It is 5:41 a.m., and I am writing this with a severe sense of betrayal over the events that happened in Ozoro, Delta State, where men took to the streets raping women as part of a festival. I am angry. I am frustrated. And I am sure that this too, shall pass.
This outrage shall pass. This anger shall boil down. This public rage shall become muffled amid conversations about fuel prices and the hike in food prices. Because in my country, men who rape women during festivals are permitted to blend back in. Because in my country, men with histories of pedophilia are given platforms to retraumatise the women and girls who struggle daily to be survivors of their actions. Because in my country, men with histories of pedophilia like Baba Ijesha are given the chance to redeem themselves in podcasts run by women.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and globally, no country can say that it has made absolute progress on eradicating the violations its women encounter. But as a Nigerian woman? It is as though our thoughts do not matter on the grand scale. It is as though we are only a step away from refined cattle whose ability to be pitied in a rape case depends on whether we are sexually pure, inept virgins. And even so-called virgins are not safe from the violence every woman I know has had a taste of.
It has been over three weeks since the incident of men raping women in a “raping festival” at Ozoro happened. Since then, there has been a very lackadaisical approach towards the issue. From police officers not taking it seriously to outright denials that it happened, to the manner in which seemingly “more important” issues have taken over our social consciousness.
From all of these things, I am angry that women’s lives are disposable. I am angry that women will participate in male-focused fights like ENDSARS, get harassed by male protesters, use hard-earned resources to fund protests that do not center women, give money and data to men who can turn around and mock “urgent 2k babes,” and yet. And yet when an issue that affects mostly women comes up, women are reminded yet again that we are truly on our own.
Women themselves enter into a state of lethargy and cannot transfer the same energy into issues of sexual violence that saw feminist groups enable curfews and the destabilization of toll gates during the ENDSARS protests. I have asked before, and I shall ask again: “In my life as a Nigerian woman, when shall I see a toll gate rendered inefficient because a woman lost her life? Because a woman was raped? Because a woman was catcalled?”
Instead, what I see and continue to see are women who want to help women bullied. I continue to see those raising awareness about the plight of women in Ozoro being attacked. I continue to see even feminist women meandering with men who have shown that they give zero fucks about women. Where is our sense of class solidarity as Nigerian women? How are we complicit in ensuring that men who rape, assault, and catcall women blend back into society?
No other evidence as to why they shall blend back in exists more than the case of Ochanya Ogbanje. Ochanya was raped by her uncle and his son as a preteen for over three years and eventually lost her life due to complications from the sexual violation.
Although there have been rallying cries for more than five years for there to be Justice For Ochanya, her abusers still roam freely. They still can pursue music careers, and her uncle can have the love of a daughter who never fails to talk about him online. Because in my country, men who rape hardly face death or the inside of a jail cell.
Men who rape are permitted to blend back in. Men who rape women and who use their mouths to admit that they raped, killed, abused, or beat women can still have female music fans. They can still even have women who fight other women on their behalf. They can still have even feminists use their platforms to promote their careers.
We are all complicit in ensuring that men who rape are permitted to flourish with no consequences. How else can you explain women and men who attend churches and give tithes to religious places headed by men with a history of rape and sexual abuse? How do you explain women and seemingly feminist filmmakers/casting directors who do not walk the talk but instead give acting roles to known groomers in the industry? How do you explain feminist women in talent management who help to mop up the images of violent male singers by platforming them in their concerts and shows?
What about the progressive people who, on social media, claim to be against domestic abuse but will break bread with a man they know beats his wife because he holds the keys to an opportunity? Why are women always collateral damage in a man’s redemption story?
Once again: In my country, men who rape women are permitted to blend back in.
In her now widely shared essay about the Ozoro incidents, writer and illustrator Lotanna Igwe-Odunze says, and I quote: “Nothing will improve until death enters the equation”. She goes on to explain that until men in Ozoro and other parts of Nigeria fear for their lives as a consequence of raping women, the discussions of rape and women calling out rapists will only exist as documentation that men can rape and get away with it.
I share her thoughts that there must be brutal consequences for rape and the exclusion of women from public life. Nigerian women need to let go of the fear of being seen as man-haters if they share the same view of Ms. Igwe-Odunze. We will keep going round in circles and will have our pain exist as musical accompaniments to the men who abuse us if drastic measures are not taken.
While you worry about being called a man-hater, a woman is marrying a man and having children with him, even though she knows he is a serial abuser. Women are inviting convicted pedophiles to podcasts. There are men in Ozoro bringing up tribalism and asking why that culture of a raping festival and exclusion of women cannot exist in Ozoro if states in the South West also have a culture of Oro where women are told to stay indoors. Because in my country, men who rape women are permitted to blend back in.
And that? That is utter garbage that must be addressed from the ground up. There must be an outright ostracism of anyone in alignment with these views. There must be a questioning of cultures and traditions that place men as superior to women and women as beneath. This is because rape exists as a tool for men to force women into agreeing with their so-called superiority.
We need to start from the ground up and identify all the ways misogyny is passed across. Be it in music, film, religion, media, or via education. We must make it unacceptable for anyone to be comfortable running for a political post when they speak derogatorily about women. We must do better and abandon every normalised negative view of women. Only then can we have a modicum of progress in Nigeria.
