•What The Law Says
Chief Olowolagba, the popular Industrialist just married Ibadiaran young, dark, sexy, with firm melon breasts and arresting backside who just finished her MBA from SuccessHill University.
The Wedding Ceremony was a huge success as all the Crème De La Crème of the Society showed up to honour Chief Olowo as he is popularly called.
The Bride fondly called Ibadi by Chief Olowo because of her intimidatingly sexy backside was radiant, she wore three different net guipure laces, City People was there as is usual to capture the joining of the lovebirds. They retreated to the Bahamas after the ceremony, as tired as Chief Olowo was, he needed to take a bite of Ibadi’s cherry as she had been sending him some serious pornographic messages throughout the wedding ceremony. After the ceremony, she went for a quick swim to ginger herself.
You see, Ibadi though a virgin had studied Karma Sutra, has a high sex drive and is very knowledgeable. She had also requested that he wait till their marriage night, after all, she is going nowhere, her love for him is beyond explanation. Ibadi came back and headed straight for her Husband and the marriage was consummated, Ibadi knew awesome moves that even Chief Olowo with all his sexual experience was in awe of his new virgin wife. He kept rubbing his hands together in utter glee.
Chief could not stop thinking of his wife, he would dash home in the Afternoons to catch some “action”, Ibadi was always ever ready, so much so that she will go to his office for “something light” Her sex drive was however so high that her Husband began to feel some disquiets. He kept wondering how she got by as a virgin, the matter was a kayefi ( a perplexing situation).
Chief Olowo was a tad tired! The worse was that he could not tell anyone his wife was wearing him out, a man is after all supposed to be macho, and his friends will probably either begin to envy him or make fun of him as being lily-livered, he started having imaginary headaches, and started looking for excuses not to be around his “Ibadi Mi”.
Ibadi on the other was getting tired of the jangirova moves Chief (Ife Mi- My Love) was making. It wasn’t her fault she found Ife Mi so attractive, she just wanted him every minute, were that possible.
Just yesterday, Jokotade had taken her somewhere to steam her privates with herbs, this was supposed to make her more delicious and tighten her down below.
She waited impatiently, could not concentrate on the Website design she was analyzing for City People Magazine. So she went to take a freezing cold bath, by the time she came back, Chief Olowo was already in the bedroom looking slightly disheveled but mighty sexy. She had no choice but wrap her body and around him in other to arouse him, Chief, however, was having none of that, but she was insistent and finally had her way. Chief was vexed to his soul.
The Angrier he got, the more aggressive Ibadi got, it was almost as if she was enjoying the challenge, he moved into guest room to get some sleep, but Ibadi as a sharp girl had mixed sleepfarin into his drink, he of course sleep off, she then handcuffed to the bed and forcibly had sex with him. Poor Chief. After this act, he was so shocked she began to beg and beg, made his fave meals, got him a brand new Mercedes Benz, boxes of perfumes etc. But Chief was unnerved and had become extremely moody as he was bruised for days. The Manacles she used caused terrible marks on his hands and around his ankles.
His friend Otunba Gboromiro (after Chief opened up to him), says better be silent, no one must hear this. But he advised Chief Olowo to move out of the house and possibly get the marriage annulled, reporting Ibadi to the police for assault will smash his reputation to pieces, because “How can your wife be raping you”?!!!! The Big Question now is What does the Law say about Marital Rape? Welcome to this week’s article on the Law and You. The above story is a not a true story, I just made it up, but Marital rape does happen, the women part is always heard but men suffer from it as well, alarming isn’t it. So, what does the Law say?
LET’S JUMP RIGHT IN!
Under our Laws, Rape is a major offence. The Law on Rape is treated by two major statutes in Nigeria (a statute is a written law passed by a legislative body) i.e. the Criminal Code (applies to the Southern states) and the Penal code (applies to the Northern states). Please note that though these two statutes define the offence in different ways, the definitions have the same effect and they mean the same thing.
So, what is Marital rape? Marital rape also known as spousal or partner rape is the non-consensual sexual intercourse in which the perpetrator is the victim’s spouse (Credit Google.com). Recall how Ibadi (perpetrator) used sleepfarin (made up by yours truly) to make her husband (Victim) sleep and then handcuffed him to the bed to have sex with him.
Is Marital Rape recognized under the Nigerian Criminal Law? Unfortunately, the answer is NO. In fact, our criminal justice system does not also recognize male rape The reason is found in section 6 of the Criminal Code which provides that rape is unlawful carnal knowledge of 1. A woman 2. which takes place between a person or persons who are not husband and wife. According to that section, a Man commits rape if he has unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman who is not his wife and who, at the time of the intercourse, does not consent to it.
So, let’s break it down. Rape can only be committed by a Man, meaning that Chief Olowo cannot make a report to the Police that he was raped by Ibadiaran his lawfully wedded wife because Nigeria does not recognize that a man can be raped 2. There is no such thing as Marital rape because a man cannot rape his wife.
This is the effect of the legal principle expressio unius est exclusio alterius”, meaning when items are listed, anything not explicitly stated is assumed to not be included.
Unlike the offence of rape, we hear about, marital rape has one peculiar feature, the victim of the rape lives with the assailant, they are often too scared in case of a woman, and probably embarrassed to voice out their pain as you can see from our story. In many cases, victims of marital rape will never even speak out because of fear of what the society will say, embarrassment, and more importantly, lack of a cause of action in law (Explained below)
Now, what does this even mean? It means that even if the tables are turned i.e. If Chief Olowo had been the one that forcibly raped Ibadiaran his wife, Ibadi would not have a right of action (the right to take legal action against someone in a court of law) against Chief because Nigerian Law does not recognize Marital Rape. (Haaaaa, this is very very sad). The statutes provide that the offence of rape can only be committed upon a woman or girl.
So, only a woman can be a victim of rape. A man CANNOT be raped. This area of Law needs to be worked upon urgently. Our statutes on rape derived from a legislation that was done in 1916, there is no gainsaying that the Law on rape is grossly outdated. We now have men being raped; recall the tragic incident of a man as reported by Daily Post on the 17th day of July, 2012 in Ogbadibo Local Government Area of Benue State, who was reportedly raped to death by his six wives.
According to that report, the deceased returned late that night from a beer parlour where he usually hung out and headed to the room of his youngest wife to have sex with her. His other wives on hearing of this, armed themselves with sticks and knives and demanded that he must sleep with all of them. When he resisted, they allegedly overpowered him and each wife took turns with him until he passed on. The United Nations (UN) even defines rape as; “Sexual intercourse without valid consent.” From this definition, it is apparent that the ridiculous notion that men cannot be raped, or that spouses cannot rape their partners no longer exists.
It has, in short, become “a once upon time” notion. As we can clearly see from that report done by Daily Post, our world is rapidly changing so much so that the current definition we have of rape is in dire need of urgent revision.
Interestingly, the Goodluck Jonathan Administration in 2015 passed into Law “the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act”, this Law is an exciting piece of legislation, its section 1 and 2 sorts of abolishes section 6 of the criminal code and has expanded the scope of rape to cover men. It also prescribes a 10-year punishment if the accused is found guilty.
The Law, however, applies only to the Federal Capital Territory currently, but it is still a step in the right direction. At least it recognizes that Men can be and are actually raped.
We call on our Legislators to revisit the provisions of our statutes with regards to this criminal act so we can join the league of advanced countries specifically Eastern Europe and Scandinavian countries (before 1970), Western Europe (1980’s-1990’s), some developing countries (1990’s – 2000’s) who have criminalized spousal rape to protect spouses from being sexually assaulted by their partners.
Our laws on Marriage also need to be reviewed as the inability of a spouse to give his/her body to his/her spouse can lead to the dissolution of the marriage. See Section 15(2)(a) MCA Now since Chief Olowo does not have a right of action, what do he have? Join me next week as we talk about this.
Keep being on the legal side. Do you have questions or comments, you can reach me on 080-3477-0177 or email: ty.salihu@gmail.com
