RAPE IS NOT COZY: A TRUE LIFE ENCOUNTER: By: Olumide Gabriel Olugbemi

I have agonised these past days whether to share this personal experience with the world or not.

Yesterday, my courage failed me because I was wary of attacks from a horde out there that has displayed crass insensitivity to the issues of rape and sexual violence against women in our society.

But I'm no longer afraid. I need to tell this story to signpost the grave and varied complications and implications of sexual assault on violated bodies. It is my belief that by sharing this story (publicly for the second time - yesterday was the first time at a gathering of alumni of my alma mater) of personal encounter with a victim of rape, I would be helping a society in denial to come to terms with the ubiquitous nature of rape and its high prevalence in homes, schools, religious centres, private and public spaces, and even within legitimate boundaries of relationships. More importantly, it is my intention to upend and vitiate the often-mouthed nonsensical response of naysayers, who have chorused (in the case of Busola Dakolo) and who always chorus, "Why is she just coming out?", to rationalise rape, parry focus away from the rapist, shame the victims and completely silence them.

She walked into my office with others shortly after an exhilarating and pulsating class/dramatic presentations by fresh students (100 level). While others, some of them her group members, debated the merits and demerits of their presentations, she kept eerily quiet; she was in a wall of herself. Being an observant person, I noticed her deliberate isolation of self and a foreboding that something I couldn't place was ominous about her. Prior to that particular encounter, we had forged a relationship strictly within the binary of teacher-student. In fact, I had taken a liking to her because she epitomised the qualities of a well trained child (qualities which are hard to come by these days). More so, she's the possessor of a creative mind, codified in unpublished poems she'd shared with me.

After the last student left my office that warm evening, I quickly turned my focus on her.

"Aisha, are you okay?" I asked with genuine concern.

I didn't imagine what happened next. She broke down in tears, wrecking and rocking from its effect. Momentarily, I was numbed with unfeigned fear and concern, but I managed to usher her to a seat and, offered her both tissue paper and privacy to cry. For twenty or more minutes, she cried like a bereaved child. It was a helpless situation and there was nothing I could do but wait.

After what seemed like eternity, she managed between sobs to open up to me.

Aisha was raped at the age of six by her father's best friend in their own house. Her father is a big Imam in one of Nigeria's biggest cities. The rapist, a pious and religious man in the rank of her father, brutally raped her and blackmailed her into silence.

From that moment, she became withdrawn and lived in fear, wrecked by the trauma of the sexual assault she suffered in the hands of a respected personality.

"Why choose that day to tell me or anyone for the first time?"

It was an involuntary reaction to an event which had earlier played out in class that day. During one of the drama presentations for the day, a group had presented a skit with a rape scene. That was the catalyst. That scene triggered a recall of painful memories buried deep inside a hurting and traumatised body.

With empathy and rage, I demanded to know the steps she took to out the rapist and get justice.

Her painful tears told the rest of the story.

"Who will believe me sir?"
"How do I tell Alhaji or my mum?"
"I was terrified"
"Mr Olumide, I was a child"

Aisha opened up to me (the first person she told of her rape), when was 18 years old and a varsity undergraduate. May be this would give some of the guys rationalising rape with the cliché, "Why is she just telling her story?", a clear picture of how traumatising and damaging rape is for victims.

I'm close to Aisha's family. Both parents call me at intervals and I physically met her mum once. I serve as her guardian in school. They run everything about her through me. But they're in dark about the darkness in which their beloved daughter live.

Sadly, Aisha is struggling academically. A brilliant girl who's constantly unable to translate what's in her brain to good grades. She suffers panic attacks. In the exam hall, no matter her level of preparation and sacrifices, she has the habit of shutting down almost completely at times. She would just go blank. Many of her friends and my colleagues cannot come to terms with how a girl who writes beautiful poems is struggling so badly academically. But I know why.

Poetry is her escape. Poetry is her therapy. Poetry is the only thing that listens to her without blaming and judging her.

So you can go ahead and shame Busola and other women telling their stories of abuse, just because those who abused them are your pastors, imams, husbands, brothers, friends, and paddies.

But I will tell you again. Rape is not cozy, and it is more common and rampant than you have ever imagined in our society.

Note: I share this story with every sense of caution, circumspection and responsibility. The story is real, but the name is not.

Olumide Olugbemi-Gabriel

Rape ok