Dozens students were raped in at least 40 reported incidents across the country in the last four years, with only two of the arrested suspects successfully prosecuted and convicted.
Investigation by 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE revealed that these incidents between 2018 and 2021.
These figures didn’t include dozens cases that were not reported by Nigeria’s mainstream media during the period under review.
These sexual crimes took place in 10 faith-based schools, 18 private primary and secondary schools and nine public primary and secondary schools.
Of the 18 suspects arrested for the reported crimes, only two were successfully convicted, bringing to fore the lackadaisical nature of bringing these culprits to book.
The suspects include 18 teachers, one supervisor, two vice principals and students, this newspaper’s findings have shown.
In 14 day schools, four boarding schools, 19 mixed schools and one boys’ school, children lost their innocence in the most gruesome manners.
Also, the Amnesty International in its recent report titled: “Nigeria: A harrowing journey; access to justice for women and girls survivors of rape” chronicled harrowing experiences of some students “including a six-year-old and an 11-year-old who were attacked so viciously they died.”
Most of the incidents the reports covered, happened outside the school environment during the lockdown occasioned by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic when institutions were shut.
“One victim, Vera Uwaila Omosuwa, a 22-year-old microbiology student, was raped and brutally assaulted in 2020 in a church near her home in Benin, Edo state, and died a couple of days later from her injuries. Hamira, a five-year-old, was drugged and raped by her neighbour in April 2020. Her injuries were so bad she could no longer control her bladder.
“Barakat Bello, an 18-year-old student, was raped during a robbery in her home in Ibadan, Oyo state. She was butchered with machetes by her rapists and died on 1 June 2020. Favour Okechukwu, an 11-year-old girl, was gang-raped to death in Ejigbo, Lagos state….,” the report said.
The cases also include a six-year-old girl who was raped to death in Kaduna state.
Affected schools
Some of the affected are Karangada Primary School, Gombe; Raudatul Quranic Primary and Secondary School, Gombe; Community Secondary School, Kadandani in Rimi Local Government Area of Katsina State; Down Syndrome Foundation, Surulere, Lagos; Chrisland Primary and Nursery School, Ikeja, Lagos and Central Primary School, Karabonde, Borgu LGA, Niger State.
Others are Premiere Academy, Lugbe Abuja; an Islamic school in Arkillan Magaji, Sokoto State; Deeper Life High School, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State; a private Islamic school in Ngomari Costain, Maiduguri, Borno State; Holbrook Creche, Nursery and Primary School, Gbagada, Lagos; an Islamic school at Anisere, Ipaja, Lagos; an Islamic school in Ogun State; and Anastasia Comprehensive College, Abule-Egba, Lagos State.
The only convictions
Out of the 40 incidents backed with overwhelming evidence against the perpetrators, only 10 of the cases made it to prosecution and just two people have been sentenced.
A supervisor at Chrisland School, Victoria Garden City (VGC), Lagos, Pastor Adegboyega Adenekana, was sentenced to 60 years by the Lagos Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court sitting in Ikeja pursuant to Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011.
Pastor Adenekana bagged the prison years for defiling a two-year-old girl and an 11-month-old pupil of the school.
The second offender sentenced is a 19-year-old Islamic teacher, Suleiman Abubakar, of Ngomari Costain, Maiduguri, who bagged 10 years for defiling a minor by a high court sitting in Maiduguri pursuant to Section 283 of the Penal Code Laws of Borno State 1994.
Abubakar had lured a six-year-old pupil of the school where he teaches to the staff room and defiled her.
Among other cases was the one involving an Islamic teacher in Sokoto State, Malam Murtala Mode, who sodomised six children in 2019. Malam Mode was arrested by the police after some pupils confessed that he raped them.
In a similar incident, the management of Deeper Life High School, Uyo, Akwa Ibom, suspended its principal over sodomy with an 11-year-old schoolboy, Don Davis.
The suspension followed a viral video posted by the mother of the victim alleging that her child was being molested by senior students of the school.
The outrage that followed the viral case of Don Davis was quelled by the state governor’s promise to ensure justice for the victim. So far nothing has been heard again about the incident.
Similarly, litigation initiated by the Niger state government against a Vice Principal, Malam Mohammed Mohammed, for impregnating Junior Secondary School student in 2017 is still pending in court.
The rape incidents within the period under review spread across 13 states: Abia Ogun, Sokoto, Osun, Lagos, Niger, Akwa Ibom, Kano, Gombe, Katsina, Ondo and Plateau.
Niger has the highest number of occurrences with 21 victims from both Western and Islamic institutions.
Across the country, 11 out of the 40 cases were reported to the police, two to state welfare agencies and two others to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Worrying statistics
The Amnesty International called on Nigerian authorities to act decisively towards protecting women and girls from rampant sexual violence.
Quoting the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the body disclosed that 11,200 cases of rape was reported in 2020 during the lockdown alone.
“Following the lockdown imposed to tackle the spread of Covid-19 in 2020, there was an upsurge in cases of rape.
“In June 2020, Nigerian police said they had recorded 717 incidents of rape between January and May last year.
“In April 2020, Nigeria’s Minister of Women Affairs Pauline Tallen said at least 3,600 cases of rape were recorded during the lockdown, while the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) received 11,200 reported cases of rape over the whole of 2020,” it noted.
Rape cases affecting schools enrolment, retention
Experts say surveys indicate that the rising incidents of rape is forcing down enrolment of children, especially in rural schools, and exacerbating withdrawal of some by parents from institutions.
Amid high illiteracy rate, worsened by low enrolment and retention rates, especially in the North, experts say the rape cases are aggravating an already bad situation.
Girls suffer more than boys in terms of missing out on education. In the North East, only 41 per cent of eligible girls receive primary education, and 47 per cent in the North West.
Nigerian children are vulnerable to a wide range of abuses and harmful traditional practices. The national legal framework for child protection is the Child Rights Act 2003, but to date, only 23 of 36 states have adopted the act.
It was gathered that Kebbi, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Jigawa, Zamfara, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Borno and Adamawa states are yet to domesticate the law which experts believe will strengthen the fight against the violation of the rights of women and children.
For the states that have already domesticated the law, implementation is patchy, with many local authority bodies unaware of their duties under the law.
Fighting the menace in Niger
Unlike other states, Niger seems to have taken a bold initiative in establishing an agency, the Child Rights Agency, to fight the scourge.
Although the state tops the list in the number of reported cases, the Director of the Agency, a lawyer, Barrister Maryam Kolo said the seeming high cases was because the state has mechanisms in place to track the trend.
According to the statistics of the general cases obtained by our correspondent, the state recorded 448 incidents between 2016 to 2019.
Kolo said out of the number, 146 offenders have been convicted in courts and are currently serving various terms, while the rest of the cases are ongoing in various courts across the state.
Domesticating Childs Rights Act not enough
Kolo said stemming the scourge required more than just domestication of the child rights Act.
She said: “It is not enough to domesticate the law but such must be backed by the right political will that will ensure seamless implementation.
“In Niger, beyond the law, Governor Abubakar Sani Bello created an agency, the Child Right Agency for the protection and enforcement of the law. So I encourage other states to put in place such mechanisms if they must achieve results.
“The Agency is really making the implementation of the law easy for us here in Niger and as we speak, the law establishing the agency has even been gazetted.
Kolo said the agency has led to a lot of breakthroughs in the area of arrest and prosecution of offenders in the state.
On the case involving the vice principal who allegedly impregnated a JSS3 student in Minna, she said the case is ongoing. “So far, we have been able to establish that the vice principal is not the father of the child going by the DNA test conducted after the girl eventually put to bed but he is liable for also raping her as a minor. So we will ensure that he is prosecuted for violating a child who was put in his care. That case threw up the need for awareness on the need for children to know when the abuse started.
On the number of such cases the agency has handled or still pursuing, she said a lot of offenders have been sent to various prison terms for rapes generally, while quite a number of others are in courts.
“We have several convicted even for life imprisonments. We have made significant strides and the state has taken extra initiative by also creating a family court. So we have a lot of cases awaiting trial and those that have reached the final stage of convictions,” she noted.
Bribery, poor investigation to blame – Lawyer
Bribery and poor investigation by the law enforcement agencies grossly affect the prosecution of suspected rapists, a legal practitioner, Abdulkarim A. Ibrahim, has said.
He said “a suspect can afford to bribe his way out of any case involving police (who is the prime investigation and prosecutory authority in most cases of rape and defilement. Its all about your money getting you out rather than your innocence.”
He said some personnel are even bold enough to offer the suspect a sum with which to buy his freedom. And once the suspect is able to pay the agreed sum, the case will either be abandoned or proper investigation will not be conducted and as a result the merit of the case will be lost, he said.
The lawyer, however, said “most of the cases of rape lost are lost on the weakness or absence of proper investigation on the part of the authority as against weakness of the judiciary.
“Even though I do not wish to suggest that the judiciary is without blame but the police carries a major chunk or the blame.
He said “creating a special agency for investigation and prosecution of rape and allied matters would go a long way to really address the menace of rape in our society.”
Society needs to protect the child – Sultan
Amid rising cases of abuse, the Sultan of Sokoto and President General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Alhaji Muhammadu
Sa’ad Abubakar III, recently charged northern governors yet to domesticate the Child Rights Act (CRA) to do so.
The sultan noted that the scourge had continued despite several intervention efforts by government at all levels and other stakeholders
He said, “Every blessed day we hear frightening accounts of abuse of children, young women and boys, adults, including those in matrimonial homes, and in some instances mentally ill persons living on the streets….
“We as royal fathers and faith leaders need to step up our roles as custodians of custom, tradition and faith in making sure that women and girls are safe, secured and protected.
“We are, therefore, committed to use our spheres of influence to change societal attitudes by reframing violence as a social problem. We will play an active role in broader efforts to prevent violence against women and girls.”
Why rapists escape the law – PLAN
Plan International Nigeria’s programmer support advisor, Chinelo Amaechina, said government and other stakeholders should prioritise investment in popularization of the laws against rape, strong advocacy to stakeholders especially at community level and addressing the culture of silence and tackling of shaming and stigmatizing survivors.
“There should be strong capacity strengthening for law enforcement agencies on handling of rape cases.
“Provision of strong protection support network for survivors as well as parents,” Amaechina said.
