The Paedophiles In Our Midst
By Uche Nworah
(info@uchenworah.com)
Paedophilia is a crime full stop. I don’t
buy the argument being peddled in certain quarters that
it is a disease, such people also maintain that
pedophiles require help. if you ask me, the only help
they require is to be shown the way to Kirikiri maximum
security prison where they should be locked up for life
and the keys to their room thrown into the Lagos lagoon.
I don’t see what pity I can show to a man who decides
that the objects of his sexual fantasies would be
children almost still in their diapers. Our society is
usually a secretive one, people know things and won't
talk thus indirectly serving as unwitting accomplices to
depraved men parading our communities.
These evil men’s self –appointed tasks are made more
easy by the poverty ravaging many families in Nigeria.
Such families have no option but to resort to sending
their children away to ply the streets hawking wares.
Talk about sending out sheep before lions. The young
girls become easy prey and are quickly devoured by the
pedophiles in our midst.
This problem reached home while I was still a teenager.
A distant cousin Ada (not her real name) was living with
us at the time, she must have been around 8- 9 years old
when this incident occurred. At the same time John (not
his real name) lived at the house with us, he was
recruited to help my father in his building material
business in Aba. Around this time, my father’s half
-brother (Willy) was planning to move into our
neighbourhood and it also fell on John to help with the
cleaning of Willy’s apartment before he moved in.
I had always suspected John’s ways going by his various
antics around the house but still nothing would prepare
me for the shocker I got this particular day when my mum
asked me to go fetch Ada from Uncle Willy’s apartment
where she had gone to take food to John. On arrival, I
knocked hard on the front door for several minutes but
didn’t get any answer. I was almost getting ready to
leave thinking that they may have left the house when
the neighbours living in the adjacent flat informed me
that there were people inside the flat for sure.
Shortly afterwards, after repeated banging on the door,
John opened the door. As he stood there, I could see the
mischievous smile on his face, I did not miss his stench
animal smell either which now seemed to have intensified
with the afternoon heat, something that made his room at
home a no-go zone. It was as if John didn't want me to
come into the apartment, he stood still by the door and
asked me “Kedu ife owu?” – What do you want?
This was rather an unusual question I thought coming
from John, considering that we all used to come to the
apartment as we pleased helping with the cleaning and so
on. Something propelled me past John and I stormed into
the empty seating room. Standing in the middle of the
room was a half dressed Ada with tears in her eyes. I
didn’t wait to ask questions, nor to be lied to by John
about what had transpired, evil rent the air and all I
could think of was to snatch Ada and run away, far away
from the evil man closing in behind us.
As I reached out for Ada’s hand, you could see the sense
of relief on her face, and the fear lodged deep in her
eyes. We both briskly hurried out of the apartment
oblivious of John’s plea for me not to inform mum and
dad about what happened, as if I knew but by then his
devilish conscience had already started pricking him,
but still his plea wasn't borne out of any remorse for
the emotional scar he had just inflicted upon Ada for
life but rather out of the animalistic sense of survival
which in this instance was targeted at securing his
daily bread.
Downstairs, I put Ada on top of my bicycle and wheeled
it and her home. She cried all the way and I didn’t know
what to tell her. I did not even have the courage to ask
her what had happened, at that age and during this time,
sex was a taboo especially sex with a minor. My only
mission at the time was to take Ada safely home, I would
let my parents take care of the rest.
This incident happened several years ago, sometime
around 1982 it must have been. Since then, a lot has
happened to Ada, she is now happily married. As to John,
I don’t know what became of him, he didn’t sleep at our
house that night and never did again. Not a lot though
has happened on this child protection front in Nigeria,
it appears that the pedophiles are still very much at
their game’s best. Recent reports allege that child
rapes are on the increase in Nigeria.
According to Suleiman Abba, Kano 's deputy police chief,
child rapes have risen by an "alarming" extent in Kano.
He says that this time, the sexual predators are buoyed
by their false belief that sleeping with minors
particularly virgins is a potent ritual which can cure
them of disease such as AIDS and various
sexually-transmitted diseases or make them rich.
Ibrahim Abdullahi, the spokesman for Societal
Reorientation Directorate, the body charged with
improving morals in Kano state was quoted as saying that
“this is a sad development which requires the combined
effort of the government, security agencies and the
public to combat."
It was also reported that in the last six months of
2007, the Kano police recorded 54 reported cases of
child rape and made 60 arrests in connection with them”.
Suleiman Abba says that the trend is a radical increase
compared to 36 cases recorded in the first six months of
2007. Of worry is the fact that In some of the cases
reported, the victims were gang-raped thus fuelling
further fears that this devilish acts will not go away
anytime soon. Abba said that the suspects’ ages ranges
from 45 and 70 while the victims are mostly girls of
between 3 and 11 years. In one incident he said, a man
of 70 raped a toddler of three. "We have cases of young
men raping minors but the number pales into significance
compared to the number of cases involving older men,"
Abba said, adding that the cases reported are only the
tip of the iceberg. "Many cases are never reported
because parents want to save the honour of their
daughters and protect their family from embarrassment,"
he said.
Continuing, the report said that the desire to hide the
crime is all the more tragic given that some of the
children require reconstructive surgery and get infected
with the disease their rapist was misguidedly trying to
cure, health workers say.
One would have thought that with strict Sharia laws in
place in some places in Northern Nigeria, that these
crimes which carry the death penalty will deter
pedophiles from feasting on small children, but it is
not the case. This Abdullahi of the Societal
Reorientation Directorate attributes to the
unwillingness of parents to press charges against
suspected rapists for fear of social stigma. "We are
stuck ... we can't prosecute without witnesses and the
parents are usually not ready to go to court and
testify. Without witnesses the case is a dead one and
you have to free the suspect. And that hurts," Abba
said.
How sad indeed, for the poor victims and our society. Is
this the kind of answers we should be giving these young
girls for failing them? It is as if we are bringing them
into the world and letting them to fend for themselves
against sexual bigots parading the streets as Uncles and
Big brothers etc.
Almost every state government in Nigeria, and local
government authority has a ministry of social welfare,
likewise a supervisory councilor for welfare. There is
also ministry or ministries at the federal level
responsible for citizens welfare and rights. These
various ministries are headed by commissioners,
ministers, ministers of states and all other such
political appointees. There are also countless
parastatals and government agencies that one way or the
other are charged with the responsibility of looking
after the well being of the citizens, not including the
hordes of Non-government organizations (NGO) fighting
for one social cause or the other.
One would then think that amongst the priorities of the
civil servants in these various ministries, government
agencies, NGOs etc will be the protection of children's
rights. It appears as if they are not doing that, and in
so not-doing are failing the children.
While governments at the three – tiers continue to
pussy-foot over basic issues affecting the welfare of
their citizens, perhaps Nigerians should do more on
their own. We could start by being open about this
problem, discussing it and talking about it openly.
Perhaps that may put the heat somehow on those men who
have feasted on the likes of Ada for long hiding under
the cover of societal silence.
The mass media have an even bigger role to play to help
fight this problem. They should report more about this
without necessarily naming the victims. Rather, the
perpetrators should be named and shamed as a deterrent
to others. Increased awareness created by the mass media
will ward off some attacks, and also inform parents of
their basic rights, and the children of basic
self-protection steps to take, particularly when to
start getting suspicious of the ‘good uncle’ with a
heart of gold who is fond of buying her sweets and
presents or even giving her cash but who will not want
her to inform her parents or siblings of such
benevolence.
With all sorts of NGOs springing up daily in Nigeria,
perhaps it is about time for one of them to consider
constructing a safe haven for women like Ada to run to
in the first instance where there is no family support
and care available. We should not let these children
down as they are the future of Nigeria, they are our
future mothers and wives.
For other Uncommon themes considered by the writer to be
less talked about social problems in Nigeria, see
Sex
and the State 1 and Sex and the State 2.
January 2008.
http://thelongharmattanseason.blogspot.com/
