Bad interview techniques
The death of Sir David Frost this
morning brought into stark relief the dearth of television interviewing
scholarship and skill in Nigerian media.
Prominent amongst
the recollections about Sir David Frost will be his interviews of
President Richard Nixon post the Watergate scandal, beyond that, he was known
for getting to chat to prominent personalities and teasing out information and
detail that will never be revealed if he had not done his research and placed
his questions with skill.
Other interviewers with
my English bias of that class will be Sir Michael Parkinson,
Jeremy Paxman, Stephen Sackur, Larry King, John Humphrys and
recently Piers Morgan –
these are people Nigerian interviewers should study and with a sense of courage
and boldness be able to address the powerful without fear to elicit facts
rather than have rings run round them as they cower in fawning obsequiousness.
The debauchery of Yerima
One such notorious
personality that has not only run rings round media interviewers in Nigeria but
appeared smarter, articulate and more prepared for anything slung at him is Senator Sani Yerima, the one-time governor of Zamfara State in Nigeria and the proud figurehead cum advocate of prepubescent matrimony.
At 53, the man has
28 children and has satisfied himself with a full complement of wives; four at a
time with decreasing age of consummation that fell to the age of 13 with anEgyptian girl in 2010, having divorced another teenager wife of a couple of
years to make way for this one.
Now, nothing in the laws of Nigeria as they stand makes what he did illegal, much as it is morally reprehensible to say the least and he has been recently in the news with regards to a constitutional amendment that had nothing to do with child marriage but once it was misinterpreted and misconstrued to pertain to that, we almost had a constitutional crisis that led to the public perception and campaign labelled #ChildNotBride.
A child marriage to stop
On the 6th
of September, Sani Yerima intends to
give the hand of his 16-year old daughter in marriage to someone yet to be
determined by the attendant news reports.
Being a Nigerian
Senator, Sani Yerima is a man
of great means and wealth, having also been a governor without vouching for
or against his honesty, it goes without saying that he knows the need and value
of education and he is enlightened enough to do what is right without resorting
to the bogeyman of religion to press his case.
We must agree that
a man of the Senator’s status really has no justification taking his 16-year
old daughter half-educated out of school to fulfil a marital pact under any
circumstances including religion, even if he is constitutionally warranted to
do such if he deems it fit.
Girls have rights too
It goes without
saying that the girl at 16 who will not have completed her secondary school
education will be put at a lifelong disadvantage of not being able to be of
independent means if this union should fail and she is left with dependants she
has to fend for.
If we cannot have
senior politicians stand up for the rights of girls in the 21st
Century where our global village exposes both boy and girl to challenges that
require a really good education to get ahead at anything, then that is
unfortunate.
If the girl were kept in school until she finished university, she will at most be 24 years of age and 24 is not too bad an age for a Muslim girl with an overly religious father to find a man, get married and fulfil of matrimonial duties along with having a sense of achievement and independence in the community in which she exists.
What to do?
We need to place a
greater value on our girls to ensure they are not commoditised as bargaining
chattels for pacts of marriage and the satisfaction of the propensity for
paedophiliac lusts of lewd old men like their fathers.
I do not know if this marriage in 5 days can be stopped but this provides a socio-economical angle to the debate on child marriage moving it away from the issue of religion and the lascivious lewdness of old men sampling the virginity of girls for their sexual pleasure to the primary and fundamental interests of the child.
Our right to protect girls
Any man can choose
whatever beliefs he wants and use them to his satisfaction, but the state has a
duty above any belief system to protect the child from exploitation, abuse and
the termination of opportunity to gain the basic tools for independence such as
a full education where the means exist to cover such.
On that basis
alone, that marriage should be not be contracted by the force of moral
responsibility, an injunction or civil intervention, this kind of impunity must
have an end and who better to be made an example of than Senator Sani Yerima.
1 comment:
Until concerned parties see journalism as a calling, there is no hope. The mind frame required for the job is completely absent.
Per Yerima's case, very few individuals upset me like he does but because all of his actions are contrived to annoy, I just smile. He is probably offering his daughter up on just so he can say 'oh see, even my daughter married at 16'. He is probably goading us to say but 16 is not 13. We won't say that.
We will stand by the simple call to action: Remove any acknowledgement of under-age marriage from the Constitution and recognise the need for the girl-child to remain a child and in school for the greater need of the country and world. Do it because it is the right thing to do anyway.
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