IF THIS SONG DID NOT EXIST

IF THIS SONG DID NOT EXIST

Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua

Iyeh was a pretty and intelligent girl. She looked forward to become one of the elites in her village some day. This hope was dashed! Today she depends on her younger brother for sustenance. What happened to her? She was in class with other pupils enjoying the stories that were being moderated by the class teacher. That was when she was in primary two. Suddenly a man forced himself into the class with military uniform. It was the uncle of Iyeh. He came to inform the headmaster that all the girls from his family should be withdrawn from school. For what reason, the teacher quarried. The response was a military command that a soldier is known for. “You do not tell me how to bring up my children.” He turned to Iyeh, “take your bag and follow me! We are going home!” The uncle had decreed that no girl in the family should go to school to prevent them from getting pregnant outside marriage. The family was such that when the elder brother gives an order, there is no further dialogue. Everybody had to obey. In obedience, Iyeh accepted her fate but that was just the beginning of her trauma and the trauma many young girls would go through in the extended family.

Iyeh’s mother had only two children. She loved them so much even though she could not control whatever the husband and his brothers decide about them. One day, she took Iyeh and the younger brother to the farm. That day was going to be the second stage of Iyeh’s trauma. Her mother asked her and the brother to go home so that she could prepare dinner. The mother would come late that day from the farm. That supper was never prepared. When Iyeh reached home, he met a gathering of people drinking and celebrating. What is going on here? She wondered. Old soldier, her uncle had just come from Asaba with a colleague in the army. Every body was happy but that would not favour Iyeh, the brother and their mother. With a military command, Uncle called: “Iyeh come here!” As usual, she obeyed. The uncle continued: “Welcome from the farm! We are here because of you. Hurry up, take your bath! This man, Kadiri is my friend, he is from South Ibie and he is a soldier working in Badagry. He followed me home because I promise to give you to him in marriage. He will take good care of you!” Iyeh ran away to hide in a place that was known only to the younger brother. The uncle commanded the youths in the house to search everywhere for Iyeh.

While the search continued, the mother of Iyeh returned from the farm very tired and hungry. She had hoped that Iyeh must have finished cooking. She wanted to take a good bath, eat and go to bed. On the contrary, what she met was commotion in the house. She was called immediately by her husband to communicate the decision of his brother which every body must accept. She exclaimed, “God forbids that my daughter should marry this old man!” She was fined a goat with the only option of producing her daughter immediately. That was how Iyeh was forced into marriage. Arriving Badagry, she discovered that the so called husband already had three wives. She was to be the fourth wife. Iyeh could not imagine this old soldier for a husband but Kadiri tried to convince Iyeh that Islam allows him to marry her even though she was younger than his second daughter. Poor Iyeh, she ran away from the house! A good and generous person assisted her to get transport back home. It took Iyeh a very long time to overcome this trauma. These events happened long time ago in the Mid-Western part of Nigeria.

Similar experiences could have existed in other parts of Nigeria, Chinua Achebe narrated in some of his novels that only lazy boys were allowed access to Western education in those days. That was the Eastern part of Nigeria where the girls could not dream of Western education. The Western and Southern part of Nigeria could have their stories about Western education that was not easily accepted by the ancestors in their days. With time, this attitude fizzled out and today, these areas have embraced Western education.  Seeing the mouth of a king, you hardly remember, that he once sucked the mother’s breast.

What about the Northern part of Nigeria? The Episcopal Chairman for Inter-religious dialogue in the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has a very clear insight into the attitude of the ancestors in the North to Western education. I love his literature and works not only because he is my immediate chairman of dialogue but because he is not a stranger to his region and the Nigerian story. He was popularly called Fr. Kukah. Even as a bishop, this has remained his “trade mark”. But this reflection is not about his biography. Recently, I had to read again his presentation: “Boko Haram: Some reflections on causes and effects by Rev. Fr. Mathew Hassan Kukah,.” This lecture was published in 2009 by MISSIO, Human Rights, in German, English and French languages. This can be found in many blogs and websites. I see this work as a clear anatomy of what we today call Boko Haram. In the case of the North, Islam provided an alternative to Western Education. It is not clear to me from Kukah’s presentation, the role the different traditions and culture of the North played in this phenomenon but I found in his presentation a compass that point to the shore of our enquiry. Here is how Kukah came about the song:

Thus, when both the missionaries and the colonial state started a programme of education, the Muslim ruling classes still remained restrained and suspicious of the intentions. They decided to experiment by sending the children of the slaves and lower classes within their communities. It took a while before the ruling classes sensed the value of education as a tool of modernization and subsequently but gradually began to send their own children to school. When the first generation of Muslim elites decided to send their children to school, these children were often the subject of derision among their own mates and friends. Thus, those children who believed they had remained faithful to Islam by holding on to Ilimin Islamiyya, derided their friends who sought Ilimin Boko by singing derogatory songs against them whenever the latter set out to school. One of those verses went something like this:

Yan makarantan boko,
Ba karatu, ba sallah
Ba bin hanyar Allah
Sai yawan zagin Mallam

The translation of the song is:

Children of western schools,
You don't study, you don't pray,
You don't follow God's path,
You only abuse your teachers [1]

This song is a symbol of an attitude not only in the Northern part of Nigeria but every where that education was rejected. Although this song had long been forgotten in the Northern part of Nigeria, it appears that Boko Haram is re-echoing it again by attacking schools, killing and abducting the students. The way and manner our public schools are given less attention by government is an indication that this song is still in the psyche of some of our leaders. If this song did not exist, perhaps Iyeh would have been a professor today. If this song did not exist, the illiterate youth would not allow anybody to use him for terrorist’s activities. If this song did not exist, no woman would accept the status of a slave and reproductive machine in a man’s house. If this song did not exist, no politician would be allowed to enrich himself at the expense of the tax payers. If this song did not exist, every Nigerian would know his or her human right and enjoy true freedom. We may not know who composed this song that is today renewed by the terrorists. But I believe that if one day, terrorism in Nigeria reaches the dusk, the environment that gave rise to this song and all of us will need to compose a different song that will protect life and human dignity. Yes we need a new song of freedom!

Fr. Prof. Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua is the Director of Mission and Dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja and Consultor of the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims (C.R.R.M), Vatican City

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[1] Matthew Hassan Kuka,  Boko Haram: Some reflections on causes and effects, (missio 34, Human Rights 2009), Pp. 23-24