5 April 2018
These days, I’ve been too busy to do rejoinders to contemporary (non political) topics on the Nigerian social media space. But I’ve been reading on the Enugu musical concert (Flavour) multiple rape scandal and I can’t help but chip in a word or two.
For starters, I believe it has been blown out of proportion by the usual bitter crowd (Nigerian online ‘feminists’) who have turned it into a man-bashing spree as expected. I also don’t believe that Enugu thugs had a field day raping ladies en mass, unabated in that concert as is being peddled. I’m not being conclusive, I’m simply making that assertion based on the experience I once had at a bigger and rowdier concert.
I was at the grand finale of the annual Xmas festivities concert in Calabar in 2012 where PSquare and Akon were billed to perform. I’d never seen such an unruly mammoth crowd in my life before- those living in Calabar know how it goes down whenever the gates are opened for the ‘Eyen-Ekpos’ from calabar South.
Pockets of violence broke out in the couple of hours I was there which I witnessed first hand. I saw a couple of guys being beaten and robbed. Also watched a handful of mass brawls(Akon had to stop performing at some point to beg the crowd to calm down). I also thought Akon was being robbed of his belongings when he made the mistake of stage diving. His belt, shoes and stockings were all removed in one fell swoop. At some point, one urchin who I believed took a liking to me walked up to me and told me to “keep my phone in my pocket” as he had already observed some of his kith around me ready to pounce on it.
The crowd was massive and I couldn’t leave the stadium at that time because I knew more dangerous urchins were lurking in the dark alleys outside the U.J Esuene stadium ready to pounce on unfortunate lone wolfs. The only thing I didn’t witness that night was rape.
On a couple of occasions right before me, different groups of “calabar south” boys attempted to rape ladies but they only ended up doing one or two despicable stuff due to resistance from bystanders and the uncertainty of the environment. I wasn’t in Enugu last week but I’m quite sure the environment was much more controlled and policed than the one I witnessed six years ago. So instead of the usual crowd of bitter man-bashers on Facebook tagging Igbo men as rapists due to their prejudices or whatever personal experiences they’re going through, they should put their brains to good use and do proper fact finding.
Simon Utsu
Is a Social Commentator
