The VAPP Act made provision of life imprisonment for rape offenders. Also provided 14 years imprisonment for offenders aged 14 and below. In other cases, a minimum of 12 years imprisonment without an option of fine.
In the last 90 days, Nigeria has witnessed rising cases of gender-based violence, rape across the country. This trend has called for agitation from people across the country, mostly women. They are the end victims of the rape cases and often leads to devastation, at times, death.
A quick search trend on Google shows that the word rape became rampant in Nigeria with the last few months, reaching a peak in the last week of May 2020 and the first week of June.
The story is the same globally, Nigeria followed Pakistan and Nepal as top spots for rape case searches on Google Trends. It is only the only African nation on the top ranking search for rape issues within the last few months.
In the last few weeks, rape cases had involved minors (a person under a certain age before adulthood. It is less than 18 years in Nigeria). For instance, a 12-year-old girl was raped by four masked men in her home in Ajah, Lagos. The incident occurred few days after Uwaila Vera Omozuwa, a UNIBEN student and Barakat Bello, a student of the Department of Science Laboratory Technology (SLT), Federal College of Animal Health and Production, was raped and killed.
What law guarantees and speaks for the right of a Child in Nigeria. Who are those responsible and how has state governments fared in protecting the basic rights of the Nigerian children. In 2003, the Federal Government passed the Children’s Rights Act into law. The Child Rights Act domesticated the Convention on the Rights of the Child into Nigeria’s legal framework.
But for the past 17 years, eleven states have not codified the Act into law. They include Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Jigawa, Yobe, Borno, Zamfara, Kano, Bauchi, Gombe, and Adamawa. These raised questions about how successive leaders in those states completely ignored the plight of the Nigerian child.
In 2015, the country also signed the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act into law. The law safeguards the rights of victims of violence, in addition to basic fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution.
The VAPP Act made provision of life imprisonment for rape offenders. Also provided 14 years imprisonment for offenders aged 14 and below. In other cases, a minimum of 12 years imprisonment without an option of fine. It also provides a minimum of 20 years imprisonment without an option of fine for other age groups, groups, or persons who perpetrated the act.
Since 2015, only thirteen states and the FCT have adopted the VAPP Act out of Nigeria’s 36 States. The States are Oyo, Ogun, Lagos, Osun, Ekiti, Edo, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Benue, Cross River, Kaduna, FCT, and Plateau.
Despite these legislations and others, gender-based violence continues to increase, and prosecuting perpetrators becomes difficult tasks. According to 2018 report of Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), more than half of Nigerian women (55%) who have experienced physical or sexual violence have never sought help to stop the violence.
“One of the reasons for rising cases of gender-based violence in Nigeria, most especially rape case, is some states’ inability to adopt VAPP Act. It has hinder justice as perpetrators mostly get away with gender violence,” Blessme Ajani, a Lagos-based gender equality advocate told Dataphyte.
“Apart from adopting the VAP Act, they (States) must also make the process for justice less expensive, less bureaucratic, and less rigorous.”
Flaws in the Northern States
A common trend analysis of the two Acts showed that most states in the Northwestern and Northeastern parts of the country are yet to legalise both the Child Rights Act and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act. In response to the United Nations, the Federal Government had claimed extensive ignorance and lack of knowledge of emerging development within the Shari’a framework and jurisdiction that favours and supports child rights issues. The reply was a response to the delayed passage of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2010.
In the North, the Penal Code applies to all forms of sexual assault and rape cases, but it has grey areas. For instance, Penal Code described sex with a girl under 14 years of age or who is of unsound mind as rape, irrespective of whether there is consent. The document falls short with the provision of the Nigerian Constitution, which stipulates 18 years as adulthood. Either adulthood or minor, rape should cut across every age.
Most gender violence cases have also suffered delays or termination due to cracks in enabling laws to guide and protect victims from sex offenders. “Imagine a police officer asking the victim to bring money to go and arrest the rapist and also asking for money to feed the rapist in custody.
“Other states also need to borrow a leaf from Lagos state and set up a team like Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT) comprising of lawyers from Ministry of Justice, Doctors from the Ministry of Health, representatives from Ministry of Youth Ministry of Women Affairs and the Nigerian Police.
“This will foster a multisectoral approach to rape response and fast track justice,” Ms. Ajani added.
The Vice President/National President of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) in Nigeria, Rhoda Prevail Tyoden, also queried lapses in different legislations at the state levels. She lamented different laws for different issues and different punishments for offenders of the same issue.
Martin Obono, a lawyer and executive director of Tap iNitiative, told Dataphyte on Monday that though there are not enough reasons why the majority of Northern States are behind in domesticating the two Acts. He, however, pointed to their conservative lives, adding that Sharia law and Penal code may be other obstacles.
Rape Cases in 2020
Oyo, Akwa Ibom, and Ekiti State top recent brutal rape cases in recent weeks. According to Daily Trust, Nigeria has recorded more than 60 reported cases of rape between January and June. Among these figures, 23 are minors, 25 are teens, and 6 adults. Victims are yet to get justice for their acts. Dataphyte compiled some of the recently reported cases of rape in Nigeria:
| No | States | Victims | Cases |
| 1 | Oyo | Barakat Bello | Raped and killed at home, Akinyele LG, Ibadan |
| 2 | Oyo | Grace Oshiagwu | Rape and Killed at home, Akinyele LG Ibadan |
| 3 | Edo | Vera Uwaila Omozuwa; | Raped and killed inside a Redeemed Christian Church of God in Benin city. |
| 4 | Jigawa | A 12-year-old girl (Name withheld) | 12 men had sexual intercourse with her at different times, including a 67-year old man. |
| 5 | Ekiti | 17-year-old girl | Gang-raped by local boys while hawking sachet water in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti state |
| 6 | Ekiti | 3-year-old girl | Defiled by a 15-year-old boy in Osi Ekiti, Ekiti state |
| 7 | Lagos | 12 year old | Four masked men raped a victim in Ajah Lagos |
| 8 | Cross River | 4-year-old niece | Captain Bassey Ekanem (retd) for defiling his four-year-old niece in Calabar. |
| 9 | Akwa Ibom | 13-year-old girl | Godwin Jeremiah, her father, sexually assaulted and raped her repeatedly in their home in Eket, Akwa Ibom |
| 10 | Akwa Ibom | 15-year-old stepdaughter | 55-year-old man, Udo Ekong Esau forcefully slept with his stepdaughter in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state. |
| 11 | Kaduna | 13-year-old girl | Four men gang-raped drugged her, gang-raped, and later dumped her under a parked vehicle near her home. |
| 12 | Benue | 11-year-old housemaid | Medical doctor raped 11-year-old housemaid in Otukpo, Benue State. |
Any end in sight?
The first step to an end is the domestication of enabling laws. Without adequate laws, who will be the next victim? our daughters, our sisters, or female folks? According to a national survey on violence against children in Nigeria, perpetrators of violence against children were overwhelmingly people who the children knew. Although Nigeria has limited data on reported cases, the country has opened a book on Sexual Offenders to shame and name rapists. For every one case that has been reported, 10 others have not been reported, Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, said a recent press briefing.
On Thursday, Nigerian governors, under the auspice of Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), declared a state of emergency on the gender-based and sexual form of violence. On Friday, President Muhammadu Buhari reinstated his administration’s fight against gender-based violence and called on police authorities to ensure justice in recent cases. The Nigerian lawmakers are also considering a bill to protect victims of rape against stigmatisation. The bill, “Rape and Insurgency Victims Stigmatisation (Prohibition) Bill 2019,” was sponsored by Senator Mohammed Sani Musa (Niger East).
But adopting Acts and laws are not enough if we do not build values, trust, and uphold constitutional responsibilities. Mr. Obono added that gender-based violence and rape cases point towards creating acceptable societal values.
“How do we check on one another to ensure people are protected,” he said.
To drastically eliminate rape as a social menace, Mr. Obono called on law enforcement agencies to do what is right, be deliverable, and truthful.
“Police should be trusted enough, so a young girl who has been abuse can walk up to them and report. There should be trust within the citizens and the people. We should build a culture and institutions of trust.”
Local and international organisations have frowned against the rising cases of gender violence in Nigeria. Amnesty International says Rape is becoming a national crisis. Nigerians are signing petitions for the death penalty on rapists. Others are clamouring for a just and safe society for young girls via social media platforms and hashtags.