IF the story is heartbreaking, the sub-text of impunity behind it is even more distressing. Recently, a 14-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her landlord’s son in the Alakuko area of Lagos. The incident was brought to light by an X user who shared videos of the victim after the alleged crime had happened. In the video, gory in every sense, the minor, whose jeans trouser was soaked in blood, was seen crying her eyes out. As if the alleged rape was not bad enough, the landlord was said to have boasted about his societal connections when the family of the minor confronted him over the incident, declaring that “Nothing will happen.” However, in a swift reaction, the Senior Special Assistant on New Media to the Lagos State Governor, Jubril Gawat, urged the victim’s family to contact the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response (DSVA) team for assistance. Later, a social media post by the state police command indicated that the house had been located in conjunction with the DSVA, and that the landlord, the suspect and the survivor and her family were all not in sight. The statement further indicated that the survivor’s mother had been contacted on phone but was unwilling to cooperate with the police. It added that everyone on the street declined to assist the police in any form. Eventually, however, the suspect was arrested, and now faces charges of defilement contrary to Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

This case is, to say the least, chilling. If anything, the video recording of the immediate period after the alleged incident wherein the victim captured in a blood-soaked trouser must be heart-breaking not just to any parent but to all right-thinking members of the society. Unless someone was making a dark skit – and the social space is increasingly replete with such absurdities, even in such sensitive places as airports – it is difficult to bear such a gory sight. And to add insult to injury, the father of the alleged perpetrator and owner of the property in which the alleged crime was committed reportedly balked at the prospects of any consequences for him or his son over the incident, which raises the question whether he had actually enabled his son’s alleged crime in the past. Certainly, no one without deep, criminal connections to the official crime prosecution circles would make such a daringly shameless, demonic claim which sadly deflects attention from the main suspect in this case, if only momentarily. It is certainly a huge relief that the suspect has been arrested, and is preparing his defence. That is, we believe, his inalienable right.

Precisely because of the dark power play suggested by this scary story, it is difficult to know the exact number of rape and defilement cases in Nigeria. Often, victims and their families, especially if they belong to the lowly, downtrodden class in the society, are simply muzzled and silenced, even when they have reported the case to the police. And no doubt emboldened by such impunity, the perpetrators simply continue preying on and abusing innocent girls and women, instilling agony in their psyche and setting them up for a future marked by mental torture. In the instant case, it is alleged that a randy felon not only violated a tenant’s daughter in a property owned by his father, perhaps as a criminal extension of his assumed authority over the child and her parents, he also apparently had a powerful ally in his father. Unless the alleged claim is disputed, this incident must rank as one of the starkest examples of suppression in the abundantly blessed but badly managed country called Nigeria.

Pray, what did the suspect hope to gain from allegedly violating a child? What kind of pleasure does anyone who claims sanity derive from such dark transactions? What does the actual list of victims look like? The Lagos State government must liaise with the police and ensure that justice is done and seen to be done in this case. This is not just the right thing to do, it is also the way to go in curbing the increasing cases of rape and defilement in the state. In August last year, the state government indicated that it had recorded 5,624 cases of sexual abuse between August 2022 and July 2023. Of the figure, 2,588 were children, which is over 45 percent of the recorded cases. This statistics was given by the state’s Permanent Secretary and Solicitor-General, Titilayo Shitta-Bey, who was represented by the Executive Secretary of the DSVA, Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi, during a press briefing. She said: “From August 1, 2022, to July 31, 2023, the agency handled 5,624 cases in two categories, adults and children. The agency now receives an average of 250 clients every month. For adults, 91 percent of survivors were female, and nine percent were male; while for children, 45 percent of survivors were boys, 55 percent were girls.”

It surely cannot be cheery news that, as uncovered by a media investigation in May this year, Lagos State experienced a surge in sexual and gender-based violence over the past five years, with the number of reported cases rising steadily from 3,446 in 2019 to 6,389 in 2023. According to the report, a total of 24,009 cases, including sexual, physical and psychological abuses, were reported in all the 20 local government areas of the state between January 2019 and December 2023. It is not hard to surmise that unless and until the perpetrators know that they face extremely grave consequences for their crime, they will keep committing these crimes. That is why the Lagos State government, which admittedly has a fairly decent record in prosecuting such cases and which always responds to reports and complaints with dispatch, cannot afford to rely solely on its past record in dealing with such cases.

The point must be made that rapists have no place in Lagos State, nor indeed in any part of Nigeria, and one way to do that is to ensure thorough investigation and prosecution of cases while heightening awareness campaigns on sexual violence of all kinds. Over to the Lagos State government. (Nigerian Tribune Editorial)

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