I am one who still loves doing the quaint “old-school” things. For instance, despite the platforms offered by electronic messages and e-document transfers, I’m still stuck with sending parcels of hardcopy documents to back-up the online versions I may have sent. So it was one morning a little over a week ago; I hurried to catch a connecting urban commuter transport to the main bus station at Minna, the Niger State Transport Authority (NSTA) motor-park, from whence I’d send to my daughter (my obvious next-of-kin) the laminated document of my formal notice of switch of pension fund administrator (from the IBTC PFA to the ASUU’s NUPEMCO) by the now-popular informal courier route of bus-driver messaging. As I waited for motorised public-transporters with other early-morning rush-hour commuters who were taking children to school by the road kerb, my attention was drawn to a young girl in the secondary school garb of the Ahmadu Bahago Secondary School sniveling loudly by the roadside and seated all by herself in distress. I walked up to her and inquired what the problem was. No answer and more crying. Obviously, one of the adults taking kids to school knew her and just simply dismissed her condition but I was moved by pity; here was a young lady in her early teens, much younger than my daughter, who should be happily looking forward to her morning classes but was in obvious mental anguish. I pressed her for explanation whilst admonishing her to be strong and go to school. She relented after much urging and then she opened up to me that it was her mother who gave her a beating that early morning hour. “Your mother?,” I asked in incredulity. I persuaded her to board a motorised rickshaw headed the way of her school and the way I was going whilst I became an impromptu comforter and consoler. She was Igbo. Na wa o my pikin, “you mean your Mama beat you up this morning? What for?” Oh, the abusive woman wasn’t her “real Mama” but her “auntie.” That explained a lot. Her Mama was dead and her father lives in the village in Eastern Nigeria. This “auntie” brought her over to Minna to do never-ending domestic chores and lashes her at all times. More sobs and more sly glances my way inside the rickshaw. I wept in my heart. Here was a most unhappy beautiful early-teen kid who did not have to suffer. But, then, there is this recurring pattern of domestic abuse of relatives’ minors that one can heavily associate with the Igbo tribal people of Eastern Nigeria. What’s all this about going over to the village and artfully tricking some poor relative to hand over their beloved kid over to you in order to ensure their continued “education” but then bringing them over to town to be veritable slaves? How could anyone be pleased that slave-labour equivalent was the greater input that helped weaned their kids and see them through primary and high schools? How “special” are those children who benefit from relatives’ slave labour? Methinks the Igbo have a real soul-searching to do in this regard. Unselfishly caring for one’s relatives’ children is a virtue of the Christian faith that the Igbo are proud to identify with. All attitudinal semblance to domestic, chattel, and institutionalised slavery must be expunged and the admonition of St. Paul should be with us at all times. Hasn’t Jesus Christ set us free already? That is the reason Christians say they are “children of God” and not “slaves of God.” This conscious pronunciation has a big implication for the way the world goes about its business today. Soon, it was time for the young girl to drop off at her school gate. I urged her, “be strong” because if you are teary-eyed all day, “these unscrupulous okada boys” will take advantage of you. After all, this is Northern Nigeria. I could only part with N200 (I hated my perpetual lack of money that morning). See the pain in my heart? An Igbo Christian family does not do right in the home front, thus an innocent maiden is thrown out to the “wolves” in the wild streets of Minna. One thing I am sure of that morning was the unlikelihood of a “Hausa family” risking the wellbeing of a maiden so tender and gentle. Nd’Igbo, biko’nu, do not expose your family institutions to ridicule anymore. The fight for the soul of Biafra must not be ridiculed by opponents who throw barbs at weak domestic administration.
Sunday Adole Jonah,
Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State
