Photo: Left - Abducted Patience Paul, Right - Ese Oruru
Some parents in Lagos have expressed
concern over the threat allegedly posed by male residents of Hausa
extraction to their young girls following the Ese Oruru saga.
They alleged that young Hausa traders
have been luring young girls of other ethnic extractions with financial
and material gifts into amorous relationships.
Fourteen-year-old Ese was this week
returned to her parents in Bayelsa after she was allegedly abducted by
one Yunusa Yellow in August 2015 and taken to Kano in northern Nigeria.
Yunusa had planned to marry the underage girl in his home state after she was converted to Islam.
Residents of host communities with large
populations of people of northern extraction in Lagos such as Mile 12
and Ijora have bitter tales about the Hausa/Fulani-Yoruba relations in
their areas. An evidence of this played out on Wednesday and Friday in a
bloody clash between Yoruba and Hausa residents.
At Mile 12 market area in Lagos, which
has a ......
large population of Hausa, residents expressed concern over the
threat many of the young men from Northern Nigeria to their young girls
and women.
A salon owner in the market, who
identified herself as Iya Bidemi, said some of the young girls were
being lured by the Hausa men for marriage without the consent of the
girls’ parents and guardians.
She said many of the men in the practice take advantage of the naivety of some of the girls to exploit them for sexual gains.
The hairdresser said, “There is a lot of
child abuse going on in this place, especially by the Hausa men, who do
not care about the age of a girl before luring her into a relationship.
“Many of them start by giving these
little girls between N500 and N1,000 daily as feeding allowance before
going further to buy clothes and expensive gift items for them. These
girls are usually between 13 and 16 years old and so can hardly resist
this type of care because a lot of them are from poor homes.
“Before you know it, these men will
trick the girls to accompany them home for a religious festival and that
they would return in less than one week. A lot of them don’t return
with these children and after some time, you hear that the girls have
ended up getting married to the men.
“It happened to a friend’s younger
sister and till today, the girl has not been seen again, not even the
young man who was said to have taken her to the North.”
Another market woman, who identified herself as Mrs. Nwabuko, explained that she stopped allowing her two young daughters to visit the market
after seeing how some of the Hausa traders were harassing them. She said many of the male Hausa traders were in the habit of sleeping
with little girls and that she couldn’t let that happen to any of her
young daughters.
Residents around the market who also
relayed their concern on the development earlier in the week, blamed some parents for
actually encouraging their young girls to flirt with these men who lure
them with financial handouts and material items such as food stuffs.
An elderly landlord, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity, said many young girls had indeed been taken away
to the North while their helpless parents do little or nothing to
protect them.
He said, “The Hausa men are hard
working, but what I don’t like about them is how they treat our young
girls. They lure them with cash; bribe their poor parents with food
stuff before taking the girls to the North to marry them.
“I wonder how any man can be comfortable
sleeping with little girls that they are old enough to give birth to.
As parents, what we can do is to properly teach our children but we
cannot do anything if any girl falls for their ploy.”
Culled - Punch
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