A Twisted Morality
When news first made the rounds that Mallam Mohammed Mohammed, the Vice-Principal of Day Secondary School, Tunga, Minna, Niger State, impregnated his 16-year old Junior Secondary School 3 (JSS 3) student, hell broke loose as fire and fury was initially rained down on this felon by way of widespread condemnation, calls for arraignment in court and imprisonment. Parents were united in their trepidation for the safety of their daughters and everyone sought quick justice and harsh deterrent.
Soon after, nothing more was heard of this case and the rumour mill was then awash with the gist that this felon’s punishment had been lightened and he had been transferred to another school altogether. Not until very recently when the parent of the student-victim cried out about the suffering the family is enduring that we all knew what was actually happening. The young maid that was defiled was called Faith Galadima, and this was the singular reason for the relief that anxious parents are now feeling. Yes, she was “Faith,” not “Aisha or Fati or Nafisa or Maryam or Farida or Jummai.
Anyone named “Faith” was a Christian and to the generality of the anxious public the Vice-Principal only went after “one of the unbeliever sisters,” thus incarcerating him would have been too harsh and he should just be allowed to pay upkeep for the first three years of the baby’s life. It would have been utterly terrible for Mallam Mohammed if he had “spoilt” a “Muslim sister” who is a future wife of “a fellow brother in the ummah.” In short, this is the tragedy of a typical Muslim-majority town of Northern Nigeria and the yokes that Christians bear.
What are similar to Faith Galadima’s case are abduction, rape, and forceful conversion to Islam with the imprimatur of the local emir or imam. Apparently, over here in Northern Nigeria there is no universal standard of morality for Christians and Muslims. The scaled-down version of this tragedy is what IGP Ibrahim Idris happily touted so openly, something to the effect that a man can choose romantic liaisons at will at his place of work (especially if that man is boss) with the intention of completing his full-complement of four wives.
Well, if a Muslim man desires four or more wives, so is his way but if that desire involves sexual harassment of Christian women, then that is not acceptable. We understand that one of IGP Idris’ mistresses is named “Esther” and this means she is some hapless Christian policewoman who got trapped in the sexual lust-sphere of Mr. Ibrahim Kpotun Idris.