Ese Arrives Bayelsa, But May be Pregnant

Ese Oruru

•  Yinusa’s father opens up on how she was abducted
• IG vows to prosecute her lover, police officers in Kano
  Nigerians divided over plan to take teenager to TB Joshua’s church

Yemi Akinsuyi in Abuja and Chiemelie Ezeobi in Lagos
Fourteen-year-old Ese Oruru, who was abducted by Yinusa Dahiru last August and taken to Kano State, but reunited with her mother wednesday and flown to Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, may be five months pregnant, sources in the Nigeria Police Force have said.

The news of her possible pregnancy came as the tragic story of her abduction became clearer yesterday, when Yinusa’s father, Dahiru Bala, opened up on how his son brought the minor to Kano without the consent of her parents.

It also came on the heels of revelations that a similar abduction may have occurred in Sokoto State where another 14-year-old girl, Miss Patience Paul, was alleged to have been kidnapped from her primary school in Sokoto and detained in the palace of the Sultan of Sokoto.

According to a source at the Nigeria Police Force medical unit in Abuja, where Miss Oruru was made to undergo check up on Tuesday before reuniting with her parents yesterday morning, the teenager was discovered to be five months pregnant.

The source said she might have been impregnated after her move to Kano with Yinusa, quickly adding that the girl was not in the best form medically.

It was also discovered that the white hijab she wore on her arrival from Kano on Tuesday, was used to cover the pregnancy even though her physical condition and looks aroused suspicion.

Upon her arrival in Abuja from Kano Tuesday, the Inspector General of Police (IG), Mr. Solomon Arase, had ordered that she should be handed over to the Gender and Child Protection Unit and later a team in the medical department of the police force to carry out a comprehensive medical examination on the girl-child at the Police Medical Facility in Area 1, Garki, to certify her medical and emotional state.

When contacted, the force spokesperson, Mrs. Olabisi Kolawole, an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), said she could not confirm the allegation, stating that she was not a medical officer.

When pressed to ascertain if from her experience as a mother she noticed that the underage girl was pregnant, Kolawole said she only encountered her for the first time when she was brought to the force headquarters, Abuja, and could not determine if Ese was pregnant or not.

Despite the decision of the police to remain mum on what might have become a very sensitive and potentially volatile issue, the IG yesterday directed the Bayelsa State Police Command to take over the investigation of the child abduction saga on the grounds that the offence was committed in its jurisdiction and was the place of residence of the abductor, Yinusa.

Yinusa, also known as Yinusa Yellow, will be moved to Yenagoa to face interrogation and prosecution for possible rape and kidnapping of Miss Oruru.

The police also paid for the return airfare of mother and daughter, who were reunited yesterday to Port Harcourt, Rivers State Capital, en route to Yenagoa, the Bayelsa capital, where they reside.

The IG also vowed to prosecute the actors directly involved in the abduction of the 14-year-old girl, as well as the officers responsible for the initial investigation into the matter.

Arase, in a prepared speech read by Kolawole, said: “As we share the joy of the safe release of Ese, let me appeal to ladies and gentlemen of the press of the crucial need to respect the privacy and other protective rights of the girl-child and her family at this moment. This is the minimum legal and international requirement in cases of this nature.

“As a civilised nation, this is a standard we should not compromise in the long term interest of the girl-child victim and her traumatised family.

“Nonetheless, I can assure you that the abductor and all other actors in this abduction saga will be brought to deserved justice. This is the only way this nation can make a clear statement in unison that any individual that violates the sanctity of the rights of our children shall be dealt with in accordance with extant laws of our country.

“Aside the prosecution of the actors directly involved in this case, the police high command has also ordered an in-house administrative enquiry designed to review the professional conduct of officers responsible for the initial investigation of this case.

“Any officer indicted of professional dereliction will be firmly dealt with accordingly.”
Lending some insight into Ese’s abduction, the force spokesperson, however, refused to present the girl to journalists who had laid siege to the force headquarters in Abuja for two days, and only presented her mother, Mrs. Rose Oruru.

Mrs. Oruru, in her brief remarks, was only allowed to thank the media, civil society groups, the police, various interest groups, and Nigerians for their intervention. “God bless you all,” she said.

Kolawole said: “The background of this incident is that on 20th August, 2015, Mr. Charles Oruru (the girl’s father) of Michael Iseh Street, Yenagoa, reported at the Ekiki Police Divisional Headquarters that his 13-year-old daughter, Ese Rita Oruru, had been abducted by one Yinusa Dahiru, alias Yellow, who hails from Tofa village in Kuru Local Government Area of Kano State but resided in Yenagoa at the time.

“The complainant added that the suspect escaped to Kano with the girl-child with intent to permanently deprive her parents of legitimate access to her.

“Consequent upon the complaint, one Mohammed Dankano who was privy to the criminal machination was traced and arrested by a team of detectives from the Bayelsa State Police Command. Following facts elicited from Mohammed Dankano on the whereabouts of the principal suspect and the girl-child victim, on 1st September 2015, a team of detectives accompanied by the father of the victim, the complaints, and Alhaji K. C. Dahiru, the chairman of Arewa Community in Yenagoa left the city for Kano along with Mohammed Dankano in furtherance to investigation.

“On arrival in Kano, it was confirmed that the Kano State Sharia Commission and officer of the Assistant Inspector General of Police in Charge of Zone 1 headquarters, Kano had already waded into the matter. It was also confirmed that the victim was in the custody of the commission.

“All civil efforts to secure the release and reunion of the victim with her parents, however, remained hampered by some bureaucratic and complex intertwining factors, until a few days ago when the attention of the Inspector General of Police was drawn to the incident and accompanying challenges by the Commissioner of Police, Bayelsa State.

“Following the prompt intervention of the Inspector General of Police, I am delighted to confirm that the police have secured the release of Ese Oruru, the girl-child victim from the Kano State Sharia Commission.”

However, as at yesterday afternoon, Ese was still with the police at its headquarters in Abuja, being shielded from the public, especially the media.

Later yesterday, the police confirmed that they had reunited the girl with her mother. A source explained that the reason the media was kept away from the reunion was because she is still a minor.

He said: “Professionally, it is wrong for the girl to be captured by the media and the reason is because she is still a minor.”

However, Yinusa’s father yesterday gave details of how his son met and took the teenager to Kano in 2015.
Dahiru Bala, 55, who spoke in his Tofa village home in Kura Local Government Area of Kano State, said that sometime in 2015, his son called to inform him about his plan to come with Miss Oruru from Bayelsa State.

“When he told me about the plan to come with a girl from Bayelsa to Kano, I asked him not to do so,” the man said.
“But he insisted that Aisha had become a Muslim, fell in love with him and wanted to marry him. I still warned him against coming with her,” he said.

According to an online news website, Premium Times, Yinusa’s father said his son, being the domestic servant of the Orurus, fell in love with their daughter and that both agreed to travel to Kano.

“Yinusa ran errands for Aisha’s family and at the same time rode a commercial motorcycle to earn a living. They fell in love in the house and eloped to Kano,” he said.

Bala said while he had strictly opposed his son’s decision to come to Kano with Miss Oruru, his son informed him that the girl had threatened to commit suicide if she was not allowed to travel with Yinusa to Kano.

He said Ese decided to travel because he was afraid Yinusa was getting married to another person in Kano.
“Still, I warned him against coming with her,” the father said.

“Surprisingly, the boy called me the following day to announce his arrival with Aisha, saying they were on their way to my house.

“On hearing this, I then quickly rushed to our village head to inform him about the development.
“The village head then said I should take them to his house immediately after arrival. They arrived late at night, so she passed the night in my house.

“The following day, we went together to the village head of Tofa, who then led us to the house of his superior, the district head of Kura.

“On arrival at Kura, the district head studied the case and ordered that we be taken to the emir’s palace in the city.

“When we arrived at the palace, the emir was away in Saudi Arabia, but the Wambai of Kano (a senior councillor in the palace), directed a palace guard to take us to the Shari’ah Commission office. Aisha was then taken into custody by the Shari’ah office.

“From that day, the officials kept calling to draw our attention that she cried every day that she wanted to see my son.

“On Thursday, same week, the family of Ese arrived from Bayelsa and on Friday the Emir came back from Saudi Arabia. Emir looked at the complication of the case and after interviewing the family of Ese, who told him that she was still 14 years old and she could not decide for herself, and since Ese was crying that her family might kill her because she converted to Islam, the Emir ordered that we should be taken to the police office.

“At the police office, and before Ese’s family, the girl cried that her life was in danger and that she would rather die than go back with her family. In sympathy, the police said Aisha (Ese) should be taken back to Kura.
“Back in the village, I took her to the house of the district head. I refused to let them stay together in my house since they were not married.

“The district head then enrolled her in both Western and Islamic schools,” Bala said.
According to him, Miss Oruru accepted Islam in the house of the district head.

Meanwhile, the decision by Ese’s father, Mr. Oruru to take his daughter to Pastor T.B. Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations for prayers, after her return to her family, has drawn mixed reactions from a cross section of Nigerians on the social media.

Mr. Oruru said he would take her to the church of the controversial pastor, who is facing criminal prosecution after a guesthouse run by the church collapsed in 2014 killing 161 people.

This followed claims that Ese had refused to go back home with them. On hearing the claims, Mr. Oruru jumped to the conclusion that his daughter’s problem was religious in nature

He said: “When I heard that she is declining to come home, I saw this as a spiritual problem that can only be countered by prayer.”

But some Nigerians took to the social media to express their dismay and reservation over his statement.
Tweeting as @MrAyeDee, one Mr, AyeDee wrote: “I think a rape counseling/post trauma centre is what’s needed for Ese, not a church or pastor.”

One Stanley was also of the opinion that the church was not the best place to take the girl soon after her release.
He wrote: “Ese Oruru needs (the) best therapy. This is not time for TB Joshua for goodness sake. Seems the dad doesn’t understand the level of damage done to his daughter.”

But others thought differently and attacked those who flayed the decision by her father.
South Champion tweeting from @Adopted4byGod, wrote: “A church or pastor’s counsel too, it’s not just about prayers or deliverance.”

Also, Emma Ify wrote: “A deliverance pastor is needed to deliver her from whatever spell they must have cast on her.”
While Reuel Nafisu wrote: “What is the job of the pastor you think, most pastors are counsellors and trauma professionals by virtue of their mandate.”

But as the debate over Ese’s condition and her parent’s dilemma raged yesterday, the father of another missing 14-year-old girl, Miss Patience Paul, a primary six student of Mohammed Zako Model Primary School in Sokoto, claimed that his daughter might have been abducted and held in the palace of the Sultan of Sokoto.

Mr. Paul Adaji, the father of the girl and an indigene of Ochobo in Ohimini Local Government Area of Benue State, was quoted by Vanguard newspaper as stating that his daughter had been missing since August 12, 2015.

Adaji, who resides in Sokoto with his family, alleged that some persons spotted his daughter at the palace when the family was searching for her. He alleged: “We got information that she was in the Sultan’s palace and the last time we went there we did not find her.”

When asked how they knew she was at the palace, he said: “Some people told us that they saw her there, they also used to camp some of them there before; that is why we went there to see if she has been taken there.
“Even her friend who used to be a Christian was found there. She was taken there and they converted her. We will still continue to search for her, we will not give up; we only want the world to help us so that our daughter can be released to us.”

When contacted on the issue, a source in the Sultan’s palace informed THISDAY that the palace was not aware of the existence of the girl but would investigate the claim.

He said: “The Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar II, has been overseas and just returned to Sokoto yesterday (Tuesday). He is unaware of this allegation. But it will be investigated and a statement issued in due course.”