Jimoh Abibat

Rape is one of the menaces facing the country, competing with banditry and police brutality – all hallmarks of present-day Nigeria. Three notorious cases of this dastardly act have been recorded in the last two months alone, all leading to the tragic death of victims.

Miss Uwaila Vera Omozuwa, a student of the University of Benin, was violently raped, while her attackers left her to bleed to death. A hospital couldn’t save her life. Uwa had been reading in a church, a fact that was not lost on Nigerians that nowhere is safe for women as far as sexual violence is concerned. Within a week, Miss Barakat was also violently raped in Ibadan, a 280km distance from Benin where Miss Uwa had been raped earlier. Like Uwa, Barakat lost her life to these sexual predators. Since the murder of Barakat, two other women have now met a violent end in the hands of rapists within two weeks.

Such tragic events, as would have been expected, has generated an upwell of anger and protest actions against rape from Nigerians and civil society platforms. Some of their calls have correctly ranged from advocating sexual restraint for men to calls for tougher legislative actions. Consent must be respected in every sexual advance, and there should be no objection to this. But we have heard few linking the litany of abuses against women to the semi-feudal, backward capitalist system the country runs. All forms of sexual violence have their root in a repulsive tendency to assert control and domination on a gender perceived weak; meanwhile, control and domination of a weaker class are key elements of all class societies, of feudalism and capitalism.    

Rape is a form of domination and exploitation of women, only possible because we live in a class society that has made equality impossible, due to the mode of economic production. Capitalism as a system creates wealth for a few elites on the back of the working class while leaving in its path an army of underpaid workers, unemployed and uneven development in society, in short, a miserable people and society. However, capitalism is not the first class-society in human history, just as imperialism is not exclusive to the capitalist system historically. Feudalism, which was rife in the country until colonial activities began, was organized on a class basis; with farmers and herders distinguished from the kings and his chiefs. Both systems relegated women in the order of society to gender in need of male protection and provisioning.  

For one, economic inequality, a direct consequence of handing over ownership of wealth creation to a few people, allows for the domination of one privileged class by another, or one privileged group by another. The position of women under capitalism, in a country like Nigeria, is much more precarious; they suffer first from remnants of the feudalistic traditions and religious doctrines that encourage the domination of the female sex at home and in workplaces.

There are some professions dominated by female employees, yet operating unwritten policies against female functioning as administrators. This also includes trade unions largely populated by female members, yet traditionally led by few male members of such unions. The weight of a backward culture of male dominance has equally created illusions, sometimes shared by women, that being a male comes with certain social entitlements. These are instances of male entitlements that have been unjustly built on the traditions of patriarchy handed down from the feudal era. And they contribute generally to the abuse of women in society, including cases of sexual assaults, harassment, and objectification of women.

Different forms of rape, ranging from marital rape to child sexual abuse, are notorious in Nigeria but have been given lesser attention in the recent movements against rape. Marital rape as a form of rape is overlooked due to cultural reasons, especially based on the belief that a man cannot rape his wife. However, this is untrue. There are cases of withdrawal of consent in marriages, which have meant violence for women.

Following the recent Covid-19 lockdown in the country, there has been a surge in reported cases of domestic violence in homes. The situation was so horrific that the Vice President raised the alarm about this unacceptable trend. The Vanguard newspaper of 9th April was as well alarmed, and had to publish details of the surge in domestic violence under the headline, “COVID-19: Lockdown is trapping 80m women and girls with abusers.” However, the issue of violent domination of women might have been given more attention now because the lockdown has freed more people to focus on social issues, but it has always been there.

More women have had to endure abuses because of the hardship a divorce from an abusive “breadwinner” would mean for them, and of course because of cultural notions that abhor divorce. While the recent protests have turned a searchlight on rape, our probing must be expanded to questions of social inequalities, lack of education opportunities, and joblessness that make male domination to thrive.  

Class society thrives on the notion of male superiority and domination of women. The oppressive economic situation in the country, coupled with an equally oppressive social culture in some parts of the country, make this domination of women possible. About half of the country’s population is presently living in poverty. The level of unemployment has given employers the license to underpay workers and subject them to a life of misery such that it becomes difficult to tell who is working apart from who is not. All this has further contributed to the worrisome level of the objectification of women, of women who have to sell themselves to survive a hardship created by the elites.

Karl Marx, in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844), wrote: “the whole of human servitude is involved in the relation of the worker to production, and all relations of servitude are nothing but modifications and consequences of this relations.” In present-day Nigeria, the beleaguered capitalism of the country makes oppression possible on multiple fronts and makes equality of humans impossible. How could it be otherwise when the wealth of the five wealthiest men can on its own eradicate the poverty that more than 82 million Nigerians are enmeshed in? To build a country where females, as well as males, are educated, and truly given equal opportunity, the present system of social wealth distribution must be replaced by another that prioritizes social needs over the profit of private persons; it must be replaced by a socialist system.

Unless socialism replaces capitalism, reforms to curb sexual abuses can only mitigate the menace; it cannot tear it down root and branch.

However, it is important to point out the progressive nature of some of the movements to curb sexual abuses. For example, it has turned the searchlight on the police, which has hitherto prosecuted cases of sexual abuse half-heartedly to such extent that the courts have severally dismissed them for lack of diligent prosecution.

The bias of the Nigerian Police for the offender is not surprising. Nigerian police officers are notorious for their domineering attitude, violence, and extrajudicial killings; it is only natural they solidarize with elements who at least share their violent behavior. Meanwhile, the Nigerian police officers do not have a clean bill of health as far as sexual abuses are concerned. There have been reports of officers abusing sex workers, without consent, for the reason that they are sex workers. While the struggle for dignity for the female gender continues under Nigeria’s backward capitalist system, diligent eyes must be turned on the police force to thoroughly investigate and prosecute offenders. This is especially important to get justice for the recent victims of rape.  

It is noteworthy that the present awareness about sexual assault in the country is happening against the background of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that have overwhelmed states’ forces in the US. Nigeria’s anti-rape movement is also taking a page from the #MeToo campaign. Previously muffled voices are now taking to the social media to expose popular Nigerian celebrities who had sexually assaulted them in the past. This has proved the mighty impact progressive movements in faraway places can have on consciousness at home.

The current turn of opinion towards dignity and equality for the female gender, in its complexity, involves providing free public education, jobs, and healthcare for an oppressed gender. It involves bringing to trial a failed capitalist system that has made genuine freedom and equality impossible and championing the cause for a socialist system that can build true freedom and equality for mankind.

OUR DEMANDS:

* Free, quality and public education with an increased priority placed on a girl-child education

* A secular education that teaches sex education from secondary schools, with a focus on consent

* A specially trained, special department of the Police that investigates and prosecutes cases of sexual abuse

* End to victim-blaming in the Police and Court system

* United campaign of Students’ Unions and Trade Unions against rape and other forms of sexual abuse

* Criminalisation of marital rape and domestic violence

* A program of massive construction of schools, health care, job creation and other infrastructures that add dignity to the human person

* A socialist economy and state that is democratically governed by the working and oppressed people from below, which can truly establish dignity, equality of all genders

Jimoh Abibat, member of the Movement for a Socialist Alternative