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| L-R: Ini Imah and Kebe Ikpi |
17 June 2020
A Calabar-based award-winning Social Influencer has been slammed for perceptively endorsing rape NEGROIDHAVEN can say authoritatively.
Kebe Ikpi a child’s rights activist has faulted Ini Imah the recipient of the 2020 edition of Calabar Media Summit’s ‘Best Social Media Influencer’ award for arguing that, like careless incidents leading to theft, if one is careless with one’s dressing it will lead to rape.
Ikpi who described the opinion as disappointing queried the place of self control on the part of the intending rapist and rapist? Ikpi expressed his opinion on Tuesday on social media in reply to Imah’s thread titled: ‘An Untold Part of Rape’. Ikpi who summarily cautioned that an intending rapist and rapist should ‘not take what belongs to you even if it was carelessly kept’ added that, ‘This post here is very disappointing, to say the least. In all of the senerious created by the author of the post, where is the place of self control?
‘Is stealing the punishment for keeping ones doors open? Is rape the punishment for “indecent dressing? (Whatever that means). If someone kept their door open, intentionally or not, what should right thinking people do? Get in there and steal? Wow!
‘So it is the dress of the 6 months old baby that made the man rape her? So the 4 year old was not properly dressed that is why she was raped? So Halima (not her real name), all covered with her hijab was raped for dressing indecently? So if a young lady walks along and you consider her indecently dressed, rape her to teacher a lesson?
‘How many men have been raped for wearing boxers and singlets? How many rapist have told the court that they raped their victims because they were not properly dressed? Did the court reward them for rendering service to humanity and contributing to enhancement of fashion?’
Imah’s thread to which Ikpi was responding reads in part, ‘I don’t support, encourage or give credit to rape and rapists. I totally condemn it …I’ll use this analogy to send down my message.
‘Stealing is totally bad (we know) but please, don’t keep your doors open to sleep at night, no matter the amount of fresh air you think you need; because it’ll attract thieves.
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| Ini Imah’s surreptitious apology for rape |
‘Yes, there are still thieves who forcefully break into your house even though you had it locked but that doesn’t neglect the fact that sometimes, it is our carelessness that pushes some people who never had a pre-planned intent of stealing from us to eventually steal (when we carelessly drop our property out in the open). I’ll reiterate, that still doesn’t justify stealing; get my point.
‘Let’s now relate that with indecent dressing and rape. Just like stealing, rape is being condemned by everyone (including the people called rape apologists) and just like the careless keeping of doors open, indecent dressing can lure one to rape.
‘Indecency doesn’t justify rape but endeavour to dress moderately. Yes, you may ask “What of the babies in diapers, aged women and those fully dressed?”…and I’ll still refer you to the thieves who break into people’s houses even with the locking of doors and other securities…
‘If you can’t understand this post as simple as it is; then you’re simply a very bad person who have decided to be extremely emotional with sentiments’, Imah concluded.
There has been 717 rape cases between January and May as at Monday this week according to the police.
EDITORIAL
If you ask me, Ini Imah, going by his argument, is apologetic about rape. He thread is fraught with contradictions: on one hand, while he is condemning rape, and saying indecent dressing cannot justify rape, on the other hand, he saying dressing indecently lure one to rape. Imah should be consistent I think.
Has he ever been lured by an indecent dressing? If the response is in the affirmative, has he ever raped? If no, why make an apology for rape and by extension, sexual and gender-based violence?
However, one Patience Edwards reply beneath Imah’s original thread is absolutely fitting: ‘I don’t agree with you. So you’re saying women should dress properly to avoid being preyed on by men especially because of those who cannot control their emotions. I think you should preach discipline to the male folk instead, since you can see a naked woman and walk away, why shouldn’t they?
‘Rape is rape whether it is due to indecent dressing or whatever. When there are more stringent laws against these people, the rape cases will reduce. We should ask ourselves why these issues are not common in developed countries, and even if they are, rape cases are not taken lightly. But what do we have here! I bet you guess is as good as mine. What is wrong is wrong, stop making excuses for some insane men.’
