Shuaib Shuaib
There is a debate among historians on whether the law and practice of prima nocta, a Latin expression meaning first night, ever existed.
In medieval Europe, the law gave noble lords the rights to sleep with the women they ruled over whenever they wished, particularly on the wedding nights of the young brides.
There are writings to suggest it was practiced in Scotland, France and Spain though all the accounts are disputed by other writings describing the actual practice of prima nocta as myths and legend.
The way it was in Shakespeare’s Henry VI: “there shall not a maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they have it.”
These aren’t medieval times but the practice, in recent times, has been reborn in remote parts of Nigeria, not by noble men or people in authority, but by bandits, who to some extent constitute the real authority in the villages of Zamfara and other parts of the northwest.
Since the insurgency started in Borno over a decade ago, hundreds of women and girls have been kidnapped, some never to be seen again
And there are testimonies of villagers in many parts of Zamfara saying they have lived through this nightmare.
The only problem is that their stories are never told.
Their governors don’t find it worthwhile to take up their cause.
Over the weekend, at least 110 rice farmers, according to the United Nations, were killed in Jere Local Government of Borno.
Among those that are still missing are women.
Since the insurgency started in Borno over a decade ago, hundreds of women and girls have been kidnapped, some never to be seen again.
The most famous were the Chibok girls whose misery has lasted for years and was spoken of in different corners of the world.
All eyes are on the northeast part of the country.
It’s not just the fact that there is an international dimension to the Boko Haram insurgency that has spilt over into Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
There are also that a number of international NGOs are active in the region.
So, everything that happens there, sooner or later becomes public knowledge.
In the most recent attack, reports suggest they were abducted, not killed.
In seeking to bring an end to the killings, it is important that these violent incidents are not hidden from the public. Like has been his habit, the governor of the state, Babagana Zulum was there to mourn and bury the dead.
Sometimes, his show of support for people in Borno has led to rifts with the military.
Zulum has even made the unprecedented call of asking the president to use mercenaries to defeat Boko Haram.
That is an indictment on the Nigerian Army.
But it puts pressure on the army to do things differently.
In the northwest, women and girls in remote villages, are subjected to a different kind of misery; one that aims to pollute their marriages right from the very beginning.
Today, someone else has taken his place.
But before he was killed in March 2018 as a result of an internal feud with his gang, Buharin Daji lived the life of a war lord, killing and kidnapping villagers for ransom, rustling cattle and stealing farm produce at will.
Zulum has even made the unprecedented call of asking the president to use mercenaries to defeat Boko Haram
He commanded the loyalty of an army of bandits and in the of a peace deal, he was on the payroll of the state governor.
To put icing on the cake, the bandit demanded from new brides in villages within his sphere of terror, the rights to the first night.
But because it is in Zamfara, it never makes it into the news.
In fact, what emerges from a googles search of his name is a smiling bandit in warm handshakes with the then deputy governor of Zamfara and another with Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina.
And to think that there is still an army of his men out there.
As it turned out, the peace deal only gave the bandits time to reorganise and launch waves of new attacks with vengeance.
There are state governors in the northwest who won’t make deals with armed gangs.
But there is a limit to how successful they can be in defeating the ragtag army of bandits as long as there are neighbouring states offering them a safe haven.
Even if former Zamfara governor, Abdulaziz Yari and Governor Masari of Katsina State felt there were some code of honour that the bandits live by and would abide by the signed peace deal, the manner at which Buharin Daji died showed in fact that there is no honour among thieves.
He was killed by one of his own.
And shamelessly, the state governor embraced the killing of the notorious bandit, acting like it was of their making.
His body was dragged on the streets of the villages he tormented so that his victims could exact revenge. It was mutilated and taken to the Government House in Gusau, where it was effectively placed on display.
The present governor of Zamfara seems more interested in maintaining the status, pretending there could be a deal with bandits and every time there is some violent attack, the first instinct is to hide it from the public.
In the end, all that happens is that no one faces any real pressure to bring the violence to end.
