Development Group, UMDG, led by its president, Mr. Kingsley Oberuruaria, had earlier issued a two-week ultimatum to the Kano State government and Emir of Kano to produce Ese Oruru.
Unfortunately, Ese was already pregnant at the time of her release and is now nursing a baby.
Habiba Isiyaku Tanko
Speaking to journalists in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, the father of Habiba, Isiyaku Tanko, said his 14-year old daughter was abducted on August 16, 2016 by one Jamilu Lawal, an official of the Emir of Katsina and a member of the palace staff and married off to the said Jamilu. The “Fatiha” was alledged to have been conducted in the emir’s palace.
Tanko, who spoke through his lawyer, Barrister Yakubu Bawa, decried the manner in which the Emir’s staff manhandled him when he went to the palace in his attempt to secure the release of his daughter.
He also complained about the mishandling of the matter by both the inspector general of police, Ibrahim Idris, and the Katsina State commissioner of police, Usman Abdullahi.
According to Tanko, he was referred to the “Kilishin Katsina” who told him, “come, since your daughter has converted to Islam, you cannot have her again. There is a big barrier between you and your daughter now.”
Tanko said even though he pleaded for his daughter to be released to him so that she can practice her newly found faith in his house, the Kilishin Katsina told him what he was asking for was not possible.
Tanko said he was compelled, under duress, in a statement, to sign that the complaint he made to the police was not true. He left the palace shattered, broken, helpless and emotional broken.
Habiba is about clocking three months now in captivity.
Barr. Bawa described “the abduction and procurement of a Christian minor, Habiba Isiyaku, as vicious, barbaric, a callous act and one among many atrocities done to Christians not only in Katsina but now gaining ground in the entire Northern Nigeria.” He warned that if nothing is done to stop the ugly tide, the nation might be brewing another crisis of unfathomable level if Christians start doing same.
Also speaking, an official of Stefanos Foundation, a non-governmental organisation which has been struggling to secure the release of Habiba, Mark Lipdo, decried the pain the Isiyaku Tanko family has been going through since the forceful abduction of their daughter.
“Habiba is expected to clock 15 years on Saturday, 15th October, 2016 and would have resumed school in the new academic term,” Lipdo said.
He said Habiba passed her Junior Secondary School, JSS, examination in flying colours and was expected to start Senior Secondary School (SSS1) this new term.
Efforts to make Idris to intervene in the matter were said to have received no positive response from Police Headquarters Abuja.
Idris is also said to have failed to respond to the letter forwarded to his office calling on the police to secure Habiba’s release from her abductors. For now, innocent Habiba is still in the custody of her captors and being sexually assaulted, no doubt. A stitch in good time will certainly save this minor from becoming pregnant and having a child from this unholy link like the case of Ese Oruru.
Some Christian parents are now even sceptical of allowing their teenage girls to have anything to do with even Muslim girls as friends; so that they are not lured into relationships that will lead to another abduction and marriage against parents’ wish, considering the innocent minds of such minors.
The Conspiracy of Silence
Quiet clear, there is a conspiracy of silence on the forceful abduction, conversion to Islam and marrying off of teenage Christian girls in Northern Nigeria. One wonders what Northern CAN, National CAN, Northern States Christian Elders’ Forum (NOSCEF) and other Christian bodies and influential individuals in the North are doing to stop it. Nobody seems to be saying enough. Mum is the word now.
To keep silence when things are not right is more dangerous than raising an alarm so that one can be heard. We cannot keep the world moving in this way when there are means to correct it.
Silence in many ways means it does not matter for now, but when it will matter, it will always be too late.
It should be sad that God’s people are in this category of people. God’s people, (for reasons certainly not from Heaven) have decided not to even advocate against the injustice meted out to others. They think it is holiness to ‘mind-your-own-business.’
May be it is worthwhile to remember that, “When The Sentence Of A Crime Is Not Quickly Carried Out, The Hearts Of The People Are Filled With Schemes To Do Wrong.” Ecclesiastes 8:11
God help Nigeria.
Lenham Denham Dilli is a minister of the gospel and a communications professional. He is a graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Connect with him on Facebook.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
