Rapists are on the loose, inflicting invasive violence, injury, lasting trauma and death on women, girls, and children across the country. Daily, the media is awash with stories of rape. The arrest of one alleged rapist last week while violating another victim, and the arraignment of another at a Lagos court for raping a septuagenarian to death attest to the audacity of the felons. Security agencies and state governments should step up efforts to protect the society’s most vulnerable population.

Despite frequent arrests, prosecution, and advocacy by CSOs, incidents of rape abound. In Iberekodo, Abeokuta, Ogun State, police who went to arrest one Lateef Olaniran, a secondary school teacher, for alleged rape, met him in his home while allegedly raping another victim!

A fortnight earlier, a police prosecutor and witnesses narrated at the Ikeja, Lagos, Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court how Jelili Lawal took advantage of a lady in her 70s, who had missed her way and asked him for assistance; he lured her to an abandoned building and brutally raped her. Bleeding from her privates, she died later in a hospital.

Police in Enugu, in September, detained 70-year-old Anthony Okpara for allegedly raping 13-year-old deaf-mute girl, who later died of her injuries. The cruelty gets harsher; in June this year, a 40-year-old commercial motorcyclist, Akpo Igwe, kidnapped his eight-month pregnant lady passenger in Obi LGA Benue State, dragged her into a bush and savagely violated her.

Kano State, where a Sharia court had sentenced one Mati Audu for raping a 10-year-old girl to death in 2020, also last week arraigned Garzali Murtala, 20, at a magistrate’s court for the attempted rape of a 13-year-old girl. In June 2020, Muhammed Alfa, 32, was arrested and reportedly confessed to have raped 40 females in one year, including an 80-year-old grandmother.

For the predators, the underage and even babies are fair game. Armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits and the ubiquitous murderous Fulani herdsmen and terrorists routinely rape their victims. Increasingly, boys are also being raped. In 2020, police pursued five men who had been serially raping a 12-year-old boy in Kaduna.

Rape, reportedly one of the most under-reported crimes, is a worldwide problem that attracts diverse responses from governments. The World Population Review estimates that about 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced sexual assault. It rates South Africa as having the highest rape rate.

United Nations Women disclosed that 11,200 cases of rape, including of children raped to death, were reported in Nigeria in 2020. It called on Nigerian governments to intensify efforts to eradicate gender-based violence.

According to experts, rape victims suffer from diverse effects, including depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, flashbacks, and STDs, and could lead some into drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, low self-esteem, and sleep disorders. Some victims commit suicide.

Nigerian states have been responding with harsher laws, including one by Kaduna stipulating castration for convicted rapists. Others impose long jail terms. Police have also lately been more responsive to complaints of rape.

The state governments should intensify their programmes, strengthen, and fund agencies that deal with domestic violence and rape. Federal and state security and social welfare agencies should collaborate to establish a national data bank of paedophiles and rapists. Like in Western countries, convicted paedophiles and rapists should be required by law to check in regularly with police and social workers, and to report to them when they move to another state.

Rape is becoming another epidemic; the authorities should respond more vigorously to stop it and punish perpetrators severely.

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