Ripe Conditions For Child Trafficking In Nigeria, As MURIC Sensationalizes Alleged Kidnapping Of 9 Kano Kids
The Oasis Reporters
October 15, 2019
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has claimed that the nine Muslim children that were kidnapped in Kano were forcefully converted to Christianity and sold into slavery.
It will be recalled that nine children were kidnapped in Kano and taken to Onitsha in Anambra State where they were sold.
The Islamic human rights group in a statement by its director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, on Monday condemned the incident, alleging that Christian Evangelism has now turned into kidnapping for Christ.
“Kidnappers have taken over the house of God. The phenomenon of kidnapping for Christ has now rented the air. We are shocked to our marrows,” the statement added.
“It is the height of acrobatic religiosity, gymnastic spirituality and paradoxical criminality. It is such a big shame that some Christian fanatics will live among us only for the purpose of abducting our children, converting them to Christianity and selling them into slavery. Kidnapping for Christ is disgusting, nauseating, wicked and reprehensible.”
As much as people of good conscience remain appalled at any form of child torture either in Daura or Boko Haram kidnap of Christian school girls in Chibok, once kidnapping occurs, it remains what it is, criminality. Anyone adding religion to it may be seen as having some ulterior motives to the saga.
Ishaq Akintola is Yoruba and a highly learned person for he is a professor. When it comes to religion, the Yoruba tribe appear to be amongst the finest, civilized and most tolerant set of people anywhere. There’s hardly any Yoruba family that would not have adherents of different religions, yet they all live in peace and in unity. Therefore, for the learned professor to be high pitched and overly emotional in his choice of words indicates that he is playing his ball of answers over the bar as an invisible back pass to an unknown goalkeeper.
He said:
“They are now stealing our children as the latter emerge from their Islamiyyah schools. Why do they hate us so much? Why do they pretend to be our neighbours? An open declaration of hostilities would have been better because it would have alerted us to the fact that we are living in the midst of foes.
“Nonetheless, MURIC will not allow emotions to becloud its intervention in this sensitive and ugly development. We are aware that not all Christians are involved in this criminal behavior. Many adherents of Christianity are decent and peace-loving. Such Christians will never decend so low as to seize, convert and sell Muslim children.
“We, therefore, appeal to Muslims throughout the federation to dispassionately separate the wheat from the chaff. This Kano 9 incident should not be allowed to generate animosity between them and their Christian neighbours. Neither should it ignite spontaneous attacks on non-indigenes in Muslim majority areas.
“Nonetheless, MURIC charges Muslim parents to be security conscious particularly around their children. Mallams in charge of Islamiyyah schools and madrasahs all over Nigeria are urged to do head-counting before the commencement of classes and immediately after. Muslim children should be given security tips. For instance, movement in groups should be encouraged while residents should heighten their vigilance.”
MURIC blamed the phenomenon of abduction for Christ on aggressive proselytisation.
“This kind of abduction can be traced to Christian aggressive proselytisation in Nigeria. Nigerian Christians take preaching like war. The firebrand evangelists take over commercial vehicles. It is only in Nigeria that people preach inside buses and distract the attention of drivers.
The reference to the Ese Oruru incident betrays where the ball Ishaq Akintola back passed was headed to:
“Nigerians will recall the hullabaloo that followed the Ese Oruru saga in March 2016. Where are the advocates of girl-child rights who nearly brought down the ceilings of heaven over a mere case of elopement? Where are the human rights lawyers today?”
So suddenly, the abduction of Ese Oruru is a mere “case of elopement”, but homeless, hungry and naked children of Kano who do not experience parental care in the lonely streets did not run after food, in rejection of the system of parental neglect ! They were kidnapped ! It probably may well be, and here’s hoping that the Nigerian police will unravel the mystery of this callous act and let the law punish the culprits.
Prof Ishaq Akintola did not stop there. He used the incident as an omnibus to vent all his frustrations against Christians, but ge is entitled to his free speech, no matter how skewed some of his points are.
Be that as it may, one joy out of it all is the promise by the Kano State governor according to one unverified news source, to return the rescued children to their parents. As soon as this is successfully carried out, parents in the North should be educated on family values. And that it is not enough to keep producing multiple children from multiple wives when one is poor, then push the children out into the streets with plastic bowls to beg for food, never to come back home, at times to families torn apart by divorce and remarriages. It is never so in affluent Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or even tech-savvy Pakistan and India. These countries are either wholly Islamic or partly Islamic. They do not practice the style of roaming children that become prey to criminal child trafficking gangs , or Boko Haram predator recruiters.
