There is a revolution taking place in Nigeria as men and women are stepping forward to tell their stories of rape, sexual molestation, and other varying forms of assault, all thanks to Lotanna Odunze Igwe – Sugabelly.
Since the brave blogger and artiste shared horrifying details of her “rape story”, Nigerians are speaking out, breaking the wall surrounding the country’s age-long rape culture of silence.
Your Safe Haven is a recently launched tumblr account for Nigerians to anonymously share their personal experience with rape. So far, the stories shared are as riveting and heart-breaking as Sugabelly’s. They also follow a pattern where most of the rapists are intimate partners, family members and friends.
My boyfriend and his friends raped me
“I am Sugabelly, and No, I am not the same person who has been trending over her tales of rape and abuse but I see myself in her.
I met this guy in my penultimate year in the university. He was 30 at the time, I was 21. It was at a friend’s party, and he had come to drop off his younger sister and saw me dancing so he stopped and waited to talk to me. He was working in a multinational, had a car and his own very cool apartment. He asked me out after a few weeks and I didn’t hesitate to date him. He had always been very nice and courteous to me. He would drive miles from the city to my university just to see me (like thrice in a week).
It didn’t take long before we started having sex. He would tell me how sweet I was and how he could never let me go. We would experiment with weed and mixtures of all sorts. I started fantasizing about spending the rest of my life with him. One night, some of his friends had followed us home from the club. I went straight to the room and left him to sort them out. Had my bath and crawled into bed because I had to leave early for school the next day. But he came into the room and asked me to strip, it was very unusual of him but I thought he had had too much to drink. I simply dug my head into the duvet and ignored him. My loving boyfriend dragged me out of the bed and bent me over. The penetration was as though someone was sawing me in half. While he was at it he told me to behave myself as his friend would like to have a feel of his sweet girl. I thought I was in a dream and tried to wake up to no avail.
When he was done he opened the door and called the guys in. I started begging him when I realized he was serious. I pleaded and cried and held his leg but he kicked me off and told me to be a good girl. The guys did terrible things to my body. One was fucking me while the other had put his penis in my mouth. All these did not however sear my mind as to knowing that my boyfriend was sitting at a corner working on his laptop.
After what seemed like an eternity, he pushed the guys away and started fucking me again. He started telling me how he loved me and would never leave me and how I should understand that his friends had been asking him for long, and since he had also slept with their girls he had to allow them.
He took me to the bathroom afterwards, bathed me and sang to me. Dressed me up and drove me to school. At that time I felt violated and angry and bitter yet I didn’t scream at him or fight or do anything at all. When he dropped me off he made me kiss him and tell him I loved him.
That evening, he came to pick me from school, took me to my house off campus and ordered me to pack my things that I would be coming to school from his house. When we got to the city, he showed me all he had bought for me took me to the club and kept introducing to all his friends. That night he proposed to me and when he saw the look on my face, he pinched my thigh so hard I said yes.
For the next year, I suffered the most degrading forms of abuse from this man. It got to a point he wouldn’t sleep with me if there wasn’t a third participant. His sister suspected and tried to talk to me but I shunned her because in my mind he was going to be the one to marry me after all. I was never even able to tell my mum who believed she was my best friend. I was so messed up I thought to myself that he loved me.
But after he anally raped me one morning and left for work, I called my cousin who belonged to a cult while he was in school and asked him to come over. I explained about half of my ordeal to him and he burst into tears. He told me to pack up while he called for backup.
When my ‘fiancé’ returned from work in the evening, he met four fierce looking guys with guns. My cousin told him he was going to kill him and dismember him and spread his parts on different refuse dumps in the city if he ever got in touch with me again. Then they reeled out other terms and conditions for his restitution.
Would you believe that I still considered going back to him after he sent emails saying I shouldn’t allow my cousin get in the way of our love?
I am married now, I have two girls. He is married too. He sent me a BBM request recently and I accepted before I realized it was him. It all came flooding back. Especially the body odour of one of his friends, and his tears the morning after.
I try to never remember but this is part of my story now. No one else knows this in my family because my cousin swore to me that he would never tell.
I am damaged sexually. My husband says he married a menopausal woman. I have a stock of sexual enhancers just to be normal.
According to a 2014 UNICEF study, 120 million teenage girls — about one in 10 — have either been raped or subjected to other forms of sexual molestation at some point in their lives. But children and teenagers in Nigeria are impacted in the worst ways, largely because of the cultural mores against reporting abuse.
My uncle took advantage of me & my grandmother asked me to keep shut
“I have goose-bumps all over as I have made up my mind to share this story…
I was 8 and my parents were separated and in the midst of the drama, my siblings & I were shipped to the village to be with my grandma and her last child (an uncle). This was in 97. My mum rarely came around, and my dad never came at all. There was really no means of communication in the village. My uncle will send my younger ones out to play and ask me to stay home and do chores… He would bombard me with chores, and beat me if I said I was too tired. He continued like that until one day he made me suck his manhood and called it punishment. He made me swallow, and beat me if I threw up. I told my grandma, but she beat me and asked me to shut up. One day he attempted to penetrate, I cried and screamed because of the pain, and my little sister rushed in. He stopped. After he sent her away he still made me suck him and swallow. This continued for 2 years…
One time, during Christmas or New Year in 2005/06, I told my cousin, because she asked why I hated him. She said it happened to my other cousins too, and that I shouldn’t let anyone hear it. She just brushed it off like it was normal.
That was my last Christmas at the village. Every member of my family knows I hate him, and that I blame my dad, but they don’t understand why. When he showed up at my mums to spend holiday, I pursued him, and my mum still doesn’t understand why.”
Also entrenched in Nigeria’s rape culture is the belief that non-consensual sex is normal within the confines of marriage. This belief is so deeply rooted that there are no laws provided for the offence or crime of marital rape in Nigeria. A recent report of UN Women, indicates that only 52 countries have explicitly criminalized rape within marriage. Quite a number of Nigerian women endure marital rape not only because they feel trapped, but also because the law makes no room to accommodate or alleviate their pain.
I have been enduring marital rape for 17 years
“I met Segun, a very sweet and kind man during my undergraduate days. We got married after I graduated. Segun became a monster after we got married. We have 5 kids (2 as a result of marital rape). My 4th child died an infant. I endure his verbal, physical violent abuses because of my kids. Segun beats me to stupor, and rapes me whenever he feels like. I wish to walk away but to where? I guess I have to keep enduring
Visit Your Safe Haven for other stories on rape and sexual molestations in Nigeria.
For more insight, click to listen to the podcast below
