I will beat you again and NOTHING will happen
Those were the words uttered ever so confidently by rookie military men performing security guard duties at the gate of a Nigerian Naval Officer after bruising my sister’s arm for ignoring a cat-call.
It’s much easier for men like this to carry out female oppression and gender-based violence because the average Nigerian is rendered powerless more so a woman and our voices essentially mean nothing. Women are more vulnerable to these sort of attacks due to their perceived physical weakness. Multiple issues similar to this occur far more regularly (uniquely to women) than you’d think without the well-deserved attention it needs to be resolved.
Here’s a video on what happened on Twitter
The truth depends on who tells the story (to support the government) or the official in this case. More and more people should feel confident in the power of using the law to sue people for violation of our human rights because if we do not, we fall into the trap of the monkey experiment.
If you haven’t heard about the Five Monkeys Experiment, it goes a little something like this:
A researcher puts five monkeys in a cage. There’s a bunch of bananas hanging from a string, with a ladder leading to the bananas. When the first monkey goes for the bananas, the researcher sprays all five monkeys with freezing water for five minutes. Sometime later, when a second monkey inevitably tries to go for the bananas, the researcher once again sprays all five monkeys with the cold water for five minutes. The researcher then stops spraying the monkeys. But, when a third monkey tries to go for the bananas, the other four attack him to prevent him from climbing that ladder. They are afraid of the punishment that may come. Even when we get to power we’re too comfortable with the norms to do anything about it. I remember a video during the #EndSars protests about the wounds some police officers inflicted on the daughter of a military officer in Abuja, I’m not sure if anything happened.
No internal affairs investigation, checks and balances. Living in fear in your own country, living in fear out of your country, tears falling on deaf ears, mass destruction, mass corruption, rinse and repeat the process every other week. Our legal system has limits when it comes to things of this nature, it’s almost as though its common knowledge that nobody sues the government, the rule of law does not apply to uniformed men and it never swings in the favour of the just.
The fight for freedom is a just cause and should be taken seriously regardless of stereotypes, race and most importantly gender. Most people have grown to want to oppress another person given the slightest chance, to what end? Gaining social currency, respect, fear?
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere- Martin Luther King Jr.
If you think you’re above it, just wait, e go touch everybody. Stop all forms of brutality, no human being deserves to be a victim of randomly being brutalized walking down your street.
