On Wednesday, Nigeria joined the global community to mark this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD). The theme of this year’s celebration is: “Be Bold For Change”. Fine! But is there any bold one among them – a minor, a teenager, a young woman, a mother, a grandmother or even a great grandmother – who could pound her breasts like a gorilla on that day and declare with absolute confidence when leaving home that she would return intact? Such a person should raise a finger… no one.Yes, no one except one that dwells in the secret place of the Most High.
Theft is a primordial felony. There are all manner of thieves under the sun. But theft of money is the commonest. Also becoming an epidemic is sex theft. Sex theft is a metaphor for rape.
On daily basis, the media space is seething with reported cases of worrisome sex theft, men robbing women of their dignity through forceful entry into their exclusive territories.
I became so disturbed at one point that hardly did a month pass by without a discourse on the subject in this column. I even tried to keep a record of reported cases of rape in the country until I was overwhelmed and I completely lost track.
Nigerian sex thieves are an enigma. The most nauseating among them are those ones who steal sex from their own biological kids. Let me recall an example: In 2010, a retired naval officer in Lagos was caught tossing his 2-year-old daughter up and down on his laps in the manner that most babies enjoy being played with until she began to yell in agony. The cruel ex-naval officer was actually robbing her child and he almost rendered her asunder in the process, oblivious of the environment until some curious neighbours responded to the baby’s SMS or save my soul.
Now, let me quickly take you outside the shores of Nigeria… to Papua New Guinean where a teenage girl brought down the head of her sex thief dad with a bush knife a few years ago. According to media reports, the girl had been raped severally overnight by the incestuous dad. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, he went for more rounds. It was at that point that the traumatised girl felt that the world would be a better place without a sexually demented man like her father and beheaded him.
The leaders of the community in which the victim lived decided to protect the girl from the long arm of the law by refusing to hand her over to the police, insisting that the thieving dad deserved what he got. A pastor in the settlement, Lucas Kumi, told reporters that the dad, who was in his mid-40s and had three other kids, fell on his own daughter on the fateful night when the rest of the family members were away on visitation to some relatives in another location.
Pastor Kumi said the father went to his daughter’s room in the night and robbed her over and over again. Possessed by the spirit of Oliver Twist, the rapist dad wanted more in the morning and it was at that point that the disgusted girl reached for the bush knife and chopped off his head.
The girl promptly announced the tragic incident to the community leader.
Being an elderly woman who has lost all the attractive features is not an insurance against sex theft. Only recently, a 45-year-old commercial driver, Lawrence Adedapo, was sentenced to seven years in prison by an Ekiti High Court for raping an 80-year-old mama, Grace Asaolu, at Oke Erimope in Ekiti.
A few years earlier, an Ekiti man was reported to have pounced on a solitary 60-year-old woman like cat on rat while heading for her farm. There was also another weird sex theft involving a 25-year-old man named Munnir Goma of Yelwa Village in Matazu Local Government Area of Katsina state, who fell on an elderly woman, old enough to be his great grand mum, lacerating her dormant groove mercilessly. She was aged 85.
Again, let us look beyond this country… to faraway America where some time ago, a 53-year-old Texan covered a distance of two kilometers on a bicycle to Tivoli in South Central Texas. The rider named Isabel Chavo Gutierre, weighing 250 pounds, had squeezed his massive frame into the home of a 77-year-old woman where he weaponised his manhood to rob her at knife point.
Gutierre was said to be grinning from ear to ear in sheer pleasure but suddenly called off the robbery and dropped the knife, complaining that he was not feeling well. He had suffered a heart attack!
The old woman managed to tip his massive cadaver over and promptly alerted the police.
The conviction of the Ekiti commercial driver, coming on the heels of the sentencing of the proprietor of God’s Grace Nursery and Primary School, Ado Ekiti, Babatunde Ibitoye, to 10 years in prison for raping a 10-year-old pupil of his school by an Ekiti High Court, is portraying the state as a no-nonsense state for sex thieves.
Governor Ayodele Fayose underscored this on Wednesday while marking the IWD that hell awaits anyone caught in the act of sex-robbing an Ekiti woman.
It is a sad development that Nigeria has slipped into the notorious club of nations with high rate of sexual violence against women. Incidents of sex theft have become so rampant that even law enforcement agents and destitute folks are involved in the despicable practice.
Instances abound of policemen falling on women in their custody. One cop even raped the daughter of his boss not too long ago.
Criminal elements like armed robbers are fond of raping their victims as an icing on the cake during or after their nefarious operations. While there are rapists who force themselves on their victims, including toddlers for sheer physical pleasure, there are those whose actions are driven by the desire to acquire spiritual powers.
These abominations are not limited to the social vermin. “Men of God” are also involved in the robbery. There are cases of pastors raping members of their churches. While some force themselves on their victims, others have carnal knowledge of them, using spiritual cleansing and deliverance as a bizarre alibi to rob the gullible ones.
Several factors also promote this theft especially among the minors. Chief among them is hawking.
It is a common thing to see underage girls swarming all over the place selling all manner of items ranging from groundnuts, oranges, plantains, sachet water to kola nuts in order to boost their family incomes during or after school hours. These hawkers easily fall prey to rapists who are always on the lookout for the easy targets, children who can be easily seduced with Tom Tom and biscuits. Some states have banned the practice. Other states should follow suit.
Rapists are worse than armed robbers. A woman robbed of her material possessions can regain them. But a rape victim is robbed of her dignity and honour which cannot be recovered. The scars left on the victims do not heal: the psychological and physical trauma make many avoid healthy sexual activity. If not properly counselled, a victim could become a hater of men and lead a very unhappy and unfulfilled life.
I once recommended the razor solution based on the experience of a Bangladeshi woman named Monju Begum. On June 4, 2011, a sex robber sneaked into her compound to steal her dignity and abuse her womanhood. Using her feminine sense, she disarmed the robber of his weapon, rushed it to the nearest police station to lodge a complaint and presented the weapon, dripping with blood, as proof.
I was quick to point out that the Bangladeshi solution would amount to dragging the law into their own hands but unfortunately, the extant law is not severe enough to rein in the maniacs’ weapons of mass destruction. And where the legislation leaves a woman vulnerable to attack such as the one in question, you would not blame any victim aping Monju Begum’s self-help solution.
