Oh Nigeria, how sick can a person be?
It’s near impossible to commit an action without both positive and negative consequences.
I have learnt enough from my time on this planet that there are two sides to every story, and near every deed elicits some response, whether applause or ridicule. But can there ever be an action that is just plain wrong? One that no matter how much it’s beamed under the spotlight, there can be no shred of good sense in it? Well step forward, the Nigerian Senate, and prove me wrong.
I don’t know which is worse: what they have done or what they have refused to do. The fact that they have refused to tackle the issues affecting the citizenry, or the fact that they permit child marriage.
No, you didn’t read that wrong: the Nigerian Senate have effectively made it legal for children to be married, by permitting Senator Ahmed Yerima to sit in the house.
This sorry excuse for a man – the same buffoon who introduced Sharia law to the country, if memory serves me right – is reported to have married an Egyptian girl all of 13 years of age.
Yerima denies she is 13, but that’s hard to believe when the man himself is quoted as saying: “For those who wonder if I can give my daughter out in marriage at the age of nine or 13, I tell you most honestly, I can give her out at the age of six if I want to and it’s not your business. This is because I am a Muslim and I follow the example of the best of mankind, Muhammad.”
This is not from an interview in which he was rushed to give an answer – it was a press release. How sick can a person be?
If I know one thing, I know that child marriage cannot and should not be allowed in Nigeria. It should not be allowed anywhere in the world among human beings, full stop. It’s bad enough that young girls have to experience the trauma of VVF in childbirth, but it’s a different kind of evil if they suffer it at the hands of vile rapists who commit these abominable acts in secret, but then connive to make it acceptable under the law.
Even apart from that, how can a girl who is barely a teenager make any lasting decision on whom to spend the rest of her life with? What demonic being has the effrontery to sleep with a girl whose idea of fun is a slumber party with her friends or listening to Justin Bieber? How can it be right for a girl to have to pick out baby clothes when her peers are picking out One Direction dolls?
What’s coming next? Shall we legalise murder if I don’t accept your religious beliefs? Or maybe ban bacon because your holy book says I shouldn’t eat it? But now, the evil this house of pain already permits is bad enough.
We must reverse this travesty now or the hottest parts of hell, right next to Adolf Hitler’s cave, become our abode. Oh, what surprise that would be – eh, Ahmed?
Olajide Jatto is a software engineer and writer based in Dublin.
