Nigeria and the Pervasiveness of Rape

By Muhammad Adam Haruna

INFOMEDIA – I decided to pen down this piece following the proliferation of news on rape I come across these days via newspapers and radio stations. Some of the news I read on rape made me to shade tears, as I imagine the physical trauma and psychological molestation the rape victims experienced.
Meriam Webster defined rape as ”unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person’s will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception.”

Going by the definition of rape above, it is apparent that the act of rape is indubitably emerging as one of the nastiest devious acts that seriuosly ruins and puts the life of its victims in the limbo. Victims of rape go through all sorts of difficulties in their life after rape, despite the fact that the act was done upon them against their will. Some of the victims are killed instantly by the perpetrator(s) of the rape, while others are murdered by their parents with the aim of keeping the so called good image of the family intact.

Just recently a 22-year old University of Benin student was sexually abused and murdered. In Ibadan, few days after two students were raped, the Oyo State Police command confirmed another rape and killing of a 21-year-old lady in a church mission building. (Vanguard, June 13, 2020).

Raping and immediate killing of rape victims by the rapist(s) or victims’ parents is not idiosyncratic to Nigeria only.
A report by Daily Mail shows that a rape victim from Mantoli village in India’s northeastern Uttarakhand state, was recently murdered by her father after discovering that she was pregnant following a sexual assault she experienced.

It is apparent that sexual harassment is becoming so detrimental in Nigeria. This has raised the requirement for an urgent and serious attention from the government, law enforcement agencies and the publics so as to fight down the menace.

The prevalence of rape in all the geo-political zones of Nigeria has made Nigerians to start getting desensitized gradually with regards to the issue of rape. A survey conducted by NOIPOLLS in July 2019, revealed that most Nigerians (85%) believe that there is a high prevalence of rape in Nigeria.

A UNICEF report in 2015 shows that one in every four girls and one in every ten boys in Nigeria had experienced sexual violence before the age of 18. A survey also, conducted by Positive Action for Treatment Access, indicates that, over 31.4 percent of girls in Nigeria said that their first sexual encounter had been rape or forced sex of some kind.

The act of rape is made more excruciating by the fact that, it is acted upon people of different ages, regardless of whether they are children, teenagers, or oldies.

From the news of a father who defiled his daughter, to the news of a 60-year-old man who raped a teenager; from the narration of a grandfather who raped his granddaughter, to the narration of a person who sexually assaulted his mother; and from the news of a 40-year-old woman who raped a three-year-old boy, to the news of a 50-year-old man who had the carnal knowledge of a six-months-old baby. These are the kind of news we come across everyday through our media.

Just a few days ago, a man from Pompomari ward in Damaturu, Yobe State was arrested for sexually defiling his 12-year-old granddaughter. In Ondo State also, a 24-year-old farmer has been arraigned at an Akure Magistrate’s Court for allegedly raping a 50-year-old grandmother. (The Guardian, July 29, 2020).

Cases of rape like these, make one to start questioning whether the perpetrators are really in their normal sense or not. Because, they display a kind of behavior that is not practicable to some animals, let alone a human being.

It is worrisome that whenever the perpetrators of rape are caught and faced the law, they tend to show a putative repentance and render their action as devil-inspired, while in reality they are the real devils.

An upper Shari’a court in Kano state has recently sentenced a 60-year-old Mati Abdu of Tsanyawa local government to death by stoning for raping a 12-year-old girl based on the provision of Section 127 (b) of the Kano State Shari’a Code Law 2000. Shortly after his conviction, Mati Abdu was incessantly pledging that he would not commit the offence again had he been left not stoned.

Plus, we thank God that the dramatic increase of rape cases has attracted the attention of the governments to consider creating more strict laws on rape perpetrators. For example, the excutive governor of Kaduna state Malam Nasiru El-Rufai recently made it public that there will be no more bail for rapists, and said they were considering castration as punishment for rape. In the same line, Kano state lawmakers recommended castration as punishment for rape too. This is a good move indeed.

For us to get rid of the menace of rape, parents have to be monitoring the movements of their children (unnecessary hawking has to be avoided), the government has to keep establishing more strict laws that will deter the rapists, the laws have to be enforced upon perpetrators of rape by the concerned bodies regardless of who the perpetrators are, we must ensure that the victims of rape get the justice they deserve and the public have to keep voicing out against the atrocious act. Martin Luthar King, Jr once said ”our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Muhammad Adam Haruna writes via: [email protected]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of INFOMEDIA

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