The memories of sexual abuse never fade

No two are the same

Each case of sexual abuse is different and unique. The age at which that abuse first happened can be life-defining. However, one thing you cannot discount is the personal memory of the abuse to the individual, to the person and to the child.

Following a blog written about friendship early last year, the write-up went viral and by happenstance ended up in the readership of my father.

He had a perspective and an expectation of who I was supposed to be and where I might have been lacking, in another conversation from over a decade ago, it was one lacking responsibility. That comes with all sorts of connotations, but I challenged it.

Stand up for who you are

My response was, “If after all this while, you think I am irresponsible, that is unfortunate.”

He replied, sensing my hurt and disappointment, that was not what he meant. As I shook and trembled, I was not backing down when I said, “I know what you meant, I speak English too.”

Even to our parents, we have to come to a point where we are ready to stand up for who were are, regardless of who they expect us to be.

Soon, we continued our conversation on other topics until I received a text message of instructions to follow and respond to last August, following his knowledge of that blog.

The memories well up again

I was a few months short of my 52^nd birthday when my father learnt that as a child under his roof and where people employed to care for us, were on the side, taking sexual favours.

It was not my intention to share certain dark episodes of my early life that my parents were completely oblivious of, but occasion warranted the need to talk about it at that time.

My memories of these events over 40 years ago are keen and vivid, they are not insignificant and for all that I have written about abuse in well over a decade, I have been fortunate not to consider myself a victim or be victimised for the experiences I have had. I have been blessed and lucky.

I know how the loss of sexual innocence consequently affects relationships, healthy choices, trust and confidence. This is always on my mind when people talk about their experiences of sexual abuse. We would prefer we never had to recall and recount any of it, and whether or not anyone believes us, one thing they can never do it consign us to irrelevance and relegate our lives or history to obloquy.

Nigeria: On the #BBNaija disqualification, let's not be conflicted

Alright, it’s Big Brother

Last night, the irksome menace of the Big Brother franchise flooded my social media space with the news of a disqualification from the Nigerian version of the competition being filmed in South Africa.

Now, I am no fan of Big Brother which I think is a zoo under the intensity of Klieg lights with every move and activity beamed into the living rooms of voyeurs in denial of their appetite for watching people express themselves with the basest instincts.

Then again, it does provide a welcome distraction for many minds that cannot find any other productive activity for their time when ogling the ‘animals’ of the Big Brother zoo is fulfilling entertainment of a sort.

However, the disqualification came about because one of the contestants, Ekemini "Kemen" Ekerette, 27 (some say that is a football age), had sexually molested another housemate, "TBoss" Tokunbo Idowu, 32. I did see a snippet of the molestation, but the opinions about it appeared to be both divided and conflicted, in some cases the victim was termed Machiavellian and scheming as the perpetrator appeared to gain sympathy and pity.

Licence is no permission

The issue must be addressed head-on and there should be no room for equivocation on the matter. The facts are self-evident and the rest is sophistry seeking a conjecture towards exculpation which should attract excoriation with respite.

There is no doubt that the Big Brother environment provides a licence for lasciviousness, that licence must however never be construed to be the excuse to abuse anyone, emotionally, physically, sexually or verbally. Whatever excess becomes the expression of base and primal instinct, agency, self-control and consideration are not suddenly passé.

The Big Brother viewing audience is huge, within the spectacle of histrionics and restraint, there is a competition to win the hearts of the audience and thereby the competition. There is no clear path to success, but eventually, the true personality of the participant would be revealed to a global audience. There is no hiding place.

Without consent

So, in that setting, Kemen crept into TBoss’s bed without invitation, as if he had entitlement to her body, he began to caress the lady without having obtained consent and was well into the criminality of sexual abuse when the lady appeared to turn away from these apparently imposed upon and unwelcome advances.

Whether Kemen could take the hint and desist is for anyone to decide and whether TBoss should have violently fought off the encroachment into her private, personal space is open to debate, but that is not the matter at hand.

Kemen, without invitation or consent, violated a woman asleep in her own bed, that is the end of the story and the beginning of judgement. Whatever happened after he got under the sheets was an imposition borne of the aggressive persistence of a man who thought he could have his way and never face consequence or sanction.

No excuses

Maybe, there is some cultural schooling that not only excuses the violation of the woman or the child by those who take sexual favours off the vulnerable for their pleasure, we appear to acquiesce to and tolerate it too.

Much as TBoss was the victim of a wanton sexual violation, there were some ready to paint her as a Jezebel, suggesting she should have fought off the attack on her person and having not done that, she had tacitly given consent. There was no consent, none whatsoever. What happened without putting a finer point to it was at the very least an attempted rape and in the severest case, a rape.

Any sympathy that might have been felt for Kemen must dissipate without remnant, the man is a predator lacking any sense of self-control. That he allowed his urges to get the better of his senses is by no means worthy of pleas of mitigation. The disqualification was probably the minimum sanction acceptable in the scheme of things.

Don’t be conflicted

Those who think Kemen’s professional prospects have been destroyed, Kemen alone is responsible for his actions, he chose to violate a woman and he must face the consequences of his actions and whatever entails from his despicable act.

To all us who have a view on this matter, we cannot afford to be conflicted on this issue, when Kemen conceived the idea of entering TBoss’s room, he could have resisted the urge. When he entered her room and saw she was asleep, he could have turned back and waited until the morning to apologise for entering the room without invitation.

However, the moment he climbed into that bed, he had crossed the line, he had reached the point of harassment, violation, molestation and every reprehensible term of sexual misconduct anyone can muster and for that alone, his disqualification was merciful and more than deserved, his disgrace was assured and as we wait for his apology, I do hope that any other women within reach of this beast are not subjected to this entitlement complex of sexual violation, especially where there might be no evidence to prove this atrocity.

The Big Brother farce continues and I hope the setting offers a mirror on society and lessons to be learnt.

My own #Moonlight story is not a movie

Why I write

I wrote the themes of this blog in my mind and my head as I walked back from the cinema after watching Moonlight, the 2017 Best Picture Academy Award winner.

Normally, I would write a review of the film and from it draw allusions and relationships that resonate with me. However, on this occasion, I would suggest everyone who has the opportunity go and watch the film.

What I have to write below touches on some very personal things that in my own coming of age I feel I must express and I am sorry if anyone after reading this is adversely affected. We bottle up too much of our experiences in silence and hurt, giving no option to expression and lessons to be learnt.

As a child

Moonlight comes to us in three chapters of life, of childhood, of adolescence and of adulthood, the story of understanding sexuality and the relationship between mother and child in the midst of addiction.

As a child, I first recognised issues with my sexuality that began to find expression originally in sexual abuse at seven, and more towards an affinity to people of the same sex from around that age. In the process, there were people who took advantage of me and took their sexual favours whilst I obliged like a catamite.

I was 3 when I noticed my mother’s own addiction, it was religion and the constant visits to prophets and soothsayers, the inclination towards syncretism and the rituals therein, the recitation of Psalms and the invocation of inscrutable angelic beings, none of which inspired confidence in me for what a useful religious devotion could be.

In my teens

As I moved into my teens, I grew rebellious and difficult, the relationship with my parents deteriorated and my mother’s addiction took its toll on her reasonableness, her marriage, our family and consequently her career. My baby sister’s medical condition sunk her under the mesmerising spell of a ‘prophet’ who I considered false, she lost her agency as my sister was shunted between hospital and grotto, my mother finding justification for her actions in such atrocious hair-raising conspiracy theories.

I sank into depression, failed at school, took religion and almost lost my bearings. Meanwhile, I found a different friendship, occasions for a sexual outlet, all guilt-ridden and self-loathing, yet taking a hold I could not deny. I, without a doubt, had same-sex attraction that I could not explain and understand other than beginning to come to terms with who I was and who I am.

I got older

As I entered adulthood, I found some stability and an accommodation for expressing both my religiosity and sexuality, a family that took me into their bosom and gave me a grounding that became the foundation of who I am today. My mother in her own way that done really terrible things to me, things she dismisses but no child can forget.

It irks me when people interfere thinking there are filial duties incumbent on me without any acknowledgement of the deeper issues that necessitate estrangement. My situation is not necessarily unique, but my experience is exclusively mine to understand and that hopefully would be respected by others.

Whilst I was bullied in secondary school, I was saved the physicality of beatings, people exercised power in other ways. In adulthood, before I left Nigeria, I was being blackmailed but I refused to pay up knowing it was the gateway to something beyond my control. I was ready to face the consequences, just as I had years before when I was caught in a sexual liaison with another man.

I accepted myself

On leaving Nigeria, I decided no more to live in the shadows, I reached a point of self-expression and acceptance of who I was and that freed me to enter relationships, find love and develop productive and useful friendships amongst people like me.

Beyond that, I was freer with information about my sexuality in my workplace and it meant I did not have to live a double life. It also meant my managers quickly nipped any homophobia in the bud. I was fortunate to be respected for who I was regardless of my sexuality.

Sex had its attractions, an outlet, a search of companionship, a kind of addiction and a self-destruct button that was pressed more times than I could reckon. In that scheme of things, I became HIV+, developed AIDS, had cancer, lost everything and rebuilt my life from scratch again.

Sadly for my father

My siblings probably do tolerate my mother, I cannot, she has no capacity to reflect and that is to reflect on anything she might have done wrong, she feels entitled and makes demands of entitlement to fealty from her children, failing which we are emotionally blackmailed. I stopped giving in to this kind of manipulation some time ago.

My father who by commission has done little wrong, but by omission failed to save me from the menace of my mother’s caprices sometimes finds himself on the cold shoulder that is given my mother. His ability to reflect and accept wrong is sometimes limited by his inability to empathise with settings in which he cannot find a frame of reference. I probably should be more forgiving of that inadequacy, but everything is quite emotionally draining, it is sometimes best to let sleeping dogs lie.

I don’t hate her

Invariably, I do not think I would ever get to wipe the tears from the eyes of my mother from her acknowledgement of the hurt that I have suffered at her own ‘motherly’ acts. I do not hate my mother, then I cannot convince myself that I love her either. We exist because of the accident of circumstance, not something I had the freedom or will to affect beyond the fact that I was born.

My moonlight is a story with parallels and analogies, it is not a movie, it is my life and the way I have been affected. In my moonlit night, I find the peace and tranquillity of accepting who I am, and in my coming of age, I cannot deny who I am. The pursuit of happiness endures and a better story will be written, either by me or by those who learn something from my life.

Thought Picnic: Household escapee abusers and doubly abused victims

The household

We were planning to go the village from the city for a long weekend, I cannot remember whether it was for some event, but my parents in the 1980s were active members of a group of people who sought different aspects of development for the village, the people and the community at large.

Within our nuclear family then, even though my uncle and his family lived downstairs, we had a house help or to use the colloquial expression, a house girl, let’s call her Rukayah. My family being a senior corporation man, had two official cars and a driver, let’s call him Billiamin, who lived close by, but by terms was essentially a member of the family.

This defines the typical household, the parents, the children, the relations both close and distant, the helps; domestic in the home, in the garden, the security personnel and the driver, an ill-defined hierarchy where everyone appears to know their place with the parents at the top.

Something awry

That morning, my mother went to have her hair done whilst my father went to work, just before noon, the driver came over and I cannot say why my siblings were not at home apart from the youngest in the care of our house girl. As it transpired, my cousin and I who were both at home had to take a message to my mother at the hairdressers and leaving Rukayah, Billiamin, and my youngest sister at home, we went for my mother.

Her hair was only half done, however, we were made so welcome that we stayed at the hairdressing salon until her hair was finished, before we all walked back home. On getting home, I was probably the only one who noticed that Rukayah’s hair was messed up and she looked dishevelled. At the back of my mind, I suspected something had happened whilst we were away, but I kept it at the back of my mind.

A few months after that day, I was called into my mother’s bedroom with Rukayah in a state of distress. As women of a certain age in Nigeria do notice, apparently, the whites of the eyes of Rukayah were prominent, she was getting lethargic, spitting constantly and probably showing signs of morning sickness. She was pregnant.

The inquisition

As our motherly folk are wont to do, the interrogation of the subject is the equivalent of the Spanish inquisition, question following question without pausing for an answer, genuflection, and histrionics at full tilt and in the process, my good name was inadvertently besmirched when my mother asked Rukayah whether I was responsible for her nascent baby bump. There was an ‘how dare you?’ look on my face and my mother listed every male resident and visitor except the dog.

I do not think we got to the truth in that session, but it turned out that Billiamin was responsible and it very well could have been that day when my mother went to the hairdressers. At least, that is what clicked in my mind as the state of Rukayah when we return from the hairdresser.

There is no doubt in my mind that Rukayah was sexually assaulted and raped by Billiamin, however, how my parents dealt with the matter cannot singularly be unique in a Nigerian household.

The repercussions

Billiamin was summarily sacked and that became his punishment for rape. It goes without saying that an undercurrent of shame and embarrassment dictates the way such issues never end up in a police docket and that extends to child sexual abuse and other related forms of abuse.

Within a week, an abortion was procured for Rukayah and she was sent back home probably with the report that she had been a bad girl. Then again, difficult as this story is to write because it involves close family and making it fictional storytelling takes away from the palpability of the situation, this was not the first time a house boy or house girl had been returned after offence or victimisation by my parents for events under our roof.

This rapid clean-up of a mess and deft extrication from culpability and responsibility typifies the illusion of perfect households we attempt to portray. Putting these people out of sight and they having no recourse for any justice than the fate delivered to them by their paymasters is the end of the matter for the paymaster but possibly the beginning of a new hell for Billiamin and Rukayah.

With hindsight

Billiamin should have been handed to the law with the allegation of rape beyond the betrayal of trust as a member of our wider family to have committed a heinous act in our home. He got away scot free and maybe for a short period was out of work before he found other opportunities. The possibility that we might have been vulnerable to vindictive reprisals probably never occurred to my parents, Billiamin lived hardly a kilometre away.

On the part of Rukayah, we never saw or heard from her again. A poor girl under the guardianship of my parents and possibly a breadwinner for her family in some distant hamlet where part of the promise of the job would have been to give her opportunity she would never have had in her village. I say this because we have had other house helps that my parents sponsored through secondary school and mentored thereafter.

Rukayah in the harsh reality of the times had become a victim twice of first rape and then the punishment for what she had no control over. It is also instructive that maybe under threat or fear when she was raped, she was unable to tell anyone of her ordeal. She lived with that dilemma until it was impossible to conceal the consequence.

Typical occurrence

The case of Billiamin and Rukayah because it happened to servants rarely just sits in that spectrum, the same happens to wards and children with them being taken advantage of by trusted people who are brought into the suppose safety of the household and have the opportunity to exploit that trust to deleterious effect.

The perpetrator gets a bye by exclusion from the family unit when discovered, the victim, however, receives no help beyond physical examination for a possible violation whilst the victim is given the impression that they are responsible for their shameful plight. I have not seen any household where professional help has been sought in terms of psychiatric intervention or therapy to begin a healing process from the abuse.

Time exacerbates it

The assumption is time heals everything or the child will eventually forget, what is closer to reality is the scars run deeper and the damage is more lasting. If eventually in adulthood the victim finds any help, that old episode in their lives is already defining of their outlook and a consummate moderator of any relationships they go on to form.

Sadly, apart from the physical, no much is noticed of emotional and psychological change in people after abuse and with no one to share these rotten experiences with either out of fear or being castigated as liars this cycle of abuse continues with little knowledge gained as how to tackle these matters until survivors of child sexual abuse and sexual assault in a trusted environment begin to talk about it.

Telling the story

I can only wonder what became of Billiamin and Rukayah who are representative of a wider injustice that has thrived through generations of silence, shame, exculpation, dereliction of responsibility and the pretence of the ideal in a messy and embarrassing household infraction.

That story and many others I have observed remain ones that have to be told eventually. How we tackle abuse in terms of the abuser and the victim still utilises the primitive and uncivilised in spite of enlightenment and knowledge, just to avoid shame and embarrassment. With it, we lay the foundation for more abusers to prey on vulnerable victims.

With hindsight, I cannot pass judgement on my parents, but there is no doubt that if such issues occur today, they must be much better handled than they were them. The abuser must face justice and the victim must have all the support they require to get beyond their ordeal. Too many damaged lives exist because nothing productive was done for the victim.

Nigeria: Time to bring accountability to sexual assault in all forms

Let’s talk about sexual assault

Two very notable and important stories appeared in recent weeks and pertained to accountability coming to men who had either been accused of or indicted of acts of sexual assault. The men concerned due to recent events were about to assume high political or academic office and it is my hope that neither do, as a sign that we are beginning to recognise that sexual assault in whatever guise is unacceptable and punishable too.

I did not comment much on any of the cases in particular, but I had decided to write about that one that did not hit social media like a storm, eliciting commentary from all and sundry, reflecting how society still finds itself scandalised to the point of silence, acquiescence and the acceptance of sexual assault as the norm.

Not knowing how to begin the blog for days, I let the idea percolate in my mind until this morning when through a direct message on Twitter, I was asked my views about the rape story and the following messages formed my impressions of the matter.

Expressing an opinion

I am more interested in the UniUyo sexual assault one which I have been trying to write about, but in a few tweets yesterday, I expressed my frustration with how victims are victimised many times over if they share their ordeal.

I believe a young girl was taken advantage of by people who had an entitlement to impunity and the audacity never to be made accountable because of their status and how society protects them from sanction.

I guess my blog has begun.

To the comment that the current case was confusing, I responded.

I am not confused at all. Consent has a wide spectrum just as rape does. A student can consent to sex with a lecturer under duress with the threat of failure, whilst the student willingly engaged in the act, the method of obtaining consent comes into question. In my view, an act in the rape spectrum has occurred whilst the law terms it sexual harassment.

With power and influence the poor girl was trapped in a situation she had no control over, she was already on a slippery slope to sexual assault the moment she encountered dishonourable men and they took advantage of her naïveté to satisfy their lusts.

That this what I have to say in general about the case that has consumed social media as I begin to discuss the one pertaining to the University of Uyo.

This abuse of power was egregious

I was interested in the University of Uyo sexual assault case because, the man at the centre of the issue is now the prospective vice chancellor and the outgoing vice chancellor, Comfort Ekpo has asked for this appointment to be suspended until the matters at issue are properly resolved.

As it transpired, Enefiok Essien allegedly demanded sexual favours of Linda Onyebuchi Essell who was accused of examination malpractice by the then Mr Essien who is now a professor in 1995. However, it appears Mr Essien might have gotten his way at some time and then threatened to ruin Ms Essell’s academic career if she did not accede to his proclivities.

Invariably, having manipulated the university system against Ms Essell and the courts found that he was involved in utterly reprehensible and disreputable conduct, having stood as accuser, judge, jury and executioner leading to Ms Essell’s expulsion from the university in 1997, one must commend Ms Essell for fighting her case through the courts to win at the Federal High Curt and the Court of Appeal in 2005.

Does anything matter here?

Her victory set aside her expulsion and she eventually went on to complete her degree at the same university, but the court also found and indicted Mr Essien for forgery and sexual assault. It is staggering that a man with such as reputation slur should have remained in academia, been promoted through the system as a professor of commercial law and had become the dean of the faculty of law at the University of Uyo.

It is either both reputations and indictments count for nothing or victims of sexual assault, no matter how egregious especially when it also involves the abuse of authority, power and office are irrelevant in the scheme of things.

Either way, it is astounding that any man accused of forgery by the indictment of a high court, even if he was presumably absent in the UK working on his Ph.D. will be considered for higher office on the one hand and that he on returning to Nigeria will do nothing to clear his name.

This smacks of complicit ineptitude

Professor Kimse Okoko who is the pro-chancellor of the university and headed the committee that appointed Professor Essien the prospective vice chancellor of the university says he only received notice of the standing indictment after the appointment was made, which really beggars belief, because the university and Mr Essien were co-respondents in the cases brought by Ms Essell, and it was the university that took the case to appeal where they lost again and had to rescind their decision to expel Ms Essell.

Now, either the university is completely lax in record keeping that suggest a reputation-shaping case just 10 years ago was forgotten or they like society had acquiesced to the view that the powerful and prominent are never answerable for sexual assault criminality that they must be excused and the victims further victimised by further approbation and vindication of perpetrators of sexual assault.

Is there any justice in this world?

In a just world, Professor Enefiok Essien should not only be dismissed on the basis of that indictment of 2005, he should be stripped of all honours and then made to face the courts for his alleged dishonesty, abuse of process and sexual assault which I might be persuaded to belief did not just involve Ms Essell.

If Professor Essien does become the vice chancellor of the University of Uyo on the 1^st of December 2015, it would be a travesty and the battle that many victims of sexual assault fight to get justice would have been setback seriously, rubbished and lost.

For the very first time, let society speak up for the victim and speak loud and clear that there is no statute of limitation for making anybody accountable for sexual assault, no matter where that person is placed in society and what time has passed since the event happen. There is no statute of limitation of the lifelong damage that is done to the body and the soul of a person violated sexually, neither should there be one for calling the perpetrator to account.

I hope she is doing well

Finally, all the laurels must go to Linda Onyebuchi Essell who challenged the pre-eminence of a system that is rarely made to account for its accounts in a country where the pursuit of justice comes at a high and almost unaffordable price to the many. I hope she is doing well and I hope her fight for justice will not only be recognised, but commended by more.

The least of all in recognition of her should be that Professor Essien is never inaugurated as the vice chancellor of the University of Uyo.

Nigeria: From Basketmouth to Basket - Rape has no place in jokes

Those jokes are no jokes

Yesterday night a tweet came upon my timeline about crude, crash, rotten jokes made by Nigerian comedians whose following had for the laughs not particularly reflected on the depth of what they had heard or read.

Jokes are supposed to be light-hearted fun but they should not be used a cloak for more sinister messages of commission, omission or indifference causing extreme offence to our common and civil humanity.

Now, I choose the comedians I listen to with the expectation of hearing wholesome and witty stuff, jokes you could go back home to tell mother without looking for some rating that would leave certain people wondering the kind of company one keeps.

Jokes can be risqué, for adults only, suffused with dark humour but that in itself should offer no artistic licence to celebrate abuse, denigration or atrocious stereotypes.

Crossing the line

In this case, we must broadly agree that jokes about paedophilia, pederasty, sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, disability, racism or the Holocaust cross the line of decency into otherworldliness.

No matter how good the joke is, we must have a filter that triggers when such jokes are played for laughs appealing to the basest elements of our humanity. That care and discernment not applied to what we entertain may mean we inadvertently acquiesce to and by unfortunate response appear to endorse the most reprehensible of views.

Rape has no place in a joke

One such occasion came about with a Nigerian comedian called Basketmouth who appeared to suggest that Caucasian girls are of easy virtue to be laid by the third date and that black girls who by the ninth date have not yielded to sexual advances should be raped.

Many excused this apparent slip and mistake, and probably it would have been excusable as a first offence but Basketmouth has form, there is a video of a joke where he more or less created the scene for the rape of a vulnerable old woman.

To date, Basketmouth and probably any other comedian that cannot appeal to wit but can do bawdry and off-colour humour to a willing and barely considerate audience has gotten away with this kind of talk and script pocketing the proceeds of their rottenness none the wiser about their conduct – a line had to be drawn.

What would our society condone?

Much as our society is still struggling to elevate the rights of the woman and the child, putting it on the agenda where abuse would not only be frowned upon but would face the full force of the law, one expects those with a platform to be at the forefront of progressive thinking rather than subscribe to a savage instinct because it is conveniently lazy to attract adulation.

With a comedian’s platform and one as popular as that of Basketmouth comes great responsibility, one that they should daily be aware of not to abuse and misuse that they do not become a channel for the bits of rotten cultural conditioning we are striving to rid ourselves of.

We cannot in this day and age appear to trivialise sexual violence against women, children, men, animals or whatever might sit well within the thresholds of depravity we can countenance.

More so, this trivialisation introduced surreptitiously in a joke is heinous at best and it must be condemned in the sternest terms.

What it says about us

Those of us who have for whatever reason been able to accommodate the depictions for laughs should again reflect and wonder if when we have acquiesced with laughter we might well have been conditioned to act the situation out if presented with such an occasion where opportunity and advantage might mean we escape sanction.

Having known abuse myself as a child and seen other children like myself abused, then by familial connection been affected by the rapes and the abuse of people known and dear, there is just none of the genes associated with humour in me to react with laughter to any jokes that celebrate low-life acts against our humanity.

We, as a society obviously have to decide if excusing barbaric behaviour in innocuous jokes is what we are as people or we have decided that every means possible be deployed to condemn, repudiate and correct such behaviour with the comedian going beyond just the apology to working with NGOs serving victims as a means of restitution and an example to others.

Comedians can source better material

I am of the opinion that Nigeria has enough talent to craft better jokes than puerile unwholesome rotten stuff. Being a Basketmouth is no excuse to have a basket brain and by that become a basket case.

It does appear Basketmouth has issued an apology, which for me is neither here nor there. He was wrong in the first instance, he should have known in these times that such jokes were unacceptable and it should never have happened.

However, we are where we are now and I hope lessons are learnt by the comedian, other comedians and the audiences that lap up this stuff.

We are not a nation of rabid Neanderthals with poor taste and the absence of cultural refinement. I hope that we respect and treat with the dignity our fellowman; woman, child or any other person regardless of race, ethnicity, intellect, age, sexuality or disability. That is the bigger message, in a joke or in serious conversation.

Postscript: I decided not to dignity Basketmouth with a link to his profile and there was no reason to give his offensive joke more oxygen of publicity. Rather a bigger point was being made here about the content and context of jokes.

Thought Picnic: The healing that comes with telling

We don’t tell enough

I could almost feel envious of those who have been able to make a living out of the narrative. The narrative being the stories of their lives, their experiences from childhood to the present, bringing recognition and resonance to audiences who can both identify and commiserate.

In fact, I believe we do not all tell our stories enough for too many reasons to mention as we adjudge what we might have been through to be too mundane, lacking in drama and having nothing exotic.

The amazing thing is, the bleeding obvious when repackaged and rephrased, given context and purpose can so easily be profound.

Finding healing beyond abuse

I find myself writing this from the perspective of two sets of stories that need telling, the first I read yesterday of men holding up placards, not in protest or as part of a demonstration, but just a statement, one that went from what they heard to what they experienced – abuse.

You can read their stories here - 27 Male Survivors Of Sexual Assault Quoting The People Who Attacked Them – I cannot add much more to their stories apart from the fact that this is part of the bigger cause called Project Unbreakable, started by 19-year old, Grace Brown in October 2011; “to increase awareness of the issues surrounding sexual assault and encourage the act of healing through art.”

I added two memories of mine to the mix with the following tweets.

"Put it here, you will like it." She was 14, I was 7.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) September 24, 2013

"If you love me, you will do it, I love you very much." I was 10, he was 28.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) September 24, 2013

We must blow the lid off the secrecy, stigma and shame of child sexual abuse.
— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) September 24, 2013

To Fathers and mothers of ourselves

The second story came from relationships we have with our parents concerning our upbringing initially and then the sharing of the secrets of our lives, many of which following the context of my last few blogs are difficult for our parents to understand.

Many of us still harbour too many secrets and are yet to come into the fullness of who we really are to those closest to us by blood – some wait for the release that might come when our forebears have passed on – in all, there is loss and there is regret, fulfilment and closure are not that easy to obtain.

Here in The Power of Storytelling on the OutTales Around the Fire blog that I follow, I could really identify with the three elements of ‘Killing My Mother’ that the author, Ade Adeniji narrated. I am sure many Nigerians can relate to this - The Father+Mother Project - Storytelling Performance takes place on the 5^th and 6^th of October, 2013.

A journey we must make

The most profound part of this piece can be found in the comment left by Pauline King, and she said, “I believe that we all gain enormous gifts from our traumatic childhoods and relationships – if we can but move from blame and despair to forgiveness and hope.”

I dare say, in the process of understanding our lives, probably too many of us are still in the blame and despair stage and the journey to forgiveness and hope is like one of a thousand miles through dreadful places the boldest angels will fear to tread.

If anything, we must embark on that journey, if we are to find healing and a new fullness of life.

Opinion: Our Children Deserve Better - Respect Them

A mental case

A recent news story has brought the leadership of secondary schools under the searchlight where a principal has not only been indefinitely suspended but there is a view that she should undergo psychiatric evaluation.

Mrs. Olufunke Aladeojebi, recently, the principal of Ajuwon High School, Ajuwon in Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State in Nigeria probably within reason as the person ultimately responsible for the education and welfare of her students might have been concerned that some of the females in her school on reaching puberty were taking liberties with their sexual curiosity.

It’s a dilemma, alright

The principal, in loco parentis was presented with a dilemma of how to react to the onset of adolescence and the raging hormones that accompany such natural human development; she could have reacted in any number of ways that could have presented her with the better opportunity to inform, educate and probably warn her students of the possible issues and dangers that accompany exploring and expressing one’s sexuality.

Apparently, she is notably a strict disciplinarian which in Nigerian parlance almost has nothing to do with discipline and instruction but everything to do with severe punishment as a means of re-education that exploits the pain thresholds of the recipient whilst dealing an atrocious emotional battering to all including the innocent.

These innocents are then literally scared out of their wits unable to think intellectually of the consequences of their actions apart from associating it with the fear of shame - that is usually the only weapon in the strict disciplinarian's arsenal of imparting wisdom - Fear nurtured by terror.

This is sadism

Deterrence has its functions but when school leaders use their authority as an instrument of pathological sadism to maintain control of a situation that has probably gone awry, more suffer unnecessarily and can be so seriously traumatised without essential mental health help that this might have life-long consequences.

The principal, on suspicion, and I state again, on suspicion; not that any of the girls were caught in the act of sexual intercourse. The principal suspecting some of her students were engaged in pre-marital sex and she was particular about the girls and not concerned with the boys; she invited a nurse as surety whilst she and the nurse proceeded without the consent of the girls’ parents to conduct a virginity test.

Crude is making light of it

This was not some questionnaire to elicit the truth of her subjective reasoning posited on a warped moral duty to maintain a sense purity in her school. Rather she proceeded to subject the girls to the heinous and reprehensible indignity of probing their private parts with fingers as if to determine if the hymen had been broken and with glee and euphoria greeting the confirmation of her instincts catch the girls in the most compromised of situations allowing her to probably expel the girls from the school and in the process temporarily destroy their future prospects.

It so happened that whilst engaging in this act of criminality that goes to the extremes of sexual abuse and the violation of the civil liberties of the girls, the unprofessionally crude and barbaric act led to injury presented as bleeding which can only be due to these women having damaged the hymen they were not expecting to be intact.

At the very least and this is not to condone or offer the remotest absolution to these terribly wicked women whose savagery is unspeakable, this rotten test should have been conducted by or under supervision of a qualified gynaecologist.

Society’s acquiescence

This kind of egregious violation of the students, especially females is played out without respite in many secondary schools all around the country and even in universities that somehow act as if undergraduates are adults who need to be treated as prepubescent or adolescent.

Sadly, we have a society that condones these acts in the name of maintaining some communal morality imposed by fear rather than by information and knowledge.

It is then so unusual that parents have raised the alarm at this sententious abuse of authority that the Ogun State Ministry of Education have moved to act in the best interests of the civil liberties and rights of the students than default to type about falling moral standards that need to be addressed urgently.

We must help better

As the principal is sent for psychiatric evaluation presaging committal and consequently barred from ever being in charge of students, I do hope the students affected are offered professional counselling and therapy to assuage the trauma they have suffered.

It is important that we recognise that children have inalienable and inviolable rights that should never be infringed upon in the name of maintaining some moral standard regardless of religious instruction or sense of moral duty.

The outrage is more than justified because we are at a time when between the conflicting influences our children face, the best we can do for them is to treat them first as individuals, respect them as human-beings, instruct them with empathy, educate them with understanding and inform them to enlightenment.

We must learn better

We should unschool ourselves from the primitive and outmoded forms of corporal punishment as a means of effective instruction to engage their intellect, offer them responsibility, entertain their searching questions, expand their horizons, praise their good work, inform their curiosity and when we are inclined to condemn anything they do we should be mindful of what change we want to see and lead with a greater sense of duty, love and compassion.

All children grow, they reach puberty and there are emotional issues that come with that development; on matters of sexuality what our wards need is information and education, we must agree that is not offered through intrusion and violation of their bodies – certain things need that we address them clearly without embarrassment than hope that our wards will gain knowledge through some form of ethereal osmosis.

We must all be involved

The matter of how we violate our womenfolk for the maintenance of some societal norm is an extensive topic and it is seriously hypocritical to place the complete burden of responsibility and dire consequence on the female when in the majority of cases, it takes both male and female to engage in the sexual intercourse that concerned that principal.

Our boys are not entirely innocent of exploring their sexual interests; they are almost always praised for their sexual conquests without moral sanction whilst their female counterparts are left to carry the shame of premarital sexual liaisons that sometimes result in pregnancy.

Boys and girls alike deserve better of their supposed role models on these matters of sexual development, morality, education and direction, if we address their bodies rather than really address their intellect, we have inadvertently reclassified them as no better than animals – eventually, when retribution comes, a psychological evaluation of our mental capacities will be the least of our problems.

I will appreciate your views on this topic.

Thank you.

Burning Up The Rapist's Manual

This is my contribution to 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Say No – Unite to end violence against women.

Loving rape

This topic always gets to me and it has become one of the ones I have returned to write about again and again.

The issue is rape but worse still, it is the justification of rape by reason of what some might call indecent, ungodly, improper or provocative dressing.

This school of thinking that included an Attorney General in Nigeria suggests that the rape victim is almost entirely responsible for their rape because their dressing provoked the rapist to act uncontrollably such that the rapist had to satisfy the jungle animal lust presented by sighting a provocatively dressed object of desire.

Animals, we are not

I could well agree if this happened amongst animals but out there in the jungle animals are not in clothes and essentially they are not human-beings.

In fact, even in communities where nudity exists as a matter of course, I doubt those societies violate the bodies of each other without consent, as human-beings we are civilised and one element of civilisation is self-restraint in the face of serious provocation.

We are equal

Another issue I want to address is that of relationships between men and women in society. From a moral standpoint there is a tendency to dehumanise and objectify our womenfolk with the idea that the male gender collectively and individually automatically have lien over all women to such an extent that men believe they should have control on all issues that affect women.

That is why we still have to content with issues of rights, rape, abortion, trafficking, abuse, harassment, dressing, mutilations and much else with the law almost giving perpetrators the licence of impunity without consequence.

Women have rights

I contend that beyond the primary sphere of influence if there be one that subscribes to the primitive view of the inequality of the sexes, the woman out in the street minding her own business in whatever state of dress she might be in is in her own right an individual, equal before the law and she should be able to make the decisions she deems fit for how she presents anywhere she have the right to be at.

We cannot because we are men attempt to control every woman as if we are husband, father, son, brother, nephew or relation to suit some preconceived notion of some play being honour and dishonour requiring violent sanction.

No licence to violate

Basically, no man by nature, by law or by divine instruction has acquired the right and licence to violate another person for whatever purposes they might want to use to justify that heinous act. This applies to rape, sexual abuse, physical violence or harassment and we need to address whatever allows us to condone any violation forthwith.

In a series of tweets that I have collated into a Storify titled The Rapist’s Manual, the total sum of my compelling argument is found in this tweet - Let me as categorical as I can ever be. There can NEVER EVER be any grounds or mitigating circumstances for rape.

If I were to leave my readers with one analogy framed in a question it would be this – If a woman is responsible for her rape because of her indecent dressing, are you responsible for an armed robber pointing a gun at you?

Further Reading

A Hard Look At Violence Against Women – The Resurgence

3 commissioners suspended for improper dressing in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Violence Against Women Online Resources

South Africa: We must make examples of horde rapists

Another recorded rape

My blood just runs cold when I read stories [1] of the sexual abuse of women, minors (girls and boys), the vulnerable and the powerless.

However, one unhealthy development in the perpetration of these devilish acts is the impunity that compels the wicked persons to record their exploits on cell phones and then distribute such as some celebration of achievement without consideration of the victim.

The turn of the phrase in the last paragraph is a bit awkward; these people had no consideration of the victim they abused. These beastly lowlifes in the garb of human skin preying on the innocent to satisfy their sexual aberrations have no place among us.

Garrotte them

In another time, they would have so easily belonged in Nero’s Coliseum, fed to lions for our glee, none of us shedding a tear at their screams when they are torn to shreds sating the hungry lions as we hope that those screams are amplified to their own hearing just as they have ignored and contemned the pleas, screams and cries of their victims.

The fact is this rotten practice of bottom-feeding cretins engaging in sex rape by the hordes is not peculiar to South Africa; we have had many reports of these nasty activities in the hallowed campuses of our tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Apparently, there are educated young men whose devilish passions find expression in the sexual humiliation of others thinking they are being macho when they have taken a status well below worms.

Now, the recording of these crimes has in some ways been helpful because it is admissible proof that the acts took place and it might mean that the victims do not have to face their assailants in court with such glaring evidence. An even more reprehensible extension of this is the others who find these recordings entertaining that they openly seek to view and share those experiences which must be tapping into an incipient and latent Neanderthal psyche that they must have. Shame on them.

It’s alarming

Rape as a means of pack mentality pleasure seeking and the viewing of such for titillation and arousal plumbs the depths of unspeakable depravity that should have such persons sectioned for life if not corralled in zoos that harbour the part of wild humanity that evolution left behind of what is good, wholesome, humane, beautiful and exemplary of our human wonder.

The case in South Africa is made even so heart-rending when we learnt that the victim was mentally disabled; after they finished their devious act, at least 7 of them; they attempted placating the poor, defenceless girl with 25 cents – woe betide them for generations on end - there can be no merciful course of justice for these men than to see the full wrath of the law that includes the bonus of a castration, their accursed crown jewels hung in the public places for the mediaeval gawping of the many as a deterrent to others.

They deserve exceptional justice

We are supposed to live in civilised times but if people decide to take liberties with the violation of the person, the dignity and the bodies of others for their pleasure, no fair justice will have been served if in our leniency the barbarous are punished by being made just to face the wall.

Personally, one would hate to see our society go back to the Stone Age but rabidly sexual barbarians will only understand the language they act out, if we cannot put them down like dogs, and dangle their heads like conkers in the town squares the least we could do is to make the most horrific example of them – we will not condone these acts in these times or at any time.

Source

[1] A South African rape, captured on video, exposes an epidemic | L.A. Times World

Nigeria: How not to deal with the rape of children

The difficult issues

I find myself writing on the issue of our attitudes to rape in Nigeria for the third time in a week because some pertinent matters fail to be addressed between the stigmatisation that bedevils victims of sexual violence and the critical need to see rape as well beyond physiological damage to the emotional scars that result from such traumatic experiences.

In a report that appeared in the Vanguard Nigeria newspaper yesterday, whilst I could see the anger of the parents that was about to be expressed in taking Ekene Dili Chukwu Transport Company Limited to court, which I think they should along with other prosecutions of the nabbed criminals that visited untold terror on the girls, what is most palpable is the denial of the parents of certain detail that has emanated from the ordeal.

Maybe there was no rape

The said students were between the ages of 11 and 16, even though they were attendees of an apparently convent school with the name Holy Rosary College and a principal who happens to be Reverend Sister, it is utterly naïve to suggest that the girls will not know if they had been interfered with, suffered an ordeal or had been subjected to the grossest humiliation by being asked to take off their clothes under threat of harm and menace.

We have been deflected with the notion that one of the girls escaped rape by reason of her menses and another who happened to be a parent was able to convince the hoodlums that she was pregnant and by reason of that the sexual appetite of all the men was fully sated. That stretches my imagination no end, even if I am to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

It is strange that as the transport company is in search of exculpation daring the parents to provide any evidence of rape having taken place, the parents who have vehemently denied that rape had occurred at all are painfully vocal to dispute rape whilst behaving as if they are beyond consolation by reason of their daughters who might have really been raped.

Unseemly notions

It transpired that the girls were asked if they had been raped and none answered in the affirmative and that could have been for all sorts of reasons from having not being raped or the fear and stigmatisation that might ensue from revealing the fact that they had been violated.

However, that is not what really bothers me as much as what the parents themselves have to say of the alleged rape and most especially, a man and no doubt a father of at least one of the girls.

“I don’t think any of the children was raped because if an armed robber rapes a 10 or 13-year-old child, I don’t think that child would be able to walk for one week. And if they were raped, there  would have been blood stains, but when we saw them after the incident there was no blood on their body.  We have asked all of them and none said she was raped and these children cannot lie. We have also taken most of them to Island maternity where doctors who treated them confirmed that they were not raped and we have our medical report to that effect.”

This parent who is the Chairman of the Lagos Branch of the Parents Teachers Association made some incredible assertions.

Que?

• That the rape by an armed robber will present in certain incapacitation – This man must have a concept of rape that is fearful in context and in denial of reality if it did occur without presenting the expected symptoms.
• That blood stains always accompany rape – This might be by reason of his assuming all the girls were virgins and there is nothing to say they weren’t but I really worry about this alarming conclusion.
• That these children cannot lie – I cannot vouch for the sainthood of the children, neither will I question their honesty, but to expect children to come forward as if they were answering a question in class in the presence of their peers is to misunderstand the context, the setting, the situation and their children. I cannot say that I am not utterly saddened by the lack of sensitivity and empathy necessary to address this all in the attempt to deflect the stigma that accompanies rape.
• The more worrisome element to this is that most of the girls were medically examined; however, I do fear that medical validation might have been used to ward off suspicion of rape than to address it such that the man is asserting that there are medical reports to prove the girls had not been raped.

It gets worse

He goes on to aver that, “Although the armed robbers asked them to pull off their dresses when they were searching them for money but when they couldn’t find any money, they asked them to put on their clothes and pushed them into the bus.”

I find that utterly incredible. The armed robbers asked the girls to pull off their dresses in search of money? By which time I had lost all sympathy for the man as I agonised about what the poor girls might have gone through much of which has now been denied, dismissed and made little of by parents hoping to protect their girls from an immediate stigma without addressing the long term consequences of their ordeal.

Are we helping the children?

It again leaves one rather disgusted by the notion that children soon forget what happened to them and time will eventually put this all behind them especially when no one addresses the trauma by ignoring it, in the misguided view that time heals.

It just does not work like that and the earlier we begin to address the matters of rape as having real victims who could well be our daughters and ensuring perpetrators face the full wrath of the law for their unforgivable acts of unimaginable cruelty and violation of our loved ones, more victims will remain voiceless and rape will just be the norm we are ready to tolerate, condone, ignore and deny because we do not have the courage to help victims find a semblance of closure that involves the truth, the therapy and the regaining of confidence and self-esteem to be themselves before the experiences they suffered.

Source

LUXURY BUS ATTACK: Parents threaten to sue transport firm, recount experience | Vanguard Nigeria