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"The world gets mad, everyone become wild, humanity is discarded when natural culture becomes civilized"
One cold July evening, my wife showed into our living room a sullen looking man. I welcomed him in and instantly, something about the man did not go well with me. But, I could not point out the specific reason for my reaction but some how I just wished I were not alone with him.
"How are things?" he asked. His tone was so casual and unrefined that I was left feeling uncomfortable. As casually as he had spoken he put his hand in his left trousers pocket and fished out several bits of paper. He picked out one of the papers and handed it to me. With unsteady hands, I unfolded it and ready through. The note introduced the man to me as Opiny. It explained further that his wife had deserted him recently. Leaving him with five daughters. He wanted me to assist him to locate a school for his daughters as he had moved into the town recently. The paper was signed by a guy I could not remember clearly and who I had supposedly met at a seminar a year on two before.
I was about to tell him to go to hell when our eyes met. The experience was unnerve ring I could not tell him the truth, Instead, I told him to see me in a week's time. I then escorted him out into the cold night opened the gate for him after which I securely locked it.
By some good luck, I was able to find a school for all of his five daughters, it made me feel relieved. I thanked God that all was finished between the strange man, and me but I could not have been more wrong.
About three months later, in the dead of the night, I was awoken by a scream that could only have come from someone being strangled. Four more siren-like screams saw me shooting like hell from my bed. The screams, I thought, must be coming from within our compound.
Without putting on the lights, I parted the window curtains and peeped, and what I saw terrified me. Just inside the compound was a thing that looked like a human being lying as if dead. I woke up my wife who also confirmed what I had seen. I phoned two of my neighbors, and told them of what had happened and seen inside my gate. We all agreed to meet at the gate. Then I stood waiting at my front door, my wife by my side, so scared that she could not get to the post rate figure. I joined my neighbors as they come in.
Lying on the ground was a young girl of about 15 years. Her clothes were torn and blood - stained in some places. Looking at her she appeared too week to have emitted the siren - like screams that had shaken me. I also found it hard to understand how she had got past the gate just in time to collapse.
We were confused about our next course of action. Had no doubt that the girl had been brutally raped. She confirmed our fears a few minutes later. We were torn between calling the police, rushing her to hospital and contacting her people who did not seem to live far off according to the information she gave us. In the end, we decided to take her to hospital.
Of learning of our decision, the girl, who seemed to have gained some strength now, pleaded with us to take her home. We agreed on her insistence, it was now 4:00am when we reached there, the house lights were still on. Leaving her in the car, we went with one of my neighbors and knocked at the door of the house she had shown us as theirs. The knock was answered almost immediately by no other than the man who had come to see me several weeks before, Mr. Opiny. He invited us in.
The living room was disorganized and cigarette smoke filled the air. We found, sitting around a coffee table, three strange-looking men. They were drinking whisky and smoking profusely. I told Opiny (who acted as if we had never met before) about the girl in the car and the circumstances under which we found her. In his characteristic casualness, he said that she was his daughter. And that he would come out to get her.
When we got to the car, he suddenly went into a fit of anger. Right in our presence, he began calling the girl all sorts of names, cursing and swearing. He then took her by the arm and dragged her inside the house, ignoring us. We were utterly confused; I was left feeling that something was wrong. The more I thought about it the more convinced I become that something evil was going on.
About four weeks later, on a quiet Sunday afternoon, the girl walked into our house looking greatly distressed. She went straight into my wife's arms and began weeping uncontrollably, begging that she not be taken back home. We called a lady doctor who was a family friend. It did not take long for her to confirm that the girl whose name was Sara was seriously ill, both emotionally and physically and had been a victim of triple rape.
After several days of attention and medical care, Sara told the doctor and my wife her story.
Her mother had left several months earlier after enduring daily brutality from their father. After her departure, the father had called all the five daughters and told them that he wanted them to be good girls and do as he said. He had threatened that of he detected the slightest hint of dissention; the one involved would be dealt with accordingly and thrown out "like your stupid mother". As if to make this point he had got into a fit of anger, beating them all severely with a leather belt. Two days later they moved into our town and into a new spacious house, where they each had a room.
On the second day the father ordered them to eat early and go to bed, this they did, leaving their father, and a number of other men drinking, smoking and playing cards in the sitting room. At around 10.00pm one of the men walked in, locked the door and began undressing. Horrified, she watched as he threw off one item of clothing after another. Then he walked to her bed stark naked. She jumped out of the bed screaming with terror.
The man told her to keep quiet and "be a good girl' she some how eluded him, unlocked the door and ran out screaming. Right outside the door, she met her father, who, glaring at her, ordered her back to her room. He told her to do everything she was told to do by the man in her room.
From that day, she and her sisters were subjected to forced sex by her father's friends almost every night. Then one-night three men came into her room making her do terrible things. Somewhere along the night she passed out from exhaustion, she regained consciousness out in the cold, too tired to move and too frighten to think. That's the night we had found her outside in our compound.
Unable to take any further pain and ready to die, she had ran off to the only people she knew, ourselves. And after much persuasion and reassurance, she agreed to make a statement to the police who in turn laid an ambush and catch the group of gang.
About the Author
freelance journalist, district political party secretary and african cultural advocate.