Another Gang Rape In Lagos

LAST week, a magistrates’ court in Lagos remanded three Senior Secondary School 1 (SSS1)students who allegedly gang-raped their 15-year-old classmate in a juvenile home. The state police command had dragged the teenagers, two of whom were aged 16 and the other 14, through the court on a four-count charge bordering on conspiracy, unlawful carnal knowledge, sexual assault and rape. According to the police, the boys gang-defiled their classmate at her residence while her parents were not around. They offered her a drink suspected to have contained sleeping pills, took turns in raping her when she became unconscious, and fled soon afterwards. The offences contravened sections 260(1)(2)(4), 261, 263(1) and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

It will be recalled that in May last year, some male senior school students of Ireti Grammar School, Ikoyi, Lagos State, who had just finished their final-year examination targeted and sexually assaulted their female counterparts from Falomo Grammar School, Falomo, Lagos. Eyewitnesses gave graphic details of how the assailants ripped the skirts of the girls with scissors and pinned them down while their fellow students milled around, watching and cheering the gladiatorial show of shame. The previous year, six students of the University of Lagos were brought before a Surulere Chief Magistrates’ Court for allegedly gang-raping a 17-year-old female student. According to the police prosecutor, it was the only female among the accused who lured the girl to the location where she was raped and video clips made in order to intimidate her.

Truth be told, stories of rape no longer spark the kind of outrage they usually generated in the past because they have become routine. In recent times, the country has been confronted with the ugly spectacle of a father allegedly raping his daughter to death, and adults defiling minors around the country almost on a daily basis. And the situation is bound to get worse if the full weight of the extant laws is not invoked swiftly and decisively to deal with offenders. If anything, the kind of behaviour encouraged by popular culture, whether in movies or music, suggests that there may be no reprieve anytime soon unless governments at all levels make efforts to arrest the drift.

To say the least, there is a general breakdown of morality in the Nigerian society and it is no surprise that sexual assault is increasingly the norm. As a matter of fact, most of the reported cases are in urban areas and it is difficult to imagine what goes on in the rural areas where access to justice via the formal court system may not be as readily available as it is in the urban areas. As we noted in our previous editorials, for reasons of hardship and poverty foisted on many because of the parlous state of the economy, broken homes and dysfunctional families are on the rise, and the correlation between the products of dysfunctional households and anti-social behaviours remains positive. We have not been persuaded to change our advocacy that efforts be geared towards boosting virile and functional family units that can raise decent and well-behaved youths.

In addition, the school system, especially the public schools which the children of the upper and middle classes hardly patronise these days, must be revamped to change the current atmosphere which permits moral decadence. Issues relating to defective curricula, lack of commitment and dedication on the part of teachers to turn out students worthy in intellect and character, and ineffective supervision by school inspectors must be frontally addressed, as should the perennial question of the welfare of teachers. When teachers are properly motivated and the school environment is conducive for training in knowledge and character, a better forum would have been created to effectively curb aberrant behaviours by students.

Since the alleged culprits in this case are minors, we are satisfied with their remand in a juvenile home, but it is hoped and urged that, if found guilty, they are made to experience the treatment allowed by law for people of their kind in its fullest extent. Sexual assault often leaves permanent scars in the psyche of victims and the society must not continue to create the impression that offenders can escape justice if they or their relations or friends have strong connections to the seat of power. The country is in trouble when 14 and 16-year-olds are already adept at drugging and raping people of the opposite sex. If they get away with the crime, they will commit bigger crimes with time. That must not be allowed to happen.