BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
Almost on a daily basis across Nigeria, the purity and innocence of young children, most especially girls, are being damaged and taken away often by those who are supposed to nurture, protect and give them better tomorrow.
Sadly, records have shown that family members and neighbours were the perpetrators of most cases of sexual abuse in recent times.
Stakeholders have described rape and sexual abuse as vicious crimes which leave victims in trauma for life. They said the savage acts have become an epidemic which needed to be tackled headlong with stringent measures.
Just last week, The Point reported how a 16-year-old girl was turned into a sex machine and serially raped for about two years by her grandfather, Hammed Afolabi.
The 74-year-old suspect was accused of forcing the teenager to bed since 2021 when she was brought under his custody.
It was gathered that the girl, name withheld, was brought to Osun State in 2021 by her parents and put under the care of Afolabi who lives at Temidayo community Zone 3 Olodo Owode Ede, in Ede North Local Government Area of the state, where the incident happened.
The Point learnt that the girl narrated her ordeals to one of the residents in the area after her parents allegedly turned deaf ears to her complaints, a situation that led to the arrest of the septuagenarian by the police.
One of those who reported the matter to the police in the area told The Point, under condition of anonymity, that, “The paternal grandfather has been having forceful sexual intercourse with his granddaughter and the girl has been complaining. In fact, the family members are aware.
The victim had reported her grandpa to her parents but they dismissed her claims thinking that the girl wanted to stigmatize and rubbish the old man.
“The girl was brought to the man when she was at the age of 14 years and that was in 2021 and we discovered, through the accounts of the girl, that her grandpa started sneaking into her room at night to defile and rape her few weeks after she started living with him.
“When the man was caught in the community, he confessed that he committed the act but claimed that he only raped the girl twice.”
Findings by The Point in court confirmed that the suspect wrote a statement that he only had sexual intercourse with the under aged girl two times.
Also, a secondary school teacher, Lateef Olaniran, was arrested last week for allegedly raping two young ladies within 24 hours in Ogun State.
This was disclosed in a statement issued by the State Commissioner for Women Affairs, Adijat Adeleye.
According to the statement, Olaniran is a native of Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun State, and is a Mathematics teacher at Ebenezer Grammar School, Iberekodo, Abeokuta.
It was said that he is an employee of the Ogun State Teaching Service Commission with the number, OGNO.30650.
The Commissioner explained further saying, he was arrested penultimate Saturday when a member of her team got a call from a young lady reporting that a man had raped her.
In May this year, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Kogi State Command, arrested a 41-year old father for allegedly defiling and raping his 16-year old daughter.
Speaking after parading the suspect at NSCDC Command Headquarters, Lokoja, the state’s Commandant, Ahmad Gandi, said the command received a complaint lodged by a Non-Governmental Organisation on May 5.
According to him, the complaint was lodged on a case of defilement, rape and incest in which the suspect is a biological father of the victim.
The commandant said that the abusive act was on for three years from 2020 to 2023, since when the victim was 16 years old.
Gandi said that the younger sister to the victim advised her that they should either commit suicide or kill their father to free themselves from the abusive act.
The commandant said that the father had admitted committing the act, adding the man would be charged to court after concluding the investigation.
An Ikeja Magistrate’s Court sitting at Ogba, Lagos State, in March, this year, remanded a 36-year-old man, Roland Okajere, at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre for allegedly raping his 18-year-old daughter inside his shop in the Ikotun area of the state.
The Magistrate, L. A Owolabi gave the order after the defendant who is facing a charge bordering on rape preferred against him by the police was arraigned.
The police prosecutor, Inspector Esther Igbineweka, told the court that the defendant committed the offence on January 4, 2023.
Even those trained to save lives are not exempted in these bizarre acts.
Recently, the Medical Director of Optical Cancer Care Foundation, Dr. Olufemi Olaleye, bagged a life imprisonment sentence for repeatedly defiling and raping a 16-year-old girl.
Not only did the victim look up to her defiler as a father figure, she is also a blood relative of her adversary’s wife – her niece.
After all the legal gymnastics that the defence team put up at an Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court, in a bid to sway the presiding judge, Justice Rahman Oshodi handed to Olaleye, a life imprisonment sentence.
Before handing down the verdict, Oshodi berated the randy medic, saying, “You are a dangerous offender, and you must be ashamed. You acknowledged that you are a sex addict in your confession but came to this court and told lies. You showed no remorse, and it shows that you are a dangerous man. The survivor, to your knowledge, is a child, but you forced her to watch pornography, rub her breasts and put your penis in her mouth. You penetrated her repeatedly,” Oshodi said.
The jurist added, “By the laws of Lagos State, I am compelled to hand you a sentence of life imprisonment on each count of your offence, but your counsel has said that you are a first-time offender and a doctor of cancer patients. I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment on counts one and two,” he said.
Considering the life-long scars that victims of domestic and sexual violence bear across the country, Olaleye’s conviction represents only a tiny drop of water in the ocean.
Nevertheless, it sends a strong message to other perpetrators that the wheel of justice grinds slowly, but exceedingly fine, especially with the judge directing that Olaleye should have his name written in the Sexual Offences Register of the Lagos State government.
Notwithstanding, stakeholders have advocated for stiffer punishments for convicted rapists and abusers.
They lamented that despite the passage into law in 2015 of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act, cases of domestic, and sexual violence have been upswing across states.
A girl child right activist, Bunmi Jaye, has recommended castration and amputation as punishments for convicted rapists.
He said existing laws were not punitive enough to discourage people from ruining the lives of others in the name of satisfying their sexual pleasures forcefully.
Jaye stated, “As archaic as many may think my recommendations sound, I have strong conviction that abusers won’t stop inflicting pains on our women and girls. If the offender is a man, he should be castrated and if the person is a woman, she should be amputated.”
The activist’s advocacy is in sync with the submission of a judge of the Rivers State High Court, Justice Eberechi Wike, who insisted that the current punishment meted to people found guilty of defiling minors is not drastic enough hence her recommendation for them to be amputated.
Justice Wike, who is the wife of the immediate past Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, while speaking recently on the sidelines of the 2nd National Conference of Family Court Judges, Magistrates, and other Family Court Practitioners in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, stressed that the current punishment does not deter sexual offenders from molesting minors.
Wike roused society to ramp up punishments for defilers beyond life imprisonment, or a 14-year jail term saying, “We should do much more. I think we should do something that will be really drastic, that will make them think twice before they do that.
“I cannot think of anything better than having in place a piece of legislation that says that whatever part of your body that you use on a child while defiling the child should be cut off, if it is your finger; if it is your mouth, if it is your private part. I think men will take it more seriously when you come up with such legislation. I hope a man in the House of Representatives or the Senate will sponsor a bill like that,” she posited.
