Between Malala’s Diplomacy and Child Abuse, By Issa Aremu

A wise child is talked to in proverbs.
Twi (Ghana) proverb (Asante & Asante)
Woe to the kingdom whose king is a child.
After the departure of Mallama Malala, my interest is purely academic or if you like proverbial and philosophical. The good children of South Africa fondly called the late iconic Nelson Mandela ‘tata’. Tata means ‘father,’ a worthy tribute to the first non-racial democratically elected President of the Republic of South Africa.
Mandela was globally acknowledged as the father of the nation and “a man who always had a great love of young people”. Very few world leaders had quotable quotes on children as the late Madiba’s. Out of the scores of Mandela’s sayings on the joy of children, yours truly searched in vain for Mandela’s words on where and when children are cynical tools for inconclusive shuttle diplomacy for good governance or diplomatic noise judging from Malala’s seemingly rancorous visit to Nigeria last week. By her own account, Malālah Yūsafzay who was born on 12 July 1997 was here in Nigeria on her 17th birthday for “a price which is to see that every child goes to school” in Nigeria. Pray how much price will a 17th year old who barely two years ago, in the Swat District of PakIn on Tuesday, 9 October 2012, escaped a gunman’s man bullet in her school bus because of her activism for all inclusive education in Taliban enclave? On May 9, 2002, Nelson Mandela at a Luncheon hosted by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan at the special session of the UN for Children, New York City observed that “History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children.”
As a Nigerian, something tells me that History might not judge us nicely that (obviously for the worse) we made Malālah Yūsafzay to pay another price by marking her 17th birthday mediating between the chieftains of hashtag #BringBackOurGirls” and the officials of President Jonathan Presidency. The truth is that she was out of school just as the Chibok girls, albeit for different reason and certainly at sharply varying places; Malala doing anything but reading at a double digit star hotel in Abuja and Chibokgirls at Allah-knows-where. Of course no solidarity is too much to put pressure of Nigerian government to intensify its efforts to return over 200 Chibok school girls who were abducted on 14 April while writing examination.
However a solidarity from Malala who herself ordinarily deserves our solidarity an additional price such as abandoning her studies in God-knows-where for making a case for some girls to be in schools in Nigeria is one solidarity bordering a child abuse. Nigeria certainly has its fair share of child labour notwithstanding the fact that we have ratified ILO Convention No. 182 which prohibits the worst forms of child labour 1999. The recent uncritical exposures of Malala to critical issues of governance such as rescueing abducted girls, discussing budget allocation to education and even resolving disputes between Nigerian government and the civil society activists adds to our child abuse profile. No thanks to Malala’s father who escorts his daughter during the holy month of Ramadan thousands of kilometers away from his ward’s school engaging in a televised diatribe with a Minister of Education over a budget allocation in a country in tropical Africa.
Again the late sage, Mandela reminds us that the “The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children”. Reading Malala revealing that her objective this year as part of her birthday was “….to speak up for my Nigerian sisters about 200 of them who are under the abduction of Boko Haram” and that she ” met …President Goodluck Jonathan for this purpose” amounts to an unfair over load for a 17year old yet to complete a college. Some fathers do have them! But that is far from being a worthy parenting! Africa is notorious for child soldiers.
Paradoxically out of the some reported approximately 200,000 child soldiers in Africa in 2008, none came from Nigeria. Let nobody import a diplomatic child soldier to Nigeria!
Ama Ata Aidoo, is a Ghanaian writer who once remarked that; “It’s a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.” Certainly President Jonathan as a possible grandfather could not have been said to be afraid of a Malala. But the ease with which we were eager to render account to her beats imagination. I refuse to accept that a mention of Malala is the trigger to an instant Presidential accountability wisdom in a democratic Nigeria that has bicameral parliament yet to be briefed by the President on where the missing girls are. Witness the President to Malala; “We appreciate your efforts to change the world positively through your powerful advocacy for girl-child education,” . And witness the damning remark of a Malala, the daughter and even grand daughter about Nigeria; “My father and I and the entire family want to speak out for those 10.5 million children who are out of school. They have no access to education because of many problems. And I am hopeful that the international community will take serious action because if we think this country is in Africa and is not going to affect other countries, we are really wrong. If we leave 10.5 million children illiterate, these children can become terrorists, they can be violated and they can be deprived of their basic human rights, at the end they will not be able to help their country in developing. So if we want the whole world to be successful, it is important that every child should go to school. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, only 1.5% of the budget is spent on education which is a small amount compared to Pakistan which has increased its own to 4%. “.”
It is debatable if a foreign head of state had talked at Nigeria as Malala did, there would not have been a legitimate diplomatic row. Former America Secretary of States, Hillary Clinton in the 1990s popularized the Yoruba proverb according to which “It takes a whole village to raise a child”. The received wisdom of the Yorubas (no less Hilary Clinton”s popularization of it) never for once envisage that we can raise a child ( read;Malala ) the way we have indulged her in recently. Or better put, nobody would have imagined that a Pakistani under aged girl whose father-aide was born 9 years after Nigerian independence and at the 12th birthday of President Goodluck Jonathan would audaciously claim to be unacceptably raising a village (sorry; a Republic called Nigeria).
Issa Aremu mni