Disturbing Video Shows Gang-Rape by 5 Nigerian ABSU Students

Last week a shocking video started making rounds through the Nigerian blogosphere. A fellow blogger sent me an email that contained two videos and a short write-up. Being typically me, I skipped her words and went straight to the videos. I started from the shorter video, it was a clip about ten minutes long and the first words I heard as I started listening were "but am I not cooperating?" The video was grainy and not too clear but the scene before me was quite clear and easy to read. There was a girl and she was being raped. I watched exactly 33 seconds of the video before I realized this.

In this shocking video, the full version of which is a little over an hour long, we see a girl being raped repeatedly by five different men in a dormitory style room. In the beginning of the video we hear her pleading with her captors to let her go and promising she will not tell anyone or make a fuss. Her captors laugh off her pleas and threaten to keep her captive and rape her for two days if she does not "cooperate" with them. We also gather that the rape is her punishment for allegedly insulting one of the five rapists. The rape was recorded and then passed around to their friends, to other students of the university, until finally it made its way into the hands of Linda Ikeji, who in outrage posted it on her blog asking for justice for this poor girl.

I was raped at 17. I have never actually come right out and said it before today to anyone but my closest friends and family but while watching that video, I felt something inside me break. The pain and shame I suffered at the hands of one man seemed to me at the time too unbearable to live with and two months later I tried to take my life. I was unable to watch the entire video because the entire time I kept multiplying what I went through by 5 and then trying to imagine the added humiliation of having an entire campus plus countless of nameless, faceless internet users watch my suffering and despair over and over and over again. I could not. I could only cry and so cry I did. And when I was done crying I realized that I had to do something for this girl that no one did for me. I had to stand up and let my voice be heard. I never reported my rape. In fact, it took me over a year to tell my parents what had prompted me to attempt to take my life that night. My rape occurred seven and a half years ago and I would be lying if I said it did not change my life. Till today I have an extreme fear of being stabbed, having been forced at knifepoint into the bushes. So I decided that this girl would not have to live with the knowledge that her attackers got away with what they did. I decided that somehow I would ensure that, these men faced the consequences of their actions.

Unsure about how to go about ensuring this, I did the only thing I could think of, I started a petition on www.change.org. I put up as many details of the case as I could remember and then emailed it to friends and family, stating in my email that "I am not sure if this will make a difference or not, but I cannot do nothing about this. Not this time." I was remembering the countless horror stories I had heard and forgotten overtime. I remembered the numerous stories of house owners sleeping with their housemaids and not considering it rape. I remembered my guy friend saying to me that he was sure most women in Nigeria lost their virginity before the age of 13 to a family member or a family friend. I remembered all the injustices women suffered in silence in Nigeria daily and I realized I was tired of being quiet. Tired of accepting things the way they were. I can no longer shrug when I hear these stories and say, "well that’s Nigeria for you." We live in a rape culture in Nigeria, one that discourages victims from coming forward and positively reinforces in men the idea that women are there to be used. And that if a woman is saying no it’s because you have not yet convinced her to say yes. We tell young girls to respect their elders so much that if an "uncle" comes into her room at night, she cannot tell her parents what he did to her because she is afraid to come off as being rude or lying on an elder. We encourage married men to woo young university girls with gifts and car rides and laugh and pat them on the back when they make their "conquests." Is it any wonder that this young girl did not come forward to report her rape? Who would have believed her?

I feel so much for this poor girl who has had to go through such an ordeal. This petition was started for her and yet I realized that it is so much bigger than just finding her justice. The Vice Chancellor of Abia State University, Professore Chibuzo Ogbuagu, declared without any form of investigation that such a rape could not have occurred because it was never reported. The Governor of Abia State, Theodore Orji, was adamant that the whole situation, including the tape, was a ploy by his enemies to ruin his political career. Commentators on blogs and news websites, heaped blame on the girl asking what she was doing there in the first place. As though her leaving her house that day was her way of signing an agreement to being gang raped. One callous person said that the fact that she did not scream in the video meant that she wanted it. Another genius faceless Internet user said it could not have been rape because it happened in broad daylight. Excuse me while I check my watch, clearly the appropriate hours for rape must have been added to watch faces. I just didn’t get the memo. With this sort of backlash who would willingly come forward and face a second rape from society? This time of victim blaming behavior is exactly why in a country of over 150 million people, only 1952 rapes were reported last year. A mathematical impossibility considering the sheer numbers we are working with.

When I started this petition I was concerned with finding the men who committed this heinous act. Now I realize that the issue is bigger than these five men. We need to work on a better Nigeria. There need to be laws put in place to protect our women. There needs to be a police force that we can trust to take our claims seriously and conduct proper investigations that make us bringing our shame forward worthwhile. We need to have an educated and caring government that bothers to fact check before rashly taking a stand or declaring that despite VIDEO evidence, a rape did not take place. We need to stand up and show policymakers that no longer will we quietly shrug and accept our country and all its inadequacies. It is time to show the government that the citizens do care.

There are National and International eyes watching you now, Nigeria. Will you continue to embarrass us?

If you haven't already signed the petition please do so. Let your voice be heard. Show that you care!