Ese Oruru: Want Aisha Buhari To Set Up Black Book On Abductors: Restates Call For Castration Of Rapists

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Vexed by the increasing rate of child abductions and rape of female minors by men, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has urged the wife of the President Haija Aisha Buhari to intervene to check the trend.

The Rights group wants the Wife of the President to enlist the participation of the Newspaper Publishers Association of Nigeria to support her vigorous anti-rape campaign and to publish on probono basis a weekly reports of all convicted rapists and abductors of minors.

The Rights group said the wife of the President should use her privileged and influential position to get the Presidency through the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to set up a functional National Data Bank of rapists and abductors of minors even as weekly newspaper adverts to be called black book of rapists should be carried in mainstream media outlets on probono basis.

"The telecommunication companies working in Nigeria should be prevailed upon to provide actionable intelligence on convicted rapists and abductors of minors to stop them from reoffending just as the Court system should compel convicted rapists to wear electronic devices to enable government security agencies trail their activities. Convicted rapists mustn't be allowed to reside around school facilities".

The Rights group which backs the decision of the Bayelsa State Ministry of Justice to press charges of rape and abduction of little Miss Ese Oruru and serial rape by the Kano born Mr. Yunusa Dahiru, however is calling on the wife of the President to anchor a National awareness and sensitization drive to get the national assembly and the 36 states legislatures to amend the 2003 Child Rights Act to specifically provide for the punishment of castration for convicted rapists. Publicly owned electronic media houses must key in into this anti rape campaign, HURIWA asserted.

HURIWA in a statement jointly endorsed by the National Coordinator Comrade EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO and The National Media Affairs Director MISS ZAINAB YUSUF said it was disturbing that even with the increasing spate of abduction and rape of minors, the Nigerian government has yet to take expansive and effectively deterrent steps to check the menace which has become a hydra headed monster.

The Rights group said it has decided to send a letter to the wife of President Buhari to urge her to champion the advocacy for the immediate setting up of a National Data Bank of convicted rapists and child abductors to protect the girl child in Nigeria.

HURIWA said the Wife of the President is better positioned to galvanise civil society and community based organisations to more actively fight the unprecedented menace of violent sexual violations of minors by depraved male adults just as the group called on religious bodies to preach against the increasing rates of abductions and forced conversion to other faiths of female minors.

"The incessant abduction of minors originally from one side of the country to another and their forced conversion to religious faiths outside of their original own using some state sponsored contraptions such as Sharia police which is unconstitutional is a serious threat to national security".

"In view of the inability of extant laws to sufficiently punish rapists and deter others HURIWA is suggesting that castration of sexual organs of convicted rapists should become the punishment for rape in addition to life term custodial sentence. It is stated that unusual phenomenon are tackled with unusual panacea. Again, it's only an insane mind that would think that he can do the same thing all the time and expect a different outcome. We can't continue to fight cases of rape using the same method and expect a different outcome from what obtains now".

"Contrary to some opinion that this punishment amounts to cruel punishment, there are a groundswell of scientific and medical findings to state that castration has health benefits and so inflicting g it as a punitive measure on rapists already convicted by the competent courts of law shouldn't be seen as cruel and unacceptable but a necessary and tolerable lesser evil that could take off serial rapists from embarking on rampage and sexual demolition of our girl children. We are under moral and legal obligations to protect our vulnerable children from the rampaging activities of rapists who prowl round like roaring lions looking for innocent girl child to devour sexually and take away their human dignity forever".