http://dailypost.ng/2016/03/08/arrest-teenage-abduction-and-forceful-marriages-nawoj-urges-security-agencies/

teenage abduction and forceful marriages – NAWOJ urges security agencies
By Amos Tauna on March 8, 2016@dailypostngr


Fatiah’s daughter Idil (age 11) has not and will not be exposed to FGM, her mother insists. Fatiah Mohamed (age 38) has given birth to 10 children, six of whom have survived. At the age of 8, her father’s new wife took her to undergo Female Genital Mutilation (FGM); a devastating procedure that was to cause problems for many years to follow. After suffering a fistula following the birth of her tenth child, Fatiah was isolated from her family and community. When she heard World Vision was working with fistula sufferers, she sought help and after a successful surgery she has become a strong advocate against FGM. “My daughters have not had FGM, and they will not – my experience was so bad, I am determined. When we show the problem, people will change.” No story or summary available. Africa digital color horizontal






The Nigeria Association of Women Journalists ( NAWOJ ), has appealed to security agencies to rise up to their constitutional responsibilities by curbing the current wave of teenage abduction and forceful marriages that are becoming a recurrent.

In a press statement jointly signed by NAWOJ National President, Ifeyinwa Omowole‎ and National Secretary Ladi Patrick to mark today’s International Women Day,‎ the statement said‎ the recent abduction of 13 year-old Ese Oruru from Bayelsa and others in parts of the country was alarming.





The statement said, “The situation has brought to light the lapses of security agencies to enforce laws contained in the nation’s constitution.

“It is common knowledge that the limitation to all fundamental human rights is that one’s right stops where another person’s rights begins.

“It is in view of this that the NAWOJ condemns in totality the recent wave of abduction of minors, their abuse and forceful marriage, while security agencies seem to be onlookers waiting to be told what to do.

“There is,therefore, an urgent need for management of security agencies to train their men to understand the dictates of the constitution, Child Rights Act and what amounts to infringement of the fundamental rights.






“Security Agencies must know who a minor is and what the law says about minors in Nigeria.

“We are calling on the authorities to ensure that all those involved in the abduction of Ese are prosecuted. The security agencies and the judiciary should ensure accelerated prosecution and punishment to serve as deterrent.

“Also security agencies and school owners should ensure that schools are well secured to forestal the reoccurrence of the abduction of three female students of Barbinton Macaulay School in Lagos, where three female students were abducted. We also want to commend the Lagos government and security agencies for the rescue of the girls.”

NAWOJ called on the Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, to fulfill her call in 2015 on all Nigerian states by adopting and implementing the Child Rights Act in their states.

“We call on you, wife of the President, to use your good office to push for the adoption of the Act, so that the abuse of the girl-child will be checked: these children are mothers of tomorrow, not mothers today.

“NAWOJ also calls on the wives of the 36 state governors, especially states yet to adopt the Act to encourage their husbands to do so: it is our duty as mothers and fathers to protect our children and nurture them safely to adulthood,” the statement added.

Something needs to be done about the lastest approach by boko haram people to islamisation.

Quite sad the state of our country. muslims need prayers for healing from the disease of islam.

http://www.punchng.com/shocking-child-abduction-forceful-marriage-cases/



March 3, 2016


Aside from Ese Oruru, cases of child abduction and forceful marriages abound in the country, SIMON EJEMBI and TEMILOLUWA BAMGBOSE write

The abduction of Ese Oruru shocked Nigerians for several reasons. She had been abducted in August 2015 by Yinusa, a longstanding customer of her mother, Rose, a food vendor.

Yinusa, a tricycle rider, had taken Ese, who was 13 at the time, to Kano, had her converted to Islam and forcibly married her.

Her abductors resisted efforts by her parents and a non-governmental organisation, KHAN Initiatives, to secure the release of the 14-year-old and take her home.



Curiously, though her parents knew where she was and whom she was with, it took eight months to free her.

Others are shocked that she was converted into Islam and forcefully married by Yinusa even though she is a minor.

Some others are angered that security operatives, especially the police, failed to free the girl.

Her parents are shocked that some, including those who aided Yinusa to convert her, insist that she was 18 even when they had told them their daughter was a minor.

Many Nigerians, including some government officials, who only heard about it after The PUNCH launched the “Free Ese” campaign, are still puzzled. And they, along with some federal lawmakers, have called for the prosecution of those who contravened the country’s laws in respect of the abduction.

“Ese’s case has brought to the fore the need to protect the rights of children and women in our society,” the Minister of Women Affairs, Sen. Jummai Alhassan, said on Monday while calling for the release of the 14-year-old.

“The Child Rights Act says no person under 18 is capable of contracting a valid marriage, and a marriage so contracted is null and void.

“The Act also clearly states that anyone who marries a child is liable to a fine of N500,000 or five years imprisonment or both.”

Beyond Ese, cases of forced marriages, and abduction of teenagers, among others, abound in the country

Wasila Taisu

In 2014, the name of 15-year-old Wasila Taisu, from Unguwar Yansoro, Kano State, made it to the papers for one of the most unusual things a girl of her age could be popular for – murder. Taisu appeared in court charged with killing her 35-year-old husband, Umaru Sani.

According to the police, Taisu admitted to killing her husband and three of his friends by lacing a meal with rat poison because she did not love Sani, but was forcibly married to him.

Taisu reportedly told her lawyer, Hussaina Ibrahim, that she had been tied to the bed and raped by Sani on their wedding night.

The child bride poisoned her husband only 17 days after the wedding.

In May 2015, the prosecution dropped the murder charge against the teenager.

Wasila-Tasiu 14, was charged to court for poisoning her husband 35

Zainab Usman

At 13, Zainab, from Kwassaw village in Zamfara State, had at least two suitors who had approached her father for her hand in marriage. However, Zainab’s father, Ibrahim Kanuma, considered one of the suitors, a 63-year-old at that time, to be too old. So he settled for his friend, a 40-year-old man. Zainab resisted and chose to stay in school. She is now a child rights activist.

Maimuna Abdullahi

In June 2014, Maimuna Abdullahi from Kaduna State was still 14 years old when she was given out in marriage to Mahammadu Saidu, who abused her, locked her away and engaged her in hard labour. When she ran home, she was beaten, first by her father, then her husband, who later summarily divorced her for daring to run away. Maimuna was left to suffer, uncared for several weeks before the Founder of the Tattalli Free School, Saadatu Aliyu, took her in and gave her a new life.



Maimuna Abdulmunini

In 2007, four years after the passage of the Child Rights Act, the police arrested and arraigned 13-year-old Maimuna Abdulmunini for killing her 35-year-old husband.

She allegedly burnt the man to death because she was forced to marry him. The case dragged on till Maimuna became 18 in 2012. Then she was convicted for murder and sentenced to death. In 2014, a court ruled that the death sentence was a violation of the teenager’s rights.

Kidnap of the Orekoya kids

One of the most shocking stories of 2015 happened in Lagos in April. A nanny, employed by Mr. and Mrs. Leke Orekoya, via online sales portal, OLX, kidnapped three of their children only two days after resuming work.

More shocking was the fact that one of them was just a baby; they were aged 11 months, four and six.

The abductors demanded N13m as ransom for the children. Fortunately, for the Orekoyas, the police rescued the children a week later as well as arrested the nanny.

It turned out that the nanny, who told her employees that her name was Mary Adebiyi, was actually Funmilayo Adeyemi, a member of a kidnap syndicate.

Adeyemi confessed that she was the mastermind of the crime and that she orchestrated the kidnap of two boys in 2014.

Adeyemi was in the syndicate with her husband, her brother in-law and wife, while her mother-in-law was also involved in the abduction of the Orekoya kids.
Funmilayo Adeyemi and the Orekoya kids she abductedFunmilayo Adeyemi and the Orekoya kids she abducted
Felicia Destiny and Esther Wisdom’s ordeal

In January 2011, seven-year-old Felicia Destiny was abducted at Okpekpe in the Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State by a herbalist, Emmanuel Akpan-Okon.

Akpan-Okon also abducted Esther Wisdom and turned both girls into sex slaves. It was not until November 2015 when both girls were 11 that the police rescued them.

“I never believed I would see my daughter again. I almost died when she was kidnapped in 2011. I am very happy to see her again. I thank the Cross River Police command for rescuing my daughter from the hands of her captor,” Felicia’s mother said after reuniting with her daughter.
Felicia Destiny and Esther Wisdom Felicia Destiny and Esther Wisdom
Lagos female students kidnapped

The latest abduction happened on Monday night in Lagos and it involved violence. Gunmen stormed the Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary in the Ikorodu area of Lagos and seized three schoolgirls.

A visit by the Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Zone 2 Command, Bala Hassan; Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Fatai Owoseni, as well as a helicopter search of the school’s vicinity has yet to bring solace to the parents of the abducted pupils.

Meanwhile, Hassan has assured parents of the children that security operatives would do everything possible to rescue them.

“The important thing is to rescue them (and get them) safely back to their parents. It may take a couple of days and it may even be today. We are still going to the offices to do one or two things that will facilitate the recovery of these children.

“For now, we want to keep the identities of the children to our chest and see what we can do today, tomorrow. I want to assure you that the security forces are on top of the situation,” he said.

Mrs. Ushie’s heartache

In September, a man in his 20s was introduced to a fashion designer, Mrs. Ushie, in Boundary, Ajegunle, Lagos.

The young man wanted to become her apprentice and paid the N5,000 she requested for the training.

Four days after he resumed, the boy she knew only as Ayomide disappeared with her two-year-old son, David Ushie.

She had left her son in Ayomide’s care for a short while, returning to find the boy missing. Calls to his numbers yielded no results and she had no clue where he lived.

As of December, neither her son nor the apprentice had been found.



The church as den of rituals

Around 6am on June 25, 2014, Mrs. Gloria Emeka, who resided in the Ogolonto area of Lagos, raised the alarm that she could not find her seven-year-old son.

Her neighbours rallied round her and went in search of the boy she had sent to fetch water from a well earlier.

Among the neighbours who joined the search was Mrs. Rosemary Chukwu, who showed great concern about the development. Two people even went down the well to ensure that the boy did not fall in.

Chukwu eventually left the search party, informing the neighbours that she had a luggage to deliver, promising to join the search afterwards.

She emerged later with a large box on her head and went on her way. As she passed, a suspicious woman urged the neighbours to search the box. When they attempted to do that, she took off.

So, when she was caught the boy was found gagged, but alive in the box.

Chukwu, known as a prayer warrior in the neighbourhood, was a ritualist and she was allegedly said to be taking the boy to the pastor of a church.

The event, no doubt, brought out the other side of the church as a ritualists’ den. At the church and to the shock of many across the country, eight frail men and women were found shackled and rescued. One of them had been in captivity in the church since 2012.

Chibok girls

The story of the Chibok girls is in a class of its own. Nigeria has not recovered from it. In fact, many have concluded that the victims and their parents may never recover from trauma accompanying the abduction.

On April 15, 2014, reports came from insurgency-battered Borno State that more than 200 schoolgirls had been abducted from their hostels in Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok.

Though the military responded and arrived at the school, what they met was the charred remains of the school, and wailing and heartbroken parents and pupils.

Boko Haram had gone beyond madness and given a horrified world one of its most shocking and embarrassing cases of kidnapping involving children in recent memory.

Two days after the abduction, the Nigerian military had announced that all but eight of the girls had been freed, but parents and officials of the schools insisted that only 20 of the missing girls had escaped from the kidnappers and returned to their homes. This had forced the military to retract their statements about the rescue.

The girls’ abduction and the shocking negligence displayed by the Federal Government generated global attention and a year later played a crucial role in the ouster of the former President Goodluck Jonathan, who was blamed for responding late to the distress call. Two years on, the girls have yet to be found.
Parents of the abducted Chibok girls during a protest to the Presidential Villa, Abuja... on Thursday Photo: Olatunji ObasaParents of the abducted Chibok girls during a protest to the Presidential Villa, Abuja… on Thursday Photo: Olatunji Obasa
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Contact: editor@punchng.com

All that is required is for a single world power to pick an interest and Nigeria is history.

There is nothing Buharii body odour can do about it.

We had a similar illiterate islamist in Sudan saying same until the world power broke Sudan into North and South.

There is seriously something wrong with muslims, their are no normal one amongst them up North. Just a bunch of mentally deranged sicko. Proper Head case!

Whilst we condemn crime and criminality down south, in the north it is a religious commitment to commit crime. The Sharia court will quote religious passages of the rape of Aisha to justify your crime. Can u see the difference now?

Buhari Killing Of Biafra And Supporting Palestine Is Hypocrisy – PPP
Written by Online Editor 02 March 2016 Politics Comments::1 Comment
0
The People’s Progressive Par­ty (PPP), on Tuesday hit hard at President Muham­madu Buhari over his statement on the efforts at self-determina­tion by the Palestinians during his recent visit to Qatar.
Buhari had while expressing his support for the statehood of Palestine, noted that the City of Jerusalem should be approved as the capital of the Arab state which has been decades of conflict with the state of Israel.

In a reaction to the Presi­dent’s stand, the PPP described it as hypocritical and highly dishon­est and called on him to give a sec­ond thought to the issue of Biafra in Nigeria.

In a statement signed on Tues­day in Abuja by PPP National Chairman, Dr. Damian Uzoma Ogbonna, the party said it agreed with the President on the principle and right to self-determination as enshrined in the relevant United Nations (UN) Charter and UN Se­curity Council resolutions.

The President had last Sun­day during a meeting with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, said: “Like the state of Qatar, Nigeria favours a ‘two-state’ solution, with the state of Palestine living side by side with the state of Israel.”

Ogbonna said: “We agree completely with President Bu­hari that the people of Palestine should be allowed self-determi­nation based on their peculiar cir­cumstance.

“We also hasten to add that the government of Israel is on re­cord accepting the same solution in principle and has in fact im­plemented Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The question that remains is the status of Jerusalem; and both the Palestinian nation and the govern­ment of Israel are still in dialogue to sort out their peculiar circum­stance. So we stand with the Pres­ident on this.

“However, we fail to under­stand why the same President Buhari opposes a similar solution right here at home on the Biafra question; why he would abandon dialogue and rather prefer that un­armed Biafra protesters be shot and killed on sight for daring to demand the Palestinian solution here in Nigeria; the same solution he has so eloquently and so freely canvassed in faraway Qatar. This is where we part ways with the Pres­ident.

“The Palestinian question and the Biafra question are one and the same; the issues are the right to self-determination of component nations of both States; the State of Israel and the State of Nige­ria. Both states, Israel and Nigeria are signatories to the UN Charter and its relevant articles on referen­dum and self-determination. Both questions are also ethnic based; the Arab in Israel and the Igbo in Nigeria. Therefore, the same prin­ciple ought to apply to both ques­tions. To support the right of one to a solution by dialogue and self-determination as the President has so rightly enunciated for the Palestinian cause, while opposing the same solution for the other, smacks of sheer hypocrisy.

“Clearly then, the position of the People’s Progressive Par­ty is based on equal application of the principles of universal suf­frage. In contrast, President Bu­hari’s positions are completely in­coherent on the same subject. The President would appear to come down all over the place depend­ing on those involved and where the issues arise. In Israel, he quite obviously accepts the application of the principles of Article 1 of the UN Charter for the self-determi­nation of the Palestinian nation. However, in Nigeria, he is op­posed to the same principle, even unto the extrajudicial killings of unarmed civil protesters,” Ogbon­na said.


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Source: http://thewhistler.ng/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2950:buhari-killing-of-biafra-and-supporting-palestine-is-hypocrisy-ppp&Itemid=2103

AND WE ARE WAITING BUHARI. WE ARE WAITING. DONT WAIT TO BE PRESIDENT LIKE A COWARD. DO IT NOW, THAT IT IS A LEVELL PLAYING FIELD. DO IT NOW.