I dare you to blame Hanifa for trusting her school proprietor

By Aliyu Sa’adatu 

Trust, like justice, is fast becoming an elusive phenomenon slipping out of humanity’s grasp. However, there’s no problem, which doesn’t have a root cause.  

It all began the moment when justice was issued to a select few, and as for others who may not belong to high echelons of society or the category of the haves, they become undeserving of justice. It is a popular saying that for there to be peace, a society must be ready to administer justice. In other words, it must view every individual as equal before the law irrespective of their status or wealth. The case of Nigeria, however, is different, in fact not only are the rich above the law but even some of the haves not consider themselves above the law– except for those who are unfortunate enough to be used by the system as scapegoats– making the state of the human condition and the ability to get justice almost inaccessible. Take this, for example, the launch of Hizbah, a ‘Sharia’ guided law on dress code and morality in Kano apply only to the powerless of the state. The point is this attitude must change. Laws made in the country must involve all and all must face the same punishment in case of violation.  

The selection of a few and condemning them to justice is injustice in itself and more so with the recent issue about the five-year-old killed by her school proprietor.  We must ensure that justice is served, but we should also remember that Hanifa is just one out of many children, men and women, whose lives have been taken in such a gruesome manner. 

It is relieving that everyone is rallying in support of the proper prosecution of the murderer of innocent Hanifa perhaps because of the drama that happened around the kidnapping of the child and her murder, but Nigerian authorities must also remember that beyond Hanifa and this gruesome murder is the core of the country bleeding from the deaths of innocents being slain every day in various corners of the country.  

This is why it is unbelievable to hear that a group of individuals who have come together to terrorise the state are considered for dialogues and even an outrageous extension of rights as to be issued an amnesty!  

Like Hanifa’s parents, many fathers and mothers have been left aggrieved and grieving for years over their missing children, and unlike Hanifa’s parents, fortunate enough to know the killer of their beloved daughter and are certain that justice will be served, those parents who today languish in IDPs in Nigeria each have a story to tell. Recently, a girl at one of the IDPs in the country took her life, after enduring a staff member’s molestation for too long. I wished that story too will trend like Hanifa’s and justice for her even though she gave in to the taunts of suicide will also be taken up with such passion as that of Hanifa. Unfortunately, the rape of women and girls is not only downplayed but has turned into a non-issue. Before the stigma around rape began to slowly lift and the urge for the victims to speak up especially in this part of our world, rape was being handled as a taboo, hence perpetrators end up going scot free. This attitude has not only let the issue to thrive but our indifference towards the subject and reluctance to tackle it, has led to the increase of cases just as the percentage of domestic violence related femicides in the world continues to rise.  Ours has been a country that strapped a tight noose of taboo around the subject and therefore manage to silent the victims. Ours is a country with the proclivity to dismiss the magnitude of damage rape can cause to an individual until one of our own happens to fall a victim. Ours is a country that questions the victims’ morality and not the perpetrators crime: why was she there? How can she be running her mouth at a man like that? Instead of serving justice and looking past any kind of fear or favour, we have stooped so low to the level where we feel it is okay to silence women using the instrument of rape.   

Another case is the murder of Bilyaminu by his wife, Maryam Sanda in 2017. Now no kind of murder is justifiable committed by a man or woman but if we were to compare the percentage of men who murder women across the world and even Nigeria in misogyny or sexist stimulated crimes or in the case of femicides who go unpunished it’s nothing compared to how many murders of men committed by women. However, the point here is not to portray women or anyone as victims but to shed more light on the imbalance state of justice not only in Nigeria but the world at large and such imbalances doesn’t lead to a stable nonchaotic society unless the right of the powerless is taken from the powerful and highly guarded. Mine is a religion that preaches and emphasises strongly on the need for justice to be served for man irrespective of his status, religion, class, or gender, because the extent of damage injustice can cause to a society that allows it to thrive is beyond what we can easily handle. If every rape incident for example is being swept under the carpet for fear of shame or  cultural taboos, one day it will burn past the carpet and consume the sweepers. This kind of behaviour has extended to trust, which is why I dare you to ask why Hanifa trusted her school proprietor. Society has the habit of questioning the one whose trust was broken not the one who broke the trust. Hanifa trusted him as her school proprietor who was a sort of custodian that ought to be looking out for her safety not to turn around to be her kidnapper. If we cannot trust our children’s school proprietors then who do we trust? This victim’s blame on every level must stop. 

In other words, for us to have a balanced less criminal society, we must be ready to hold everybody accountable irrespective of their status in society and there’s no shortcut to achieving that.  

Aliyu can be reached via [email protected]