Yerima, former Governor of Zamfara State

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

There is more trouble in Zamfara State than in Sambisa Forest.

Let’s note, for starters, that President Muhammadu Buhari has not declared a “No-Fly Zone” in Sambisa as he has just done in Zamfara.

The trouble with Zamfara did not start today – it started many moons ago with an ideology called Yerimaism.

The inventor of the ideology of Yerimaism is no other person than Alhaji Sani Yerima, who as Zamfara State Governor introduced Sharia law as opposed to the Nigerian Constitution.

The president then, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who ought to have defended the constitution, came up with the joke that Yerimaism was “political Sharia” that was not worth disturbing his slumber.

Obasanjo was made to understand quickly enough that Yerimaism was no joke when poor Buba Jangebe of Jangebe town in Zamfara State had his hand amputated according to the dictate of Sharia law for stealing a cow in Year 2000.

Fast forward to this year of Our Lord, and Yerimaism still thrives as can be seen from the February 26 abduction of 279 schoolgirls of Government Girls Secondary School in the selfsame Jangebe.

The author of Yerimaism of course led by example by marrying off a 13-year-old imported wife from Egypt.

You may call that international child kidnap in the name of marriage!

Yerimaism is an ideology of anything goes – a bandit ideology that makes other ideologies such as socialism, Marxism, communism, capitalism, fascism etc look very ancient indeed.

If Germany, for instance, boasts of Karl Marx of Marxism fame, we do have in the biggest black African country, the very Giant of Africa, an inventor of an ideology in our very own Sani Yerima, the author of Yerimaism.

For one to practice Yerimaism with the requisite gusto there is the need to grow fierce beards and moustache to strike fear into the targeted underage girls.

With the mullah “gemu” in place, one can venture farther afield, as far as the pyramids of Egypt, to make the most international capture.

It has to be understood though that even as abducting underage girls into marriage is prohibited by the constitution, the “anything goes” ideology of Yerimaism in Zamfara pleads amnesty for all bandits, according to Sheikh Gumi.

Have you not heard the mantra of Yerimaism as dished out by the bandits-cuddling Sheikh Gumi? “Bandits are not criminals!” So said the mullah…

In truth Zamfara cannot be celebrated loudly enough for being the ready heaven for all rakes of Yerimaism!

A true Yerimaist collects ransom on the kidnapped girl before releasing her only to hope that she would eventually come back to him because he had given her the phone number of love while in captivity.

As things stand, the constitution of the country should actually be sent to the Boko Haram sect for interpretation on matters concerning Yerimaism.

Any protester against the designs of a Yerimaist should be charged with writing “The Satanic Verses”, and a death sentence must be promptly slammed on him like Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa upon good old Salman Rushdie.

Who wants to “rush die” as the badly misnamed Indo-British author?

Yerimaism is not a laughing matter, for it is a serious ideology that sanctions the kidnapping of the single underage girl or multitudes of them.

As I am writing this piece on Women’s Day, it has to be understood that since the Beijing Conference women have been speaking big grammar in regard to their rights.

Through the intervention of Yerimaism, men now have the ready means to take a detour from negotiating mature women to abducting toddlers who know next-to-nothing about Beijing or whatever conference whatsoever.

Thanks to Yerimaism, a man does not necessarily need to talk to a woman before carting her away!

The marriage is almost always negotiated on the bride’s behalf by the rat-a-tat of the ubiquitous AK-47.

What’s the point of negotiating with a woman as an equal anyway when all one needs to do is brandish the bandit ideology of Yerimaism whilst armed with AK-47?

As an ideology, Yerimaism goes straight to the point!

In this day and age that Nigeria is lacking in exportable materials except oil, Yerimaism should come in as our ideological export to the world.

Nobody can stop an idea whose time has come, as they say.

Now that all other ideologies are getting expired it is indeed a great thing of intercontinental celebration that Nigeria’s made-in-Zamfara bandit ideology of Yerimaism bespeaks change as per the next level.