Not everyone is lucky to get wind of or survive or escape from booby traps set for him or her by enemies within and without. One can say without any risk of contradiction that Ms Dolapo Abiola Osobu, 43, was among the most favoured on this side of the Atlantic. Call it luck or grace or happenstance or a combination of all, she escaped from the evil her father, Thomas Lashe Osobu, put her into. He forcefully married her off to Chief Mohammed Oniru, a Muslim bigot with much to spare but a mind to inflict pain!
Oniru exhibited the features of a rich big man, a money-miss-road upstart. There were folds on the back of his neck, which were called spare tyres, a protruding belly like that of a pregnant goat and a big chain called bling bling in street lingo that had a big pendant dangling below his belly button. As he walked, he shot his head forward like a shaggy bear. Oniru was Satan personified!
“The matter was discussed in hush tones. It was because I was good to my niece, Tanwa, who was living with us that made me realise the evil intention,” Dolapo narrated. But Dolapo did not know that her father could do such a thing to her. She was mistaken. She could not escape before it happened.
How could an old lout or geezer like that propose to marry a young girl? Dolapo was born on 29 December 1981, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria by parents from Osun State in the South West.
The whole situation started at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006 when Dolapo was in her 20s and her father married her off without her consent to Oniru, an older but very influential and powerful man. He was called chief in the locality as he was a very powerful man with big connections around the country. “My father took a bride price from him in the form of money but I did not know the amount because I never asked my father about this. It was transactional,” Dolapo narrated.
“In 2006, I was forcefully carried from my father’s house (kidnapping should be a better word, but it was by my father’s agreement), molested, abused, raped, choked, and beaten,” Dolapo lamented. Her friends and enlightened uncles reported the matter to the Police, but the policing system could not help because Oniru was a powerful man and untouchable.
Worse still, her father allowed the ill-treatment and forced her to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) procedure. Dolapo sought help because she disagreed with the arranged marriage until she was able to flee for her life out of Nigeria as it proved difficult for her to get help in Nigeria.
Indeed, the FGM was the last straw! In the year 2006, Chief Oniru happened to have married more young ladies and requested FGM to be carried out on them too, according to tradition. Some of these women happened not to survive due to the FGM procedure because it resulted in bleeding and other complications. Some of them were sent to their early grave. And some had to live with the complications.
“At this point, I said I could no longer stand the environment which, despite the government legislation on forced marriage, was overwhelmed by tradition,” Dolapo narrated.
Experts did extensive work on the subject. In July 2002, Oluyemisi Bamgbose, presented a paper, “Customary Law Practices and Violence against Women: The Position Under the Nigerian Legal System,” at the 8th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women hosted by the Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Makerere, Uganda. Also, in 2003, the Women’s Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) and Women’s Aid Collective (WACOL) presented, “Sharia & Women’s Human Rights in Nigeria: Strategies for Action.”
They said marriage in Nigeria takes place under three legal Islamic (Maliki school of law), civil (statutory law), and customary (tribal/traditional law). Marriages in the north of the country are under Islamic law, while those in the south are under statutory law. However, even when couples marry under statutory law, customary laws generally prevail in personal matters. They noted that customary law has “encouraged” cultural attitudes towards child, or forced, marriages in Nigeria. Reasons given to support this cultural practice include the “reduction of promiscuity, societal integration and well-being, and religious blessing.”
Prospective husbands are selected based on social, religious and monetary factors, while age is not considered a factor (Bamgbose July 2002, 4). As a result, the husband is often older than the bride Research conducted by the Population Council found that, in Nigeria, husbands of “child-brides” were, on average, 12 years older than their wives, and 18 years older in cases of polygynous marriage
Child, or forced marriage, still occurs in rural communities of Nigeria, especially in the country’s northern states (Bamgbose July 2002, 4). According to The State of the World’s Children 2006, a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) publication, nearly twice as many women living in rural areas were married before the age of 18, compared with those living in urban areas (UN 2006, 130). In the northwest and northeast of the country, on average, women are married by the age of 15
Bamgbose emphasised: “Negative effects of early marriage on girls include early widowhood, the spread of HIV/AIDS, prostitution, family problems, medical problems, and suicide. One specific health problem associated with early/forced marriage that is “particularly prevalent” in Nigeria, is vesico vaginal fistulae (VVF), which involves the “breakdown of tissue in the vaginal wall communicating into the bladder … or rectum,” often leads to urinary and/or faecal incontinence and, in some instances, can also result in the paralysis of the lower half of the body.
There are several different laws related to the minimum legal age of marriage in Nigeria. Under the Marriage Act 1990, the minimum legal age of marriage is 21 years for girls and boys, although they can marry before this with consent from a parent or guardian. That was the case with Dolapo. There was the father’s agreement against the daughter’s consent.
A lawyer said, “Under the Child Rights Act 2003, the minimum legal age of marriage is 18 years. However, out of 36 Nigerian States, there were still 12 (11 of which are located in the north of the country) that have not included the Child’s Rights Act 2003 in their internal legislation. It follows that in those States local laws are applied, most of which are Islamic Law provisions, and the minimum age of marriage in some of those States is as low as 12 years.”
The legal practitioner added that there is also a lack of harmonisation between the Child Rights Act 2003 which sets 18 years as the minimum age of marriage and the Sexual Offences Bill 2015 which sets the minimum age of sexual consent at 11 years.
What drives child marriage in Nigeria? Child marriage, as another expert put it, is driven by gender inequality and the belief that girls are somehow inferior to boys. In Nigeria, child marriage is also exacerbated by:
“Poverty: Girls are frequently married off as a way to lessen the economic burden for their families. Level of education:73% of Nigerian women with no formal education were married before 18, compared to only 9% who had completed higher education. Further education is almost impossible for some girls, who have little choice but to depend on their husbands for the rest of their lives.
Political and economic ties: Some girls are married off by their parents to enhance political and social alliances with rich families or business partners and to improve their economic status.”
Harmful practices: “Prepubescent” marriage is very common in Nigeria. A girl is first married, and the man is expected not to touch her until she reaches puberty. Some Nigerian men reportedly prefer to marry children. Parents marry off their daughters at a very early age to ensure they marry as virgins and thereby retain the family honour. Girls are not accepted as equal partners in marriages, which contributes to a sense of low self-worth.
Religion: Religion is a supportive frame for persistent cultural traditions that justify child marriage in Nigeria. There are strict religious taboos regarding female sexuality and purity, and preachers argue that under Islamic doctrines girls’ maturity for marriage is defined by physical appearance and menstruation. Some of the highest rates of child marriage are found in Sharia-legislated Kano State, where child marriages are justified on religious and traditional grounds with the age of adulthood being determined by puberty. Similarly, in Christian jurisdiction, Imo State, girls are forced to marry if they have a child out of wedlock as it is viewed as dishonourable by the community.”
Child marriage remains prevalent in Nigeria due to the federal and state governments not implementing proper laws to prevent it. Passed in 2003, the federal Child Rights Act (CRA, 2003) prohibits marriage under the age of 18. Child marriage blatantly violates Nigeria’s constitution as well as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Although Dolapo was 20, the fact remains that she did not consent to the marriage which made it fly against her fundamental human rights.
Child or forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), as human and health rights crusaders said, threaten the well-being of millions of girls around the world. Both have existed for generations, as manifestations of gender inequality and have been propagated by discriminatory norms that devalue girls. In many countries where both child marriage and FGM are common, girls most at risk for each practice tend to share certain characteristics, such as low levels of education, rural residence, and living in poorer households. Yet, there are distinct differences in what drives each practice, and many communities in which one may be common, will not practice the other.
The fact of the matter is that Dolapo left Nigeria. It’s like fleeing from a danger zone, an area prone to volcanic eruption. If the “husband” should get hold of her, she would be subjected to beatings and further abuse. She may end up losing her life. So, she ran for dear life!