Hureira

By Babagotus Funtus

The story of a girl in a failed republic is the story of misery and struggle. The mannist are determine to hold the women bound but Madam Minister wouldnt relent. Her struggle brought her face to face with death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Babagotus Funtus
• Release date: Aug 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370530878

Babagotus Funtus

A Historian specialized in gender and feminist history

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Fellow Citizens,

On behalf of the patriotic and well-meaning peoples of the oppressed of this country; I, Major Gorkar, wish to happily inform you of the successful ousting of the dictatorial, corrupt, drug baronish, evil man, deceitful, homo-sexually-centred, prodigalistic and un-patriotic administration. We have equally commenced their trials for unabated corruption, mismanagement of national economy, the murders of Dele Giwa, women, gentle women and men of the press; the journalist, students with other innocent civilians as they had done nothing wrong but intentions that were yet to materialize and other human rights violations. The National Guard already in its formative stage is disbanded with immediate effect. Decrees Number 2 and 46 are hereby abrogated. We wish to emphasize that this is not just another coup but a well-conceived, planned and executed revolution for the marginalized, oppressed and enslaved peoples of the republic with a view to freeing ourselves and children unborn from eternal slavery and colonization by a clique of this country.

Our history is replete with numerous and uncontrollable instances of callous and insensitive dominatory repressive intrigues by those who think it is their birthright to dominate till eternity the political and economic privileges of this great country to the exclusion of the mountainous and hill people of Tin city.

They have almost succeeded in subjugating the mountainous people; pagans; Sayawa’s and the Maghuzawa’s and making them voiceless and now extending same to the women. It is our unflinching belief that this quest for domination, oppression and marginalization is against the wish of God and therefore, must be resisted with the vehemence. Anything that has a beginning must have an end. It will also suffice here to state that all the citizens without skeleton in their cupboards need not to be afraid of this change. However, those with skeleton in their cupboards have all reasons to fear, because the time of reckoning has come. For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state the three primary reasons why we have decided to oust the satanic administration. The reasons are as follows:

To stop his desire to cunningly, install himself as the republic life president at all costs and by so doing, slowpokes the progress of this country for life. In order to be able to achieve this undesirable goals of his, he has evidently started destroying those groups and sections he perceived as being able to question his desires. Examples of groups already neutralized, pitched against one another or completely destroyed are: The destruction of the mountainous people, especially the Ngas people, as a balancing force in the body politics of this country; The buying of the press by generous monetary favours and the usage of State Security Service, SSS, as a tool of terror; The intent to cow the students by the promulgation of the draconian decree Number 47; The cowing of the university teaching and non-teaching staff by an intended massive purge, using the 150 million dollar loan as the necessitating factor; Deliberately withholding funds to the armed forces to make them ineffective and also crowning his diabolical scheme through the intended retrenchment of more than half of the members of the armed forces. Other pointers that give credence to his desire to become a life president against the wishes of the people are: his putting under his direct control the SSS, his deliberate manipulation of the transition programme, his introduction of inconceivable, unrealistic and impossible political options, and his recent fraternization with others.

African leaders that have installed themselves as life presidents and his dogged determination to create a secret force called the national guard, independent of the armed forces and the police which will be answerable to himself alone, both operationally and administratively. It is our strong view that this kind of dictatorial desire is unacceptable to citizens of the 1990’s, and, therefore, must be resisted by all. Another major reason for the change is the need to stop intrigues, domination and internal colonization of the state by the so-called chosen few. This, in our view, has been and is still responsible for 90 percent of the problems of the republic. This indeed has been the major clog in our wheel of progress. This clique has an unabated penchant for domination and unrivalled fostering of mediocrity and outright detest for accountability, all put together have been our undoing as a nation. This will ever remain our threat if not checked immediately. It is strongly believed that without the intrigues perpetrated by this clique and misrule the republic will have in all ways achieved developmental virtues comparable to those in Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, India, and even Japan. Evidently, therefore, this cancerous dominance has as a factor constituted by a major and unpardonable clog in the wheel of progress of Jagajaga republic. It is suffice to mention a few distasteful intrigues engineered by this group of Nigerians in recent past. These are: The wholesale hijacking of the administration by the all-powerful clique; The now-pervasive and on-going retrenchment of the dark skinned Bachama’s; Zuru’s and the paganic people of Tin city from public offices and their instant replacement by the favoured class and their stooges; The deliberate disruption of the educational culture and retarding its place to suit the favoured class to the detriment of other educational minded parts of this country; the killing of innocent women and children in time of peace; The deliberate impoverishment of the people and making them working ghosts and feeding on the formulae of 0-1-1- or 0-0-0 while the aristocratic class and their stooges are living in absolute affluence on a daily basis without working for it; Other countless examples of the exploitative, oppressive, dirty games of intrigues of its class, where people and stooges that can best be described by the fact that even though they contribute very little economically to the well-being of the republic, they have over the years served and presided over the supposedly national wealth derived in the main from the paganic and mountainous people of this country, while the people from other parts of the country have been completely deprived from benefiting from the resources given to them by God. The third reason for the change is the need to lay a strong egalitarian foundation for the real democratic take off of the republic as they circumstances may dictate.

(c) To vouch that the feudalistic and aristocratic quest for domination and

Operation will be a thing of the past and will never be practiced in any part of the public; killing and murder of innocent women, children and student will cease and will be abolished; and those who have killed innocent women, children and students will be executed to serve as a warning to those intending to kill innocent citizens.

In the same vein, all citizens of the paganic tribes are required to come back to the table and discuss their plight pending when the so-called all-in-all citizens meet the conditions that will ensure a united republic. A word is enough for the wise.

This exercise will not be complete without purging corrupt public officials and recovering their ill-gotten wealth, since the days of the oil boom till date. Even in these hard times, when citizens are dying from hunger, trekking many miles to work for lack of transportation, a few other cabals with complete impunity are living in unbelievable affluence both inside and outside the country. We are extremely determined to recover all ill-gotten wealth back to the public treasury for the use of the masses of our people. You are all advised to remain calm as there is no cause for alarm. We are fully in control of the situation as directed by God. All airports, seaports and borders are closed forthwith. The former Armed Forces Ruling Council is now disbanded and replaced. A curfew is hereby imposed from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice. All members of the armed forces and the police forces are hereby confined to their respective barracks. All unlawful and criminal acts by those attempting to cause chaos will be ruthlessly crushed. Be warned as we are prepared at all costs to defend the new order. All radio stations are hereby advised to hook on permanently to the national network programme until further notice.

Long live all true patriots of this great country of ours.

CHAPTER 2

Why does this zeal for God….. And for the salvation of souls—zeal that goes all the way to burning people to death – JOHN LOCKE

Hureira had suffered from complications and torture. She wasn’t prepared to be a mother yet the society had forced her to play a role that she isn’t prepared for. While her contemporaries are allowed to enjoy the love of parent hood, she was denied. She missed her teenage years. She was robbed of the only opportunity that God has granted her to go to school. Her story is that of aborted destiny. The hospital was in a poor state to cater for Hureira’s health challenge. The hospital best describe the precarious situation of the nation. The republic; the decayed republic isn’t prepared to meet the needs of its citizens. No campaign promises could meet the need of the girls and the citizen of the one republic. The battle cry for one republic is only a myth. It was a dream and not a reality. Those who cried one republic did so out of the untamed zeal for the nation they call theirs. The nation doesn’t belong to the minority. It belongs to the aristocrats and the ruling elites who collaborated with the colonial machine to inherit power as a reward for collaboration with the rule they enjoyed; the educated Southerners and the shrewd Easterners were disliked by the colonial machine. The education attained from the colonial masters had become a threat to the colonial rule. They sought to punish the duo. No power after independence. The Egba women struggle and the Aba women struggle had challenged colonial rule while the Northerners and the Mountainous middle Belts collaborated with the white men for the exploitation of the nation.

The doctors had begun to explain vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF) to the men. They chose to refer to it as yoyon fisari; it was the commonest term. It is an abnormal communication between the bladder (which stores urine) and the vagina that results in the constant dribbling of urine into the vagina. There may be just one opening, there may be more. If you have a fistula, urine will leak from the vagina, and since the vagina is not designed to hold urine you will not be able to control this. Classically VVF patients present continuous urinary leakage from the vagina and absence of micturition, with strong negative impact on their quality of life.

By contrast, in developing nations and your village most especially, VVF is associated with obstetric complications, such as prolonged labor. There are unknown numbers of women with yoyon fisari your village. Most of the women have failed to turn out for treatment for fear of reproach and shame. Women with vesico-vaginal fistula present a continuous leakage of urine from the vagina, usually with absence of urethral voiding, resulting in devastating consequences with respect to their physical and psychological health.

The men had failed to believed and accept that child marriage and labor complication could account for the high turn out of women with yoyon fisari in their village. They felt the men were cooking up stories. They disliked doctors who came to only fill their ears with vocabularies. They preferred their herbal medicines; herbs and leaves which they had relied on; their ancestors had relied on for thousand years without having need for any treatment.

However, the problem can be viewed from both physical and socio-cultural perspective. The physical causes are referred to as the direct cause, while the socio-cultural causes are termed the underlying or the contributing factor to the problem of VVF.

The doctors chose to use VVF rather than yoyon fisari. The men; the men at the majalisa disliked the terminology being used. Their women are being insulted. Dan Waska; is it only the women in this village who suffer from such sickness? It seems like it’s only the women in this village who suffered from this dreaded malaise. I have been to the hospital in the city and I haven’t seen other women suffering from such complications. It’s only the women from this village who account for the large turn out of women suffering from the dreaded disease? Dan Waska asked the question because he feared for his daughter. He feared that she will be a victim if child marriage is to account for the malaise. He asked the doctors of the remedy too.

Dan Waska had become critical and optimistic about the aged long practice. He had discussed with the oldest man of the village about his concerns and fears. He was quite sure that the men in the majalisa wouldn’t listen. They are too naïve and dull to think about the societal problems. The oldest man in the village was keen to listen to Dan Waska. He respected Dan Waska; he wasn’t a rumour peddler nor and isle chatter. ‘‘Baba’’ said Dan Waska; he proceeded.

‘‘We must look into the menace of yoyon fisari’’.

We are pushing things too far. We can’t afford the medical bills and we wouldn’t want our women to go to the hospitals for fear of being sterilized by western medicine and we wouldn’t allow our sons and daughter to be immunized for the fear of being sterilized and for the fear of the vaccine being from monkeys. Such practices wouldn’t lead us in the path of progress. Our neighbouring communities have forsaken such practices. They send their daughters to school; their daughters attain the height of greatness without competing with their husband’s and they have provided for the family needs even when the husband is financially buoyant. The collapse of the textile industries in red state has caused untold hardship and unemployment amongst the men which has invariably affected the women and children.

The politicians have sabotaged and mortgaged the future of its citizens; and they are left to suffer in the hands of fate. The women have chosen to support their husbands. They village called Kurmin Gwari would have being in ruins but the women have chosen to fend for the family without competing with their husbands. We have to learn from them. We may dislike them for being from the paganic and mountainous tribe of Tin city; there is a lot to learn from them. Their daughters go to school; forced marriage is prohibited; child marriage is prohibited and parents don’t give their daughter out for marriage for thee sake of the money and the temporal gain. Girls are allowed to go to school without any hindrance’’ Baba was quite. He hasn’t paid attention to other happenings in neighbouring societies. They had chosen to lock themselves out from the outer world.

One important and predominant cause of VVF is prolonged labour during childbirth which, when a prolonged labour presses the unborn child tightly against the pelvis, cutting off blood flow to the vesico-vaginal wall. If labour remains obstructed, the unrelenting pressure of the baby’s head against the pelvis can greatly reduce the flow of blood to the soft tissues surrounding the bladder, vagina and rectum. This situation often leaves the pelvic tissue with injury which may rotten away, thus creating a hole or a fistula between the bladder and the urethra. Often, this situation may be unnoticed until many days after a woman delivers her

The physical causes of fistula emanates from the following: Inaccessibility to basic maternity care and lack of knowledge about VVF. A vast majority of pregnant women in the village lack access to basic obstetric care. As a matter of fact, many in the rural areas of the developing nations have their child birth at home. Traditional birth attendants are sometimes called upon in case of complications. Adequate obstetric care before, during and after labour goes a long way in preventing or correcting difficulties such as fistula or mortality for mother and child; and since the most women in the poor-resource setting of the world lack access to adequate obstetric care before, during and after delivery, it is expected that cases of VVF, as well as infant and maternal mortality, would be very high in such regions of the world.

Another direct factor responsible for the incidence of VVF is complications of abortions. Most abortions are clandestinely practiced by untrained individuals who claim to be knowledgeable in the act. Through the use of wrong instruments, some girls have had their birth canal unknowingly damaged. If not repaired on time and adequately, this may result in VVF. The men had denied that there was never an abortion committed in their village. It was a taboo. Abortion is strange in their village they denied. They had argued that child and force marriage are precautionary measures to avoid unwanted pregnancies. The nurse which accompanied the daughter laugher within her self and utter a word to the doctor which made him to laugh too

CHAPTER 3

It seems that God hasn’t ever given any man the authority to compel someone else to join his religion. And such a power can’t be given to the magistrate by the people…JOHN LOCKE

The prone and the vulnerable; women and children have suffered untold hardship. The youth are left to fantasize their future and dreams in the midst of plentiful resources and unseeing realities. They are easily manipulated with the promises of a better future. They had mortgaged their future; the politicians have sworn and have signed contract with the devil that the young people have no future in the republic. They are being promised heaven on earth while the politicians and their corrupt off springs fattened themselves. The young men with their CV and dusted certificate have been transformed into religious golem constantly praying to a God that had provided the answer but the politicians have trapped the answer to the prayers like the Prince of Persia who delayed Daniel answer to his prayer. They are left to make promise to God ‘‘oh God, I want to be a millionaire’’. The citizens out of despair had turned God into a magical figure and money doubler; while other nations who have chosen the path of progress don’t need to ask for these things because God has given them the dominion over natural resources. They had transformed the society into a safe haven; the politicians of Jagajaga republic; the wealthy and the affluent travel frequently while the poor are left to fast and pray to obtain visas to the safe haven.

The minorities have become the victims and casualties; their daughters been abducted their and compelled to marry a man of different religion which is against the wish of the parents their daughters. The federal government has failed to act responsibly. Jane wasn’t the first victim neither was she the second; third; fourth or the twentieth victim. They are numerous; the police have failed to take any reasonable action towards the offenders. The offenders are highly feared. They are time bomb which can explode at slight provocation by the truth and nothing but the truth. The police have failed to intervene; it’s a criminal act both by the police and the abductors of the girls. The parents are left to grieve and mourn in a state where laws are easily broken. Jane is a citizen of the republic. The constitution has failed to protect her and so many other victims.

Parents whom daughter have become victims have chosen to sue the federal government and the abductor of Jane to court. The nation is set to explode. The abductors of Jane had claimed that she had converted to their religion and faith willingly; it wasn’t true. Jane parents demanded that they should be allowed to have access to their daughter. The abductors refused.

This was to be the time bomb that set the nation spiralling into a civil war; but they had failed to understand. ‘‘A dog being pressed to the wall will certainly one day react and the reaction wouldn’t be soft. It will bite and bark; it will bite and bark hard’’. Thee offence of the victims was simply being minority and chose tom have their own faith and belief system. The constitution acknowledges freedom of worship. There is no negotiation about it. They had endured repression and suppression by the majority. They had being persecuted. They are often times referred to as the Maghuzawa’s. The British had set the pace for such constant repression and suppression. Colonialist referred to the Maghuzawa’s; the Sayawa’s and the dark skinned and tall giant Bachama’s as pagans; those whose way of life and belief is referred to as traditional worshippers; colonialist call them pagans? A disparaging term; which set the pace for colonial and post colonial attack on the ‘‘pagans’’ has bind them into the chains of post-colonial exploitation based on racial and ethnic lines. Their offence is simply being called ‘‘pagans’’ by the colonial master. Accepting the white man religion only made the retribution and attack worst.

They sought for the intervention of the police and the government; they were both silent. The mannist controls and owned the police. Jane and her own kind will never have any room for fair hearing. The citizens are made to live as sojourners and refugees in the country they fought for and build with their own hands. They are outcast. Their only hope is to cry to the God who never sleeps and slumber. The God that is active twenty-four hours a day; seven days a week. They sought for the attention for the captors of her daughter. They failed to respond either to the aggrieved parent who has lost all channels of pouring out their grievance. They are left in the hands of fate.

The collapse of the republic began with the beheading of a citizen; a woman in time of peace. She wasn’t armed. She was butchered in broad daylight. It was to set in motion the collapse of the Republic which has shed innocent blood. The blood of women which has been shed; who are the harbinger of peace have now become the victims of kidnap, torture, rape, trafficking and prostitution. They are widowed by the same men who are to protect them. The stories of women who had lost their husband’s and loved ones are numerous and uncountable.

Janet; the latest victim of attack in a nation they call theirs. A saddened story of teenage girl; whose life has been cut short due to men greed and avarice has only resulted to untold hardship amongst the less privilege girls. The greed for sex amidst the countless grown up girls waiting in line for a suitor and the love of their heart but the mannist preferred the teenage girls who are still in the valley of the unknown. The sad tale in a failing and a decayed republic

CHAPTER 4

Although the Nigerian government has tried to stamp out child marriage with the enactment of the Child Rights Act of 2003, the practice of child marriage is still prevalent

The men listened attentively to Mai Noma analysis and comment regarding Hureira. What they can’t explain is the mystery behind the poisoning. What went wrong? Most of the men seated in the majalisa boast of getting married to teenagers and minors as their wives. They were all guilty. It’s an aberration for a girl in the village not to get married between fourteen to sixteen years of age. Girls who furthered their studies and get passed this stipulated age are often seen as spoilt and are not eligible to get married. They end up not getting married in their village. They are most times discriminated and