‘In her 30s’  This is the place where I share my daily ordeal with y’all on a weekly basis. I try to talk to you cos I feel y’all can relate with me or will be able to relate with me.

You are welcome! Let me formally introduce myself; My name is Miriam. I am an event planner, content editor and a jolly good fellow. I am not married but I am in my 30’s and being the only female in the family, my parents want me to get settled. ‘Money doesn’t solve companionship’ in their words.  Before y’all come for me and think that my own is too much ehn, see, I am a very reserved babe o but this our African setting makes it easy for some people to want to pry into your business and they have no guts to do so.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am tired. I am exhausted. I am so off. You know what, just borrow me some words to put in. It’s terrible that as we campaign, as we speak against violence, we are back in the bad bubble. So, there’s been different allegations online against some of your faves celebrities and people, the same us, the same us who would come online and say we are hashtagging against rape and violence couldn’t speak up against them. I don’t want to know whether you believe the story or not, it is about us coming together to speak up against violence and allowing survivors to know that they are not to be blamed.   Miriam, you are speaking in parables, say the real gist. I know and here is the real gist.  There’s been this rape allegation against one of our musicians here in Nigeria, Mr Dbanj aka Kokomaster. This allegation came up in the wake of all the rape incidents in Nigeria during the past few weeks and a lady, a model, came out to speak for her friend who was allegedly raped by Mr Dbanj and later in the week of that allegation, the survivor herself, came out to speak and recanted the incident to us on her twitter page.  People reacted. Some people felt it was false, people had different reactions which is quite normal.

Now, I want everyone who would be reading this to understand that, when there is an allegation, it doesn’t matter who the person involved is, it is not in your place to think that something is beneath anyone. This is where we get it all wrong in this part of the world. You see a report and you think, oh, he is too poise to be a rapist. No! Nobody is too poised to do anything. The heart of man cannot be understood. Of course, it is okay to respect people due to their display of character over the years but it is wrong to be on the defensive if you do not live, sleep and eat with that person. This would help survivors to come up and speak their truth. When the survivor came up to speak, she was abused, some people told her to shut up and some people felt she’s chasing clout. I want people to understand that some things are too deep to be seen as clout chasing. You cannot use rape as your technique for chasing clout. Not in this woke generation. This girl spoke her truth, whether it is right or wrong, it is in the place of the alleged to come out and speak up his truth and allow the law to take its full cause.

When the alleged abuser came out to say his side of the story, his words were vague. It is either you did it or not. It is either you know her or not and then, allow the law to take it up. He came up with a vague response and people came for him. Man, you are not speaking sense in this case. We are not getting it. All of a sudden, the said place where the incident took place, the hotel came up with a report that they weren’t in the know that such happened. Okay.  Days after the alleged abuser’s birthday, he wrote another statement saying the allegation was from the pit of hell and bla bla blabla. Let me tell you this, this is where I have issues with the security system in this country. We just talk and talk but these guys don’t listen. They only listen to those with power. An allegation was made, okay, the right thing to do is to do an investigation, call both parties for questioning. Let a proper investigation take place but nothing of such happened but are we surprised? No. we are not. This is the reality in this country. Then, magic was sprung on us, the girl who came out to speak up was arrested.  That action got me livid. How? how would you arrest the woman who came out to speak her truth? Aren’t you supposed to take the two parties and interrogate them, then investigate?  The lady was picked up and made to sleep all night in the cell. Thank God for feminist movements, and centres that handle cases like this. They came to the rescue of this lady and she now has access to an attorney even though that wasn’t all that this alleged abuser did. News had it that, they kidnapped this lady and took over her twitter page, and coerced her to pull down the tweets alleging the man of raping her.

See…as we observe the International Day For Elimination of Sexual Violence against Women I  have come to say this, we have no laws in this country. This country makes it hard, very hard for survivors to come up and speak. How dare you use your power, your influence to want to shut a survivor up? Even if it’s a false allegation, you have shot yourself in the leg by pulling off that stunt. We need to stop all this rubbish in this country. Last week, we were all pulling up justice for Uwa, Jennifer and so on but now that it concerns one of your faves, no one is speaking. Nigerians had to practically drag some of the celebrities to speak and thankfully, they did. The truth is, we are not sure about anything but the message must be the same. The message is #NOTORAPE, #NOTOVIOLENCEAGAINSTWOMEN and it doesn’t matter who the accused is, we must stand up for our women and girls.  We must also hold our system responsible. I know the police is not our friend but we will not keep silent. We should keep dragging them till they do the right thing. We cannot allow them to make fun of us. We should not permit them to massacre survivors with their unhealthy show of power. This is the time for us to stand up in one voice and speak until justice is served. The law should be allowed to take its cause and no one should stand in the way. Until then, we will not stop speaking up. We will keep shouting cos just look at the statistics, a lot of women have been abused before the age of 30. This time, it has to stop. Let girls be girls, let women be free!