by Eze Eluchie,
In a year
when the national economy nosedived with inflation spiraling out of control
forcing many Nigerians to dispense with their cultural and traditional
hospitable nature; when terror elements had a field day blowing up stuff and
maiming at will despite bogus claims of the terrorists having been ‘technically
defeated’; and when some erstwhile intellectual role models for the youths
incredulously somersaulted from Olympian heights to unfathomable depths from
which they will most probably not be able to climb out before their demise –
one of them who had climbed to prominence via criticizing societal ails turned
to abusing the entire population for daring to point out his glaringly silly
gaffe concerning electoral outcomes in foreign lands, and the other who had
through the course of his life pretended to be interested in true Federalism
and supremacy of the constitution turning round, for lucre, to praising brutal
attacks by security operatives on the judiciary and mocking the practice of
separation of powers upon which our pretense at democracy is hinged; it would
ordinarily appear that all hope is lost for the Nigerian contraption and there
is none in the land worthy of being singled out as a positive role model, a
person of the year.
Far from it!
It is in the midst of adversity and tribulations that the goodness in our
peoples shone the more.
People who
seem to have comparatively less prove more generous. Families who had a sole
bag of grain willingly shared out measures from their store to those less
endowed; Cooperatives emerged where none had hitherto existed to soften the
economic strain on their members; neighbors anonymously paid for the school
fees when they noticed youngsters who ought to be in school loitering around
long after their mates had returned to school; Muslim families risked all to
harbor and accommodate non-Muslim neighbors when that bout of murderous lust
for blood that has become the norm in our northern fringes sets in; Our
peoples, in their various localities, live and exhibit the best qualities of
humanity, giving lie to the perception their ruler wants the international
community to know them by – as a ‘fantastically corrupt’ specie of the human
race.
In Year
2016, one woman rose head and shoulders above her country folks to best exposé
the virtues of an irrepressible spirit, fearlessness and
never-say-die-till-goal-is-achieved attitude imbued in the average Nigerian and
qualify to be recognized as the Nigerian of the Year, a role model most worthy
of emulation.
When her 14-year
old daughter (Ese Oruru) was kidnapped from right under her nose in Yenegoa (Bayelsa
State) in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region by a philanderous butcher (Yunusa Dahiru) who disappeared
into the uncharted Nigerian wilderness, Mrs. Rose Oruru did not consign herself
to wailing and gnashing of teeth. This Amazon, in the face of the usual and most
unfortunate failure of the local police authorities to conduct proper investigations apprehend and prosecute culprits,
plunged herself head-on into rescuing her daughter. Mrs. Oruru’s personal
investigations led her, over a thousand kilometres away, to the Palace of the
Islamic ruler of Kano city, the Emir, where her daughter’s kidnapper had taken
refuge and where a sham marriage had been conducted to forcefully join the
kidnapped under-aged girl in matrimony with her kidnapper.
At great
risk to her life, Mrs. Oruru, who was making her very first visit to Kano
State, pestered the entrance of the Palace of the Emir of Kano (a huge
fortified premises with hundreds of rough thugs serving as a first-layer of
security) imploring on anyone who cared to listen to help retrieve her daughter
from the kidnapper and his very ‘politically powerful’ overlords. Mrs. Oruru’s
uncommon valour and insistence caught the police and state authorities
flat-footed with all manners of despicable denials and statements emanating
from the various Commands of the Nigerian Police (Bayelsa and Kano State in
particular) through whom the kidnap case had passed through without any real
actions being taken and the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force, Mr.
Solomon Arase, who elevated the shame of the Police to arduous levels when he asserted that though
the Police Force knew where the kidnapped girl was being kept, the release of
the under-aged girl was dependent on approval by the Emir of Kano, Mr. Sanusi
Lamido Sanusi, (a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria) who was then
performing the holy pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. True to the IGP’s words,
the under-aged girl was only released to her mother upon the return of Mr.
Sanusi to Nigeria a few days later.
As a result
of the publicity generated by Mrs. Oruru’s heroism, several other instances of
parents (mostly Christians) who were suffering from helplessness at the kidnap
and forced ‘marriage’ of their under-aged children under the patronage of
Islamic rulers across several cities in Nigeria’s northern region were brought
to light. The diabolical pattern of kidnap of under-aged girls and forced
‘marriage’ of such girls to their kidnappers has continued unabated without any
efforts at quelling this most inhumane of crimes by Nigerian authorities.
Ese Oruru
has since given birth to the product of rape during her ‘forced marriage’ to her
kidnapper; The kidnapper of Ese Oruru remains a free man.
For her
tenacity of purpose, efforts at self-help which resulted in the rescue of her
kidnapped daughter, bringing to limelight the dastard vice of kidnap of
under-aged girls and forced marriage under Shari’a which has continued till
date in Nigeria, helping others in her situation to come out with their own
tales of woes and seek solution, her dexterity, her leadership and serving as a
role model worthy of emulation, Mrs. Rose Oruru is the 2016 Nigerian of the
Year!
Picture: Mrs Rose Oruru (in red)
surrounded by Police Officers.
