UWA

So many issues shattered the peace of this weekend in Nigeria, but I doubt any other news (including the rape of a girl by several men, and a teenage girl shot by trigger happy policeman) had the traction that the rape and death of Vera Uwaila Omozuwa

 had on and over Nigerians. I feel like rewriting what I just wrote now, because there's no peace to be shattered in Nigeria, not over a weekend, and definitely not over a working week. Even Covid-19 didn't have the power to protect Nigerians from unfortunate events, that will make any ear that hears it tinge. We don't know how to cry again in Nigeria, the voice of the people have been stifled by a regime that considers protests illegal, so you won't see, or you will see only a few brave people on the streets, so we turn only to social media to vent, and hope not to be found and incarcerated, as has been the case with missing Dadiyata for months on end, while politicians and those in positions of authority hardly add their voices to these things, that bug us on the streets, like they were of no consequence to issues of governance, and therefore have nothing to do with them.


During my university days on campus, after libraries were closed (I was even locked up in one, after I slept off), and classes were too far to walk to, buildings of churches and mosques were the next available and popular spots to go read. Tutorials also happened there, organized by Catholic, Pentecostal fellowships and Muslim groups, when it seemed like there was a competition to see which of the groups produced the better students. Another reason why they were choice spots was because there was always "light" in those places for some reason or the other, and unlike other reading spots, they were the safest, especially as regards the possibility of rape for female students, and mugging for both male and female students. Going to read in religious places is a tradition that preceded my time in school, and I was sure will succeed me. It stands to reason also that students who are not within campuses may also want to continue the tradition outside campuses. On these streets, we celebrated children reading under streetlights of busy roads while selling wares with their mothers, or on their own. A bank recently decided to sponsor a girl's education, after she was found using the light from their ATM to read. 

If we begin to list the reasons why Uwa decided to go and read at the church that fateful night, we might not be able to exhaust them all fully. However, what happened to her later that night would've been the last thing she expected, and especially at that location. Sadly, our police and policing haven't developed to the point where forensics could have been able to tell us whether the motive was murder, or attempted murder following rape, or attempted rape, and until a culprit that's not coerced to tell the truth, is found what we have as information regarding Uwa's death, remains just speculations by those who saw her after the dastardly acts have been committed, leaving her in a coma, from which she eventually passed on.

Even though the police mentioned something about finger prints on the fire extinguisher cylinder, I doubt Edo State police command has the wherewithal to pursue that, and if they do, which database have they to tally their findings with. An autopsy will definitely reveal the horrors she passed through, and cause of her death, but will not reveal who her perpetrators are. Sadly, the record of the Nigerian police as regards rape is abysmally poor and nothing to write home about. Before human rights activists, and bodies committed to fighting sexual violence in all its forms came to be, victims of rape had no one to turn to, as the police was known to further compound their predicament, even in cases where the rapists were caught during the act. On several occasions, the police that should protect victims, and bring perpetrators to book, championed so called "peace moves" and "settlement proposals" from the rapists' people to the victim's family.


It is the lack of justice for victims over the years, that have continued to enable rapists, the results of which is evident in the metro section of our newspapers daily. Even religious leaders are not left out as perpetrators, and babies even as young as a few months are not left out as victims, talk more of teenagers, young adults like Uwa, and women. When everybody was looking at India as the rape capital of the world, the news about rape in Nigeria was there, a constant, just like in South Africa, only that the world didn't seem to have our time. The Nigerian society looks like a society that enables sexual violence against females, and the reports are there, have been there, and once a while there's the noise either in sex for marks scandal in universities, or the occasional story on twitter that will trend for a few days, and then disappear, without any recourse to legal aid, but someone's life would've been scarred and/or ruined, sometimes for life, even when the seem to be enjoying family life, in seemingly blissful marriages.


I hope that the death of Uwa will not go the way of others. This is not the first time that a Governor, a Commissioner of Police, even the Inspector General of Police will be on a matter, yet justice will remain a fleeting illusion. Nothing remains newsworthy in Nigeria beyond a week, and that's even when it's most dastardly, and usually it is overtaken by something worse making one wonder if the country isn't one big movie set for a horror movie. It is painful not to imagine how things can be done differently, seeing as the rhetoric is the same as has always been, when things like this happen. It is the helplessness Nigerians feel with the police and the criminal justice system, when crimes are committed, that leaves the Nigerian society with no option than to resort to self help, especially when the culprit is caught red handed. I want to be optimistic, but there's not even a straw to hold on to now. I pray the Almighty gives Uwa's family the fortitude to bear this great loss.


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- https://m.guardian.ng
- https://www.pulse.ng