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Prof Wole Soyinka (Image source: Radioblog)
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Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to
withhold his assent to the Sexual Offences Bill (also known as the anti-rape
bill) passed by the last National Assembly.
In a letter apologizing for his
absence at an event marking the June 12 anniversary in Lagos, Mr. Soyinka said
that a nation should not be founded on the sexual exploitation of the fragile
and innocent.
“President Buhari – and here I make
my first imposition on his presidency – should never place his assent on such a
nefarious distraction,” Mr. Soyinka, a professor of Comparative Literature,
said in the letter to the organizing committee of the June 12 Movement of
Nigeria.
“Its implications doom the victim to
afflictions that churn the stomach even to think of the human toll. Perhaps
those legislators think that vaginal fistula is something thought up by
arm-chair critics with nothing better to occupy their minds. No matter, let
those who profess a genuine concern declare their stand on this.
“On my part, I find unacceptable any
effort to build a nation on perversions that merely minister to man’s sexual
appetites. This is a sordid appeasement of a minority who actually require
psychiatric help.
“President Buhari should not give
his assent to the Bill without amendments that address the earlier Yerimah gift
to the nation. It’s a trap.”
The Sexual Offences Bill, 2015, was
among the 46 bills passed by the 7th Senate in a last minute flurry of
activities last week.
The bill stipulates a life
imprisonment for any individual found guilty of rape or sexual intercourse with
children under 11 years; 10 years for incest; 10 years for child pornography or
a fine of N2 million; and 14 years for sexual abuse, among others.
Mr. Soyinka asked for help in
understanding the bill which he described as a case of “rubbing vaseline on
leprosy”.
“In this supposedly progressive
bill, sponsored by the respected Senator Chris Anyanwu. I could not help but
notice a reiteration – as if to ensure that there is no ambiguity – of the word
‘child’, near superfluously,” Mr. Soyinka said.
“Well, we understand ‘child’ as
defined in most dictionaries. There is however also child as defined by the Nigerian
legislature. This definition is contained in a prior Bill, sponsored, no less,
by a notorious serial paedophile and cross-border sex trafficker, yet lawmaker
– one Ahmed Yerima.
“Does Yerima’s Bill, gleefully
assented to by his peers, not simply vitiate this latter, supposedly humane
concern for the protection of the child? Again, I confess to being only a
‘bloody layman’ in such matters.
“However, reading both bills, it
strikes me that all the new bill does is empower the clique of paedophiles. All
you need do is ‘marry’ even a six-year old under any local laws, and do
whatever you want with her. Through marriage, she is already an ‘adult’. Her
‘defiler’ is now fully protected by this law. She is not.”
Mr. Soyinka said that the issue of
child protection looms large all over the world, including bills passed or
under debate, adding that it defines how a people is viewed in the global
community.
“The current bill is the ancient
story of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. End of story? Yerimah
and his fellow perverts are having the last laugh,” said Mr. Soyinka.
“This latest addition of insult to
social injury was tucked within a last-minute avalanche of bills that were
passed at lightning speed during the tail-end of the last legislative
assemblage – 47 bills in under 3 hours – surely one for the Guinness Book of
Records. An accident? Or by design?
“This bill, subjected to wrong
arguments, merely consolidates the reduction of female minors to sex objects.
As long as you can afford a bag of rice or – as in the case of cross-border
tastes such as Ahmed Yerima’s – ten thousand dollars, you are free to rape a
child to death.
“This, surely cannot pretend to
represent the will of a people who care. Once you re-define female adulthood as
marital status, all subsequent protection bills for the girl-child are
worthless, cynical.”
Mr. Soyinka called on Nigerians to
learn from the heroes of June 12.
“Few people have done more for the
cause of liberation than the hero of this day. M.K.O. Abiola was an open
polygamist,” he said.
“None of his wives was ever found to be below
the only age of consent that is now needlessly under contention – the
scientific. We cannot substitute science and observation for any spurious
alibis that sacrifice the child to private lust.”
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