Our Collective Shame

By Kemi Wale - Olaitan

TEARS welled up in my eyes and I wept. I wept for womanhood. I wept for the young girls at the thresh old of their womanhood. I wept for motherhood; indeed, I wept for Nigeria. How did we get to this point? How did we come about the idea of selling our girls off into prostitution so as to care for the family? It is the highest level of embarrassment to watch Nigerian girls on CNN parading the streets of Europe ,working to earn dollars for a faceless pimp in whose slavery web they are trapped.

The sad truth is not so much as the deceit that drove them into the enemy’s trap, but the realisation of the connivance of their own parents in this bitter web of life. As I watched the CNN special feature, world’s Untold Stories, not long ago, I felt my skin crawl as the young girl being interviewed told a bitter story of how she was lured away from her home, encouraged by her parents in order to get a lucrative job abroad only to get to Europe to discover that she had been trapped into prostitution. And in an interview with a rural woman in Edo State, the tragedy of our lives was clearly exposed; to the interviewer’s question on whether she was ready to release her baby daughter to be taken abroad, the woman’s response was an enthusiastic YES. It is the tragedy of a nation.

Can we really say that it is poverty that has led us to this? I beg to disagree, for apart from the lack of financial strength, our major problem is the poverty of values, integrity and culture. In a situation where we lay more emphasis on the acquisition of wealth rather than on the making of good name, what is to be expected? Stop for a minute and ask yourself, would you not rather allow your beloved child to buy the question from whatever source rather than re-sit that examination? Did I hear you say of course? So, what makes you a better person than the poor rural woman who would rather sell a child out of so many to feed the family rather than allow all to go hungry? That is the poverty of our life.

The craze for material things has blinded our eyes to the significance of so many important virtues in life. To many of us, values are relative. As long as it gives you an edge over the other person, then it is an important value. But as soon as it involves having to make sacrifice in any form, then it becomes a problem. Until we get to the level of searching the individual’s mind and telling ourselves home truths, we cannot move forward. And more importantly, we cannot continue to operate on such defective system and expect to have a better future.

Or what kind of a woman can we expect a girl who was sold into sex slavery by her own parents to grow up to be? What manner of a mother can such a girl be if at all she can manage to have a child of her own after years of hurricane invasion of her body? A friend of mine recounted her experience at an examination centre where she had taken her daughter for the last GCE exams. She dropped the young girl at the centre and drove away to allow time for the exam. It was close to the end of the paper that she got a phone call from a friend informing her that the young girl had been weeping and she rushed there only to meet a closed gate. At the end of the exam, she was made to understand that the girl and other candidates at the centre were refused additional sheets with which to complete their answers. When asked, the invigilators claimed they were not provided enough for the paper. Much later, on investigation, it was discovered that the invigilators were hoarding these answer sheets so as to be able to provide enough for their fraudulent friends who would need them for cheating.

This they provided at a high price at the expense of legitimate candidates who have passed through the normal procees. It is a big shame to note that many parents are in the racket, drawing in their innocent kids and thus, preparing them for a future of crime. One wonders why there is a cold response from government to the issue, especially the girls’ trafficking racket. Perhaps, we are seeing here the usual response of government to everything female: not very important; it is simply a female affair. But we are forgetting that the future of the country lies in the hands of the women. After all, women are the ones with the most important role of nurturing the leaders of tomorrow.

When a child is not well nurtured by an unbalanced mother, herself a product of a warped society, your guess is as good as mine of what the product would look like. The slogan, ‘train a woman and you have trained a nation’ can not be more in this situation. A nation that neglects her women neglects her tomorrows. The time is ripe for a serious response to this issue of girls’ trafficking less we continue to perpetuate our current image of being a laughing stock in the comity of nations. It is our collective shame, we should address it now|

Kemi Wale-Olaitan wrote from Ibadan

What Does Achike Udenwa Want?
By Basil Fejukwu

The Nigerian media can be very fascinating at times, especially with its liberal nature. The hallmark of a robust academic tradition is the freedom to disagree, but within the limits of decency. This same characteristic is easily discernible each day one opens the pages of the Nigerian newspapers. Right from the colonial times, the media has always been engaging adversarial when occasion demands. The anti-colonial struggle which led to the Nigeria’s independence was largely fought on the pages of newspapers with the likes of the reverred Ernest Okoli, Nnamdi Azikiwe, MCK Ajuluchukwu leading the way. Again, it is on record that the resistance to military dictatorship in Nigeria between 1984 and 1999 was largely championed by the media with General Sani Abacha being the last of such despots. But that is not to say that sections of the media do not, sometimes, engage in activities which border on reaction. To every ten progressive write-ups in the newspapers, be sure that there will be one or two that are reactionary.

On this note, I was not disappointed last week going through two leading Nigerian dailies of Sunday, May 4 (the Vanguard and the Daily Independent). Of interest to me were the seemingly contrasting reports of the two influential publications. In the Sunday Vanguard, a respected columnist, Dr. Dele Sobowale, did a piece which is like a fore-taste of his own assessment of the 36 governors in the last one year. In the said article, he then proceeds to list a few governors who, in his own opinion, have performed creditably during the period under review. In the South-east zone, he listed Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State as one of the few exemplars who have matched action with rhetoric in the last twelve months. In fact, he likened Ohakim to the Napoleon of Igboland. If Ohakim is today described in such superlative terms, it is perhaps, in recognition of his remarkable success in the governorship elections of 2007. From being an under-dog, the man from Okigwe senatorial district posted a stunning upset. Before the elections, the political landscape of Imo was full of contenders who could be described as men of “timber and calibre”. But like the proverbial David with a slingshot, Ohakim downed the Goliath. Thus, he emerged the giant-killer.

Well, though I may have one or two reservations about Ohakim with regards to the implementation of one of his otherwise laudable policies in Imo, I quite concur that on every other yardstick, Sobowale is right on target as regards his plaudits for Ohakim as a man of action who, within twelve months, has done a few great things in my beloved home state, Imo State. But if the tone of the Vanguard piece was celebratory, not so with a report featured by the Daily Independent. In the story, statements were copiously attributed to former Imo Governor, Chief Achike Udenwa, which tended to belittle Ohakim’s feat in the 2007 elections. Simply put, the immediate past governor of Imo tried to claim glory for the emergence of Ohakim in the said elections. This is what I found a bit absurd because both belong to different political parties (the former is PDP and the latter PPA). But the truth Udenwa did not admit was that he failed as the leader of PDP in Imo and also failed as the state chief executive officer. How are the mighties fallen! Isn’t it a shame that despite being incumbent, PDP could not organise acceptable primary elections. The details of the party primaries that ended in a fiasco are too well-known to warrant a recap here. But it is suffice to say that the chaotic outcome of the PDP primaries is, by no means, a compliment to Udenwa.

Indeed, maybe we should forgive the former governor because he appears ignorant of the dire implications of his words. It is akin to a self-indictment. As if that is not ridiculous enough, Udenwa now claims to have had “a deal” with the PPA’s candidate to “cross over to PDP” after his victory. This story is hardly new, though. We heard it in the past, especially shortly after the change of guard in Imo last year. The rumour-mongers had it then that it was a matter of weeks - if not days - before the new helmsman would cross over to the ruling party. Such projection was quite easy to rationalise in view of the reality on the ground then. The state assembly was dominated by PDP. So, it was quite easy to imagine that sheer survivalist instincts would compel the new governor to do “what is needful”. In response, the Ohakim camp had denied the story and even challenged its peddlers to show proof of such an agreement. To date, no one has come forward to disprove the Ohakim camp. In the circumstance, one is, therefore, persuaded to believe that all these stories about “a secret pact” are nothing but the machination of mischief-makers or those envious of the visible achievements of the Ohakim administration in the last twelve months. Truly, success has many fathers.

Hon. Basil Fejukwu wrote from Owerri.