Femi had closed late at work
and was few streets to his home when he heard a muffled scream coming from a
bush in an abandoned building; he panicked when he realized it was a sound of a
struggle - heavy grunting, pleading and tearing of fabric.
Just yards from where he was,
a woman was pleading while her dress was being torn - she was about to be
gang-raped by two men!
"Should
I get myself involved?” he thought as he was scared
for his safety, "But what if they
attacked me and still raped her?"
The woman was crying and
pleading with the rapists but they showed no mercy as they slapped her and tore
off the remaining tiny fabrics on her waist.
He stepped sideways and
brought out his phone to call the police, but there was no airtime in his phone
- even if he had and called them, wouldn't the rapists had been through with
their act and disappeared before the police came?
He was deciding on his next
step when a voice spoke in his mind's ear, "It's
better you went home safely to your wife than involved yourself in someone
else' matter. After all, you don't know her; would she bother to help you if it
were the other way round?"
The voice was hitting on the
Naija mentality of "OYO - On Your
Own" though it was somehow right due to the many unpleasant tales of
good-hearted Nigerians who had ended up burning their fingers while being Good
Samaritans to distressed Nigerians.
Femi was torn between
choosing his safety and the woman's - he wanted to help the woman but he wasn't
a 'Jackie Chan' to take on the men
all by himself.
His heart skipped a beat when
he heard one of the rapists say forcefully, "Spread
your legs before I scatter your face."
He knew he had to act fast to
save the unknown woman - so, he ran into the scene and violently pushed one of
the rapists into the bush.
He turned to the other who
was about raping the woman, and roughly pulled him off the woman.
He missed his balance on the
process and fell to the ground with the rapist; they started wrestling with
each other but it lasted for a brief seconds before the rapist freed himself
from Femi's grip and fled - already, the first rapist who was pushed into the
bush, had gotten up and fled.
As they fled, Femi spoke
softly to the woman who was still sobbing behind the bush, "It's okay, ma. You're safe now. I'll give you my shirt to cover
yourself with it."
He started unbuttoning his
shirt BUT stopped when the woman spoke... There was a brief silence when he
recognized that very familiar voice.
"Dear,
is that you?” the woman asked and crept out from bush.
"What?" He
shouted, "TITILAYO...!"
Femi had just ‘accidentally’ saved his wife from
getting RAPED, 'GANG-RAPED'...
RAPE is
everyone's problem - it can happen to you OR someone dearest to you - for 'help' on RAPE, contact:
Lagos
State Government
Ministry Of Women Affairs and
Poverty Alleviation (WAPA)
Block 18, The Secretariat,
Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos State.
E-mail:
wapa@lagosstate.gov.ng
Tel.: 08126236822
Mrs
Esther Ijewere-Kalejaiye
(Project Coordinator of Walk
Against Rape Nigeria *W.A.R*)
Rubies Ink Initiative,
51 Abayomi Owolade Street,
Magodo GRA, Lagos State.
Tel.: 08057861285
Facebook: Walk
Against Rape Twitter handle: @walk_rapeng
No comments:
Post a Comment