Over the last decade, pimping has increased as the act is being decriminalized. Women of all ages and dressed scantily or nude are put on display and offered for sale by male consumers who place no premium on the products accept of course, for the purpose of being devoured. Women have been reduced to sex objects. We have now flipped into a new page where moral corruption is packaged for acceptance and everything that was once reprehensible is now being rebranded to lose the revulsion the act evoked.
Welcome to the new world! Here we are with Task Forces against prostitution and Federal Government agencies like the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other related matters (NAPTIP). Nigeria being vilified in Italy for its leading role in sex racketeering; yet in the face of all these, we want to fight the scourge and validate the act all in one breathe. We need to begin to ask questions; deep questions.
There is another Human Wrong. It is called the cross of the victim in the litigation circle. A person suffers an injury from a perpetrator. Despite his pain, he must pay the police to investigate. If he is unlucky to have a richer or more connected perpetrator in the mix, the perpetrator pays or negotiates his way out. Where the case reaches the court, the victim has to pay for legal services, suffer untold adjournments and long, tortuous trials. In Criminal proceedings, the victim has to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt which to all intent and purposes often means proving the case beyond a shadow of doubt-a high thresh hold indeed. So you find cases where the court in her ruling will ‘reluctantly’ give a verdict that contradicts natural law for want of a written law or because the facts have been sacrificed on the altar of procedure.
Another Human wrong is how we round down the number of casualties of tragedies in our country. When people are killed in a particular place,the figures are rounded down. We don’t even have names on the statistics. Families and friends are left to mourn their dead as individuals while the country wave away the act and moves on. We have in fact got used to this practice such that when the media reports an incident and the number of casualties, the citizens guess the magnitude of the real act and the true figures. We have surreptitiously accepted lies as an official act and endorsed a lack of honour.
The argument often given in favour of this act is the need to prevent a reprisal or to ensure people are not demoralized by the actual figures. Unfortunately what this has often spoken to is that we place no premium on one life and that except violence is widespread and there is a nadir of suffering; unless the horrors and tragedies are in large scale, it is no news. However, a country that fails to place premium on one life will also place no value on a hundred lives. Our sad experiences have proved this point.
There are other winds that are blowing from the western shores. In South Africa today, a super power country in the Continent of Africa, the debate against flogging children is rife and gaining currency in legislative circles.I can tell you for free that it is only a matter of time before the debate arrives the Nigerian legislative chambers. But before the time comes when we take that decision, I ask: Which of us were not flogged by our parents and which of us are unthankful for it? How can we think, by any figment of imagination that a twig will grow into an oak without assistance to be inclined a certain way?
I got quite some strokes from my parents. I loathed it then but am now eternally grateful for it because I think I didn’t turn out too badly. Foolishness is naturally bound in the heart of a child but the rod of discipline drives it away.
We have rolled over to an era of species mutation where cross pollinations, graftings and cross-breeding are the new buzz words. Similarly, countries are seeking to get more ‘’sophisticated’’ as well as gain acceptance in the comity of nations and they do these by setting aside laws and virtue in the bid to democratize the laws. What we must however, not turn blind to is the opportunity cost of these concessions and the final destination these decisions lead to.
Whoever are the pioneers of these new movements are strategic enough to work in the long term and to use the yeast strategy where bit by bit, the lump gets quickened. There is the need for a similar long-term counter strategy that preserves ideals and every virtue that is worth preserving.
I wrap up this piece by hoping we never get used to tragedy nor get acclimatized to inhumane acts, violence and violations. I hope we never lose our identity as Africans and as Nigerians and that we hold closely every virtue and law that has defined us as a people. We cannot continue on this road of inferiority complex when all nations are indeed, equal. We must continue to call evil by its name. It is a sure way to preserving our humanity, sanctity and sanity. By the way, we are still praying and hoping for the return of our girls and the restoration of peace to Northern Nigeria. We must not give up on hope and the future. God Bless Nigeria.
