As proposed in this column last week, the death of Prince Abubakar Audu shouldn’t be a reason to rewrite his stories and describe as a fiction all the proven bits of his life as a politician who had had ample opportunity to effect a change. Whether he succeeded in making a difference, shouldn’t be discussed in hushed tones as advocated by the more “spiritual” among us. It should be discussed, verified and documented, even if for just the sake of history.
Of the two scandals witnessed since his death, both around his son, one is a continuation of a chaos launched by his death. The ethnic politics of Kogi State in which the Igala are dominant has been at play in the choice of Audu’s replacement, even though his running mate, James Faleke, has been going from one media house to another screaming injustice in that political process; that he is, in his own interpretation of law and the situations there, duly elected, and waiting to succeed Governor Idris Wada.
The APC, however, ignoring the ethnic voice in the agitation for preferred replacement, chose a member of the long-dominated Ebira as replacement. Some members of the bereaved Igala group wanted Audu’s son, Mohammed, who’s also Faleke’s preference as running mate. And when this didn’t happen, riot happened.
And while the love for Mohammed Audu turned bloody, his younger brother, Mustapha, in the midst of a drearier scandal; an accusation of rape.
I was with a group of friends, all male, when we read the traumatizing account of the rape told by the victim, a lady who goes by the moniker “Sugabelly” on Twitter. My hesitation to read the story at the time it began to trend was based on my judgement of the author’s past theatrics and hysterics on the microblogging site, especially her penchant for needlessly vulgar interactions.
I thought that outing was yet another burst of her desperation, the struggle for relevance on social media; that her claim that she had been serially violated by named children of the late Prince Abubakar Audu and their friends was just a fictionalized version of the truth. I was to be driven into a painfully intoxicating narrative, shown how her vulnerability as a 17-year-old was exploited and her humanity abused by a morally loose gang.
It’s easy to feel sorry for a rape victim, for Sugabelly, especially as brothers to sisters and potential fathers to vulnerable girls we’d protect with our lives. But we must also watch our emotions in our rush to sentence the accused as charged without waiting for his own side of the story in this chaotic court of public opinion.
Two of my friends, after reading Sugabelly’s indictment of the beasts that ruined her life, told stories of identification of them as carnally loose monsters by certain exes.
One said his was a youth corps member who served at his firm, and who, on being told she couldn’t be retained, came to his office in the last week of her service and “tampered with her clothes” in a ploy to set him up. It’s the hidden camera in the office that vindicated him. The second chap’s was a girl he ditched for his present wife. In the month running up to his wedding, she sent him a text, threatening to accuse him of rape and ruin his name and his family’s should he go ahead with his proposed marriage. He met the police immediately to get it handled.
My point is, condemnable as rape is, let’s also remind ourselves that allegations are easy to bandy, and if we set a precedent for forming a lynchmob against an accused person, then we are finished as a society. It means every Janet, Amina or Abike could reappear in her man’s life years after an estranged relationship to demonize him, with such accusations becoming the stairways to his fall without being granted a minute to counter the arguments.
We are a sympathetic people, but sympathy too should be rationally applied and not be used in pursuits and promotions of biased advocacies. That one has a famous surname shouldn’t be a reason to deny him or her the privilege to defend himself/herself in this court of sentiments.
Even our rush to judge the Audus, I’ll only stand stand, in sympathy, with the victim until proven otherwise. May God save us from us!
