₦airaland Forum

Paedophilia On The Increase In Nigeria

Uche Nworah - 1/7/2008

Paedophilia is a crime full stop. I don’t buy the argument being peddled in certain quarters that it is a disease; such people also maintain that pedophiles require help. if you ask me, the only help they require is to be shown the way to Kirikiri maximum security prison where they should be locked up for life and the keys to their room thrown into the Lagos lagoon.

I don’t see what pity I can show to a man who decides that the objects of his sexual fantasies would be children almost still in their diapers. Our society is usually a secretive one; people know things and won't talk thus indirectly serving as unwitting accomplices to depraved men parading our communities.

These evil men’s self –appointed tasks are made easier by the poverty ravaging many families in Nigeria. Such families have no option but to resort to sending their children away to ply the streets hawking wares. Talk about sending out sheep before lions. The young girls become easy prey and are quickly devoured by the paedophiles in our midst.

This problem reached home while I was still a teenager. A distant cousin Ada (not her real name) was living with us at the time, she must have been around 8- 9 years old when this incident occurred. At the same time John (not his real name) lived at the house with us, he was recruited to help my father in his building material business in Aba. Around this time, my father’s half -brother (Willy) was planning to move into our neighbourhood and it also fell on John to help with the cleaning of Willy’s apartment before he moved in.

I had always suspected John’s ways going by his various antics around the house but still nothing would prepare me for the shocker I got this particular day when my mum asked me to go fetch Ada from Uncle Willy’s apartment where she had gone to take food to John. On arrival, I knocked hard on the front door for several minutes but didn’t get any answer. I was almost getting ready to leave thinking that they may have left the house when the neighbours living in the adjacent flat informed me that there were people inside the flat for sure.

Shortly afterwards, after repeated banging on the door, John opened the door. As he stood there, I could see the mischievous smile on his face, I did not miss his stench animal smell either which now seemed to have intensified with the afternoon heat, something that made his room at home a no-go zone. It was as if John didn't want me to come into the apartment, he stood still by the door and asked me “Kedu ife owu?” – What do you want?

This was rather an unusual question I thought coming from John, considering that we all used to come to the apartment as we pleased helping with the cleaning and so on. Something propelled me past John and I stormed into the empty seating room. Standing in the middle of the room was a half dressed Ada with tears in her eyes. I didn’t wait to ask questions, nor to be lied to by John about what had transpired, evil rent the air and all I could think of was to snatch Ada and run away, far away from the evil man closing in behind us.

As I reached out for Ada’s hand, I could see the sense of relief on her face, and the fear lodged deep in her eyes. We both briskly hurried out of the apartment oblivious of John’s plea for me not to inform mum and dad about what happened, as if I knew but by then his devilish conscience had already started pricking him, but still his plea wasn't borne out of any remorse for the emotional scar he had just inflicted upon Ada for life but rather out of the animalistic sense of survival which in this instance was targeted at securing his daily bread.

Downstairs, I put Ada on top of my bicycle and wheeled it and her home. She cried all the way and I didn’t know what to tell her. I did not even have the courage to ask her what had happened, at that age and during this time, sex was a taboo especially sex with a minor. My only mission at the time was to take Ada safely home; I would let my parents take care of the rest.

This incident happened several years ago, sometime around 1982 it must have been. Since then, a lot has happened to Ada, she is now happily married. As to John, I don’t know what became of him; he didn’t sleep at our house that night and never did again. Not a lot though has happened on this child protection front in Nigeria; it appears that the paedophiles are still very much at their game’s best. Recent reports allege that child rapes are on the increase in Nigeria.

According to Suleiman Abba, Kano’s deputy police chief, child rapes have risen by an "alarming" extent in Kano. He says that this time, the sexual predators are buoyed by their false belief that sleeping with minors particularly virgins is a potent ritual which can cure them of disease such as AIDS and various sexually-transmitted diseases or make them rich.

Ibrahim Abdullahi, the spokesman for Societal Reorientation Directorate, the body charged with improving morals in Kano state was quoted as saying that “this is a sad development which requires the combined effort of the government, security agencies and the public to combat."

It was also reported that in the last six months of 2007, the Kano police recorded 54 reported cases of child rape and made 60 arrests in connection with them”. Suleiman Abba says that the trend is a radical increase compared to 36 cases recorded in the first six months of 2007. Of worry is the fact that In some of the cases reported, the victims were gang-raped thus fuelling further fears that this devilish acts will not go away anytime soon. Abba said that the suspects’ ages range from 45 and 70 while the victims are mostly girls of between 3 and 11 years. In one incident he said, a man of 70 raped a toddler of three. "We have cases of young men raping minors but the number pales into significance compared to the number of cases involving older men," Abba said, adding that the cases reported are only the tip of the iceberg. "Many cases are never reported because parents want to save the honour of their daughters and protect their family from embarrassment," he said.

Continuing, the report said that the desire to hide the crime is all the more tragic given that some of the children require reconstructive surgery and get infected with the disease their rapist was misguidedly trying to cure, health workers say.

One would have thought that with strict Sharia laws in place in some places in Northern Nigeria that these crimes which carry the death penalty will deter pedophiles from feasting on small children, but it is not the case. This Abdullahi of the Societal Reorientation Directorate attributes to the unwillingness of parents to press charges against suspected rapists for fear of social stigma. "We are stuck , we can't prosecute without witnesses and the parents are usually not ready to go to court and testify. Without witnesses the case is a dead one and you have to free the suspect. And that hurts," Abba said.

How sad indeed, for the poor victims and our society. Is this the kind of answers we should be giving these young girls for failing them? It is as if we are bringing them into the world and letting them to fend for themselves against sexual bigots parading the streets as Uncles and Big brothers etc.

Almost every state government in Nigeria and local government authority has a ministry of social welfare, likewise a supervisory councilor for welfare. There is also ministry or ministries at the federal level responsible for citizens’ welfare and rights. These various ministries are headed by commissioners, ministers, ministers of states and all other such political appointees. There are also countless parastatals and government agencies that one way or the other are charged with the responsibility of looking after the well being of the citizens, not including the hordes of Non-government organizations (NGO) fighting for one social cause or the other.

One would then think that amongst the priorities of the civil servants in these various ministries, government agencies, NGOs etc will be the protection of children's rights. It appears as if they are not doing that, and in so not-doing are failing the children.

While governments at the three – tiers continue to pussy-foot over basic issues affecting the welfare of their citizens, perhaps Nigerians should do more on their own. We could start by being open about this problem, discussing it and talking about it openly. Perhaps that may put the heat somehow on those men who have feasted on the likes of Ada for long hiding under the cover of societal silence.

The mass media have an even bigger role to play to help fight this problem. They should report more about this without necessarily naming the victims. Rather, the perpetrators should be named and shamed as a deterrent to others. Increased awareness created by the mass media will ward off some attacks, and also inform parents of their basic rights, and the children of basic self-protection steps to take, particularly when to start getting suspicious of the ‘good uncle’ with a heart of gold who is fond of buying her sweets and presents or even giving her cash but who will not want her to inform her parents or siblings of such benevolence.

With all sorts of NGOs springing up daily in Nigeria, perhaps it is about time for one of them to consider constructing a safe haven for women like Ada to run to in the first instance where there is no family support and care available. We should not let these children down as they are the future of Nigeria; they are our future mothers and wives.

felifeli:
@angiefan
It is a no-brainer to see that all the pictures come from ONE SINGLE album at Photobucket.com and they are exhausted now save for one which I will assist you to post below. What title would you give this one

https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/owena13/gorrilaunit.jpg

Guys, you can see all the pictures together at http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/owena13/

You are despicable fake crap "angiefan" . You couldn't find someone to buy your photos at photobucket.com , isn't that right ?
Something tells me you are not female either and you are just massaging your ego on the "British Born and British Bred" shit. In fact I believe that you are a mischievous dickhead just jerking off . Peace

Now who is Owena13 ? Never mind, we will find out in a short while

ehie:
Protect indeed,keep deluding yourself there.Lol
Second i got to see to biliv that in my sweet naija some one will be hanged because he stole orange.
that na capital lie.
Nigerians are  kind people,we help our brothers.
As for the pastor involved in the ritual killings,who found him out?
was it u with ur big head in san diego?
abeg make person hear word bo.
In Nigeria we always get our justice,from court ,from man oh,from remote o justice is justice

Nigerian Death Row Prisoners Denied Appeal, Despite Waiting 24 Years For One
Tuesday , October 21, 2008



ADVERTISEMENT
LAGOS, Nigeria  —

Dozens of death row prisoners in Nigeria have not been able to appeal their sentences, others have waited up to 24 years to have their appeals heard, and some are just teenagers, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

At least 80 of the 736 inmates currently languishing on death row in Africa's biggest oil producer were sentenced by tribunals, without the right to appeal their sentences, the London-based rights group said. Others have faced decades-long delays for appeals, due to a lack of legal representation or missing case files, it said.

In addition, there are at least 40 juvenile offenders on Nigeria's death row. [size=20pt]Their ages at the time of their alleged crimes ranged from 13 to 17 years old.[/size]
The rights group called upon the Nigerian government to declare a moratorium on executions, saying the West African nation's criminal justice system is "riddled with corruption, negligence and a nearly criminal lack of resources."

Government officials had no immediate comment on the Amnesty report.

The report also claimed that thorough, impartial police investigations into capital crimes were rare and said over half of the death row inmates were convicted on the basis of written confessions that many said were extracted under torture.

"It is truly horrifying to think of how many innocent people may have been executed and may still be executed," said Aster van Kregten, Amnesty International's Nigeria researcher.

Nigeria made an attempt to address the flaws by establishing two commissions of inquiry, which both recommended a moratorium on death sentences because the existing justice system could not guarantee a fair trial, but no action has been taken yet.

The report says Nigeria's soaring violent crime rate puts pressure on police to make fast arrests and few politicians want to publicly oppose death sentences.

"The death penalty is used as a distraction from the real issue: Addressing the underlying factors that lead to violent crime," the report said.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation, with 140 million people. In spite of massive oil earnings, poverty is widespread and criminality and corruption are major problems.

typical british behavior vulgar mouthed drunks,slutty and overweight, no class act at all

As for deathrow cases,u could check out Thailand., Singapore and China.and Texas
SURE its worse out there.

'Innocent' Nigerians on death row  

Death row trials can take up to 10 years and appeals even longer
Hundreds of prisoners on Nigeria's death rows did not have a fair trial and may be innocent, the human-rights group Amnesty International says.

It says many confessions are extracted under torture and people are sentenced to death on that evidence alone.

An Amnesty report calls on Nigeria's government to halt all executions.

"The judicial system is riddled with flaws that can have devastating consequences," Amnesty's Aster van Kregten said.

State prosecutor Williams Ashu admitted the report had identified real concerns.

"We're working on trying to resolve the problem," told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

Overstretched'

Amnesty's Mr van Kregten said in a statement: "It is truly horrifying to think of how many innocent people may have been executed and may still be executed."

 I am not an armed robber - I bought a [motorcycle] from someone who stole it

Jafar, death row inmate since 1984


Nigerian court frees 'dead son'

According to the 78-page report, almost 80% of inmates in Nigerian prisons say they have been beaten, threatened with weapons or tortured in police custody.

It says that after a prisoner has been hanged, other death-row prisoners are forced to clean the gallows.

"The police are overstretched and under-resourced. Because of this, they rely heavily on confessions to 'solve' crimes - rather than on expensive investigations," Ms van Kregten said.

Mr Ashu agreed that more needed to be done to train and equip the police force.

"The work they are doing is very hard work that some of them are not adequately trained for it," he said.

Ledap, a Nigerian legal organisation which co-authored the report, says that under Nigerian law, confessions under torture cannot be used as evidence in court.

"Judges know that there is widespread torture by the police - and yet they continue to sentence suspects to death based on these confessions, leading to many possibly innocent people being sentenced to death," Ledap's Chino Obiagwu said.

Bribes

Amnesty says that death-penalty trials can take more than 10 years to conclude, with some appeals waiting for 14 years or more.

"I am not an armed robber. I am a shoemaker. I bought a [motorcycle] from someone who stole it," death row inmate Jafar, 57, told Amnesty.

He filed an appeal 24 years ago, but he is still waiting for it to be heard as his case file has gone missing.

"The police asked me to be a witness. They got the man who sold [me] the [motorcycle] but shot him to death. After that, I became the suspect."

In the report, many prisoners said that when the police picked them up, they asked for money to release them.

Those who could not pay were treated as suspected armed robbers, they say.

felifeli:
@angiefan
Abuse ? i called you a cretin, an idiot and a lunatic . Candidly I need to apologise to cretins, idiots and lunatics all over the world because you are way beneath them in every way . you are a patent sociopath and Britain will be doing well to quickly lock you up in Tower of London and hack your head off at Christmas to show tourists how it used to be done , you bastard

To recap :
you are posting ten year old pictures !! most of those buildings , situations and environmental conditions don't exist anymore[b]. YOUR PHOTOGRAPHERS HAVE DUPED YOU IDIOT !![/b]
People, why am I arguing with a person with mad cow disease ? It's hopeless to argue with a lunatic .

I will also be getting more pics asshole

DEATH PENALTY-NIGERIA: 'Forced Confessions' Condemn Hundreds
By Toye Olori

LAGOS, Oct 21 (IPS) - Amnesty International says that hundreds of those awaiting execution on Nigeria's death row did not have fair trials and may therefore be innocent.

At an Oct. 21 press conference in Abuja, the capital, releasing its latest report on the death penalty in Nigeria, co-authored by the Nigerian rights organisation Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), Amnesty called for an immediate moratorium on executions in the country.

The report, Nigeria: Waiting for the Hangman, exposed a catalogue of failings in Nigeria's criminal justice system, saying that it was "riddled with corruption, negligence and a nearly criminal lack of resources".

More than half of the 720 death penalty convictions were based on confessions which were often extracted under torture.

"Although prohibited in Nigeria, in practice torture by police occurs on a daily basis. Almost 80 percent of inmates in Nigerian prisons say they have been beaten, threatened with weapons or tortured in police cells,'' the report said.

"The police are over-stretched and under-resourced. Because of this, they rely heavily on confessions to 'solve' crimes -- rather than on expensive investigations. Convictions based on such confessions are obviously very unsafe," Amnesty’s researcher Aster van Kregten said.

"The judicial system is riddled with flaws that can have devastating consequences. For those accused of capital crimes, the effects are obviously deadly and irreversible."

Chino Obiagwu, LEDAP's national coordinator added that although under Nigerian law confessions given under pressure, threat or torture could not be used as evidence in court, judges took no notice.

"Judges know that there is widespread torture by the police -- and yet they continue to sentence suspects to death based on these confessions, leading to many possibly innocent people being sentenced to death."

The Amnesty report said death penalty trials could take more than 10 years to conclude. Some files went missing, leaving the condemned in a limbo and apparently robbing them of their rights to amnesties.

Death row conditions were harsh.

There were also a growing number of children on death row.

"Although international law prohibits the use of the death penalty against child offenders, at least 40 death row prisoners were aged between 13 and 17 at the time of their alleged offence."

"Questions of guilt and innocence are almost irrelevant in Nigeria's criminal justice system," Obiagwu said.

"It is all about if you can afford to pay to keep yourself out of the system -- whether that means paying the police to adequately investigate your case, paying for a lawyer to defend you or paying to have your name put on a list of those eligible for pardon.

"Those with the fewest resources are at the greatest risk in Nigeria's criminal justice system."

A bill which would have partially abolished the death penalty in Nigeria was overwhelmingly rejected last July.

Stunned by the degree of opposition, anti-death penalty activists and sponsors are planning a massive public education campaign before a new attempt to abolish the death penalty is made in the next parliamentary session in 2009.

"We intend to carry everybody along in the enlightenment campaign," Friday Itulah, the main sponsor of the rejected bill, told IPS.

"We intend to involve local and international NGOs and the media in addition to organising seminars and workshops."

Itulah said his bill was voted down because of religious sentiment and ignorance.

"From the religious angle, adherents particularly of the Islamic faith were of the view that life is sacred and, therefore, anyone that deprives another of life does not deserve to retain their own."

Although Itulah did not mention him by name, the leading parliamentary opponent of his abolition bill was Sada Soli, an MP from Katsina State in the predominantly Muslim north of the country.

Itulah said people need to be educated to accept the modern view that punishment should be accompanied by efforts to reform the criminal "to atone or give back to the society what he or she has taken".

He implicitly agreed with the views of Amnesty and other NGOs that many on Nigeria's death row may be innocent, saying people were unaware of the possibility of judicial errors.

"There is a lot of work to be done to create awareness in the enlightenment campaign and this will involve a lot of money … this needs to be done to ensure a smooth passage of the (new) bill in the legislature. I strongly believe that someday we will achieve our goal."

One of Nigeria's leading anti-death penalty campaigners and secretary of a presidential commission on the reform of the justice system, Olawale Fapohunda, said everything must be done to prepare the country for the introduction of the abolition bill.

"The first is to show that retention of death penalty in our laws has not been a deterrent to serious crimes.

"We want to focus on the link between property crimes, poverty and the limited opportunities that exist for a large population of Nigerians to work themselves out of poverty.

"Secondly, we note the need to respond to the concerns about crime and the inability of our criminal justice system to respond to the victims of crimes.''

This issue was now addressed before the Senate by a bill on the rights of the victims.

"What is most important now is to attract local support, not only in financial terms, but getting representatives of local pressure groups to support abolition. I think we need to do a lot more on this."

Earlier this month, legislators took up the issue of Nigerians on death rows abroad. All of these are condemned for drug-related crimes and are being denied rights to full legal representation.

A Senate motion called on the government to intervene and press foreign governments to grant these inmates clemency.

In its report, Amnesty said that there were 42 Nigerians on death rows in Indonesia (20), Libya (15), Afghanistan (6) and Saudi Arabia (1).

Between October 2006 and April 2008, Saudi Arabia executed 10 Nigerians for trafficking in drugs, including one woman.

“My baby boy is four days old. I delivered him here after my house had been demolished. Only my mother was here to help me, and the boy has not seen a doctor or nurse yet. My husband [has] run away after the bulldozers came in on Thursday. Now I spend the nights in the class rooms in the school with many other families. I have no money.” Miriam Usman, 30, who gave birth in the demolition site of Makoko. . .


https://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/owena13/nigeria_forced_evictions.jpg

Dozens of people were rendered homeless and property destroyed as agency of the Lagos state government demolished shanty structures and worship centres in Makoko district of Lagos.

Hundreds of Nigerians are still sleeping out in the open nearly nine months after bulldozers and armed police arrived in their community to demolish homes, churches, a mosque and a medical clinic.

During three days at the end of April 2005, approximately 3,000 residents of the community of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, were forcibly evicted from their houses. Those evicted claimed that they had neither been given prior notice nor consulted on the planned evictions. Some of them, including children, were beaten up by law enforcement officials and suffered injuries as a result of the force used. Others had all their belongings and houses destroyed by the demolition forces.

These evictions were carried out in order to execute a court judgement dating from 2000, which granted ownership of the area to a private landowner. The Nigerian authorities have failed to provide assistance to those who were unable to find adequate alternative housing and many were deprived of schooling or means of earning a living.

The Makoko evictions are far from an isolated incident. In the last five years it is estimated that over 1,200,000 people, 23,300 households and 30 squatter settlements have been forcibly evicted in different parts of Nigeria, according to the Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), a Geneva-based international non-governmental organization.

Amnesty International is concerned that the practice of forced eviction – specifically prohibited under international human rights treaties to which Nigeria is a party – has affected mainly marginalized communities, people who have been left to live for years without adequate access to amenities such as clean water and sanitation or adequate social services.

Tats:
@AngieFan,

Glite may not be from Nigeria just like you probably are not Nigerian and posting messages on this board. So it may be better if you held back some of those unpleasant words about Nigeria or Nigerians in response to Glite's posts.

presido1:
Domestic NO but foreign policy YES under TB.
.

If actually they don't want MT they wouldn't have voted for their local conservative MP's. because they know that voting for a conservative MP means voting for MT as well

Glite:
ok you can be british dead if you like , ehn you can even fly union jack in the grave if you like but that doesn't change the fact . even the high street betting shops are not accepting bets on UK anymore . it's a certain loss

IBEXY:
Your ignorance knows no bounds.


Oh yes Gamine is right. Even the British agree that Blair sheepishly followed his friend, Bush into Iraq to gain favours with USA. The 51st state whether you like it or not is UK. Obama therefore wields a large influence over the UK's foreign and domestic policies (and on other countries too).