By Femi Fani-Kayode
Senator and former Governor Ahmed Sani, the Yerima Bakura, has finally had
his way. The Nigerian Senate has bowed to his will and agreed to be silent
about the age that young girls can get married in Nigeria. What this means once
it is followed through and enshrined in our laws and Constitution is that girls
that are as young as nine years old, provided they are deemed as having been
‘’physically developed enough’’ by their suitors, could be lawfully bedded and
married in our country. That is the sordid level that we have now, as a people
and as a nation, degenerated to. I weep for Nigeria and, perhaps more
appropiately, I weep for the Nigerian girl-child. Yet we have no choice
but to live with this new reality and to accept it as it is. After all, our
representatives in the sacred halls of the Senate were not sensitive enough or
‘’man enough’’ to shoot down the whole thing, to stand firmly against the
unholy agenda and to say boldly and firmly that, ‘’come what may’’, our
children must be protected from sexual deviants and reprobates.
And since the Senate, in its infinite wisdom, has now endorsed the
“Paedophile Charter”, which essentially seeks to make it lawful and
constitutional for very young girls to get married and to
have sex, it is my view that we have now become a nation of perverts and
paedophiles. Every Nigerian should bow his or her head in shame because what
the Senate did and seeks to do in the future, by beginning the
process to amend our Constitution in order for it to cater for the filthy
appetite and godless fantasies of child molestors and sexual predators is sordid,
ungodly and unforgiveable.
Surely, we ought to be seeking to protect our children and not seeking to
bed them. Yet it appears that not everyone shares our outrage and collective
sense of shame. One Uche Ezechukwu made the following contribution which went
viral on the social media networks and which I think speaks volume.
According to him, whatever was done in the time of old can as well be done
in modern times – no matter how crude.
I am appalled by these words. The truth is that I have never heard such a
self-serving and specious argument in defence of the philosophies and beliefs
of Senator Ahmed Sani, who married a 12-year- old Egyptian girl, as
this one. Ahmed Sani himself could not have argued it better. Yet I think that
it is an utter shame. And this is more so because the individual that is
putting the argument is supposedly a Christian. The Old Testament of the
Holy Bible prescribes ‘’stoning’’
for adultery but that does not mean that Christian countries, or indeed secular
states like Nigeria, should stone adulterers.
Neither does it mean that we should preserve the institution of slavery or
crucify petty thieves simply because the Holy Bible endorsed both practices in
the Old Testament. We must accept the fact that the interpretation of biblical
and koranic provisions are evolutionary and are ever changing. Jesus Himself
said ‘’laws are made for man and not man for laws’’. The suggestion that
paedophilia has any place in any modern and decent society simply because it
was once practised in the distant past is not only a despicable argument but it
also does not make any sense. After all, cannibalism and child and human
sacrifices were once widely practised and were held as being perfectly
acceptable throughout the world as well but that does not mean that we should
practice any of those terrible vices today.
The young man, Uche Ezechukwu, who appears to be defending
child rape in the name of islam, should either let someone lay with and
‘’marry’’ his own six or seven-year-old daughter or he should seal his lips
forever and stop trying to defend the indefensible. His assertions, and I
daresay those of Senator Sani and anyone that shares their primitive
views, are not only utterly immoral and reprehensible but they are also
intellectually dishonest. I say this because the truth is that there is NO
Muslim country in the world that has adopted the “paedophile charter” where six
or seven year olds can marry and be bedded except for possibly Saudi Arabia and
Iran.
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| David Mark presiding over Senate plenary |
Every other Muslim country in the world, including Indonesia, Pakistan,
Malaysia, Egypt, Jordan, Senegal, the Sudan, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Lebanon,
Palestine,
United Arab Emirates,
Bangladesh, Qatar, Bahrain, Dagestan,
Albania,
Bosnia, Somalia, Algeria, Libya, Mali, Azerbijhan and Syria, have,
specifically, banned child marriage, paedophilia and child rape in their
various constitutions and laws and some have declared it ‘’repugnant’’,
‘’unacceptable’’ and ‘’unislamic’’. Are these people not Muslims too?
Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a noble, pure, honourable and
ancient faith that seeks to protect the weakest and most vulnerable in society,
including children. No one should use the misinterpretation of its provisions
to try to justify or rationalise what is essentially depraved, shameful,
disgusting and barbaric behaviour and the most sordid and filthy expression of
sexual deviance and perversion. Even animals do not marry or bed their own
infants. The bitter truth is that paedophiles have no place in any civilised
society.
I am constrained to say that in the light of their “yes” vote to child
marriage and their green light to paedophilia, every single member of the
Nigerian Senate should bow his or her head in utter shame and should be
compelled to offer their own infant and under age daughters for marriage. I
repeat, they have turned us into a nation of perverts and paedophiles.
