I do not know to-the-letter what the Nigerian laws say about the criminal caseof rape (do the statute books even say anything about gang-rape'), but I thinkI have heard something like its being felonious. I also know (and this I am very sure of) that crimes against one's country, such as assisting in or undermining its integrity, contributing to factors that stunt its growth or undermining its existence, are treasonable.This is why I look at those who claim that cases of rape (of girls of age and girls underaged), particularly those involving more than one male attacker, have been on the increase, as people who cry wolf pointing at a pigeon's nest. Where are the rape cases' Are you talking about that 'modern-day' motion picture recently hauled on our cyber space by those 'heroic Nigerian ambassadors' in the suburb of Uturu, Abia State' Someone said in some other countries, where they ja si i (have understanding of current trends), it could be explained away as virtual reality. Or is it the cases of those septuagenarians daily reported of having carnal knowledge of toddlers that people are crying foul about' People do it in saner climes like the United States, only they are more careful not to be caught. Or yet, are you talking about the Ekotedo, Ibadan guys who thought it absurd for a girl old enough to be in her husband's kitchen to still be in the secondary school, thereby giving her 'a little lesson in duties of a woman her age,' albeit, without having enrolled for the 'tutorial' delivered in a non-descript hotel' What are we really talking about'Just as can be seen in Alice Walker's The Third Life of Grange Copeland, once a mother has been subjected to continuous 'rape', to the extent that it has resulted in hopeless resignation, the tone for the rape of her daughters has already been set. Poverty-striken Copeland continuously rapes his wife, Margaret, despite the fact that he doesn't provide for his family's upkeep. When he eventually abandons the family in Georgia and flees North, he exposes Margaret and Brownfield, his son, to different kinds of rape. Celie, in another of Walker's fiction's, The Colour Purple, suffers the same fate in her husband's hands. And it goes on to determine her life and her children's; they all ended 'raped' one way or the other.In Frank McCourt's memoir, Angela's Ashes, it doesn't matter whether McCourt's father, Malachy, drinks his wages weekly and leaves wife and children begging for food in charity homes, he comes home drunk, bellicose, noisy and demanding for sex which he got by all means; the wife sobs till he ejaculates and disembarks. Is that not rape' And it is continuous, until, like Walker's Copeland, Malachy abandons his family to a most severe vicious life of socio-economic rape.What are we saying' That in Nigeria, incidents of rape, and of recent, gang- rape, have become what my people in Yorubaland would call toro fon ka 'le (so ubiquitous or common like the penny coin), is not only a function of social dislocation, misplacement of values, etc., but also a result of the rape the country (the mother) had been and continues to be subjected to, a development that gave rise to the first set of indices in the first place. Especially a little after the independence year of 1960, when Nigeria began to blossom into a beautiful damsel, wealth wise, leaders, both military and civilians, had begun to rape it, on the rough surface of corruption, nepotism, political thuggery, religious intolerance, etc. The defilement of the nation climaxed in the military incursion into power of the 1980s to 90s. Then, the military rulers of the era made what Dan Brown, in The Da Vinci Code, calls a Vitruvian Man, of Nigeria, spread-eagled her in the open, in the market square; and raped her; deprived her of right to yield 'the resources between her legs' to whoever she wanted (no doubt, her suffering masses); her rights to educate her children, feed them, clothe them, house them and give them the opportunity to compete with their peers in the comity of nations were taken from her. All these were done with impunity. At least, the Abia gang -raped their victim within the confines of a room. Sorry, they later released the video to the world (like Nigerian leaders, like the followers they produce).When I saw the Abia gang-rape video, I was reminded of William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Youth in Nigeria have become bestialized in the island of hopelessness on which they have been marooned by actions and inactions of bad leadership. The rapists, in that bizarre (or is it really, in Nigeria') video, talked and behaved like lower animals. And that is exactly what our leaders are doing with governance; reasoning and ruling like animals. A society gets the kind of youth it deserves; ditto leadership.To me, get those rapists and make them face the full wrath of the law, but, like in armed robbery, that does not stop another girl falling victim of gang rape right behind the walls of the court that pronounces the verdict. But bring the rapists of Nigeria to book, stop them, and her 'girls' would be free from the clutch of animals.Gbadamosi is a staff of the Nigerian Tribune
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