3 Reasons Why most Rapists go unpunished in Nigeria and tips to ensure justice for rape victims – Police PRO, Frank Mba

Frank Mba, the spokesperson of the Nigeria Police Force has given reasons why many rapists in Nigeria go unpunished.

In a chat on TVC on Friday morning, Frank stated that the number one
reason why rape cases are never successfully prosecuted is because they
are reported late. He also disclosed that alteration of the crime scene
largely affects the success of a rape investigation.

”Rape is a very serious criminal offence and rape it is not fun.
Rape is not sex. Rape is not lovemaking. Rape is violence. It is a very
extreme form of torture. It is  a life threatening event. It is totally
humilating. As a matter fact, you can define rape as robbery of another
persons essense, dignity and the worst form of assault on any woman. It
is a serious thing.

Unfortunately for us, it is one of those crimes that has posed a lot
of problems in managing, in presenting, in investigating sometimes and
in succeefully prosecuting.

Most cases of rape are unreported. As a matter of fact, some
statistics say between 60% to 90% of rape cases are unreported. It is
even worse when they are cases that has to do with incest and
molestation of children. A lot of this cases are unreported.

The fundamental problem for us as investigators are three. Number one
is the fact that a lot of rape cases are reported very late and the
fact that they are reported late, it impacts on the quality and the
success of investigations. The longer you stay in reporting a rape case,
the higher the probability or the chances that evidence and the crime
scene will be mismanaged.

Although there is no status bar limiting the time you can report a
rape case, you can even report twelve months later, but the earlier you
report a rape case, the better and higher the chances of success.”he
said

Mba said the most important part of a rape investigation is the management of the crime scene.

”As a matter of fact, in most crimes, how the crime scene is managed
determines the success of investigations and people must remember that
rape cases are even very special in the sense that in a rape case, there
are two immediate crime scenes.

The first crime scene is place where the crime took place whether it
is in a room, a car, a bush path or in a church like the case of Uwa.
That particular place where the crime took place is a major crime
scene.

The second crime scene is the body of the woman. Infact  the body of
the victim is a walking crime scene. It is a living crime scene. It is a
mobile crime scene. And  how we manage both the physical as well as
that living crime scene will determine the success of an investigation.

Let me give a few tips on how we can manage this because often times,
before the police gets to the crime scene, a lot of persons have messed
up the crime scene.

Whenever there is a rape, the first thing is to leave the physical
crime scene intact. Don’t adulterate them, don’t take anything out of
the place, don’t alter the position of any object, don’t touch anything.
Don’t even flush the toilet.

If there is a condom pack there or a used condom, don’t even touch it
and for the woman, don’t shower, don’t douch. Don’t change your
clothings and if it is a case where we suspect it is a Date rape where
probably drug was used or a drug facilitated rape, then the woman has
additional responsibility to make sure that she doesn’t urinate except
it is a situation where if she doesn’t urinate, she might suffer
something. She will need to urinate in the hospital because the first
urine after that incident might help us determine the kind of drug that
was laced in her drink and if for example you suspect it is a
drug-induced rape, don’t dispose any glass cup there or even the drink
whether it is a wine. Leave it there for us.

This is the major problem we have in Nigeria. You get to the crime
scene and the whole place is messed up and even when police officers
take finger prints, we get multiple fingerprints making investigations
run into very murky water”

When asked how the police protect the testimony of a victim since the
memory from such events may be lost over time, the force PRO said

”Protecting the memory or refreshing the memory of a victim
are facilitated by two things. If the victim reports the case on time,
what we do is we take the statement of the victim. These days we don’t
just take written statement. We might also do an audio taping of the
testimony of the victim so whenever and wherever we are bound to begin
the prosecution of  the suspect, we will give the victim ample
opportunity to refresh her memory. Where we have major problem in terms
of memory loss are the ones when the case is reported months after the
incident in which case even as at the time of reporting, the victim
might not remember a whole lot of things and it is only what the victim
tells the police that the police can work with.” he said

He also gave instances where some families pull out from rape cases and frustrate police officers from prosecuting the suspects.

”This actually the most worrisome trend and sometimes people forget
that policemen are very emotional people. There is nothing that hurts a
police officer, a police detective, an investigator or a prosecutor like
when you have your case wrapped up, you have worked so hard to put up
evidence together, you are very sure you have a watertight case and as
the time you are about to initiate prosecution or halfway into
prosecution, you discover that the families of the victims are pulling
out and even in cases where we refuse their request to terminate the
prosecution, they come to the court and they become hostile witnesses
and clearly they will frustrate you.

Let me give you an example. When I started my career, I was working
at Trinity police station in Apapa and we had this case of the
defilement of a young girl that was just about ten. The girl was hawking
oranges. One big guy took her to an uncompleted building and got her
defiled. I was assigned that case as a young investigative police
officer. We worked so hard with other persons, established a clear case
and when we were about to initiate prosecution, the families reached an
agreement with the suspect, collected some amount of money and told us
that they were withdrawing and this kind of thing happens everytime. I
remeber I cried my eyes dry. Some older policemen were just making jest
of me saying I haven’t seen anything yet. These are the things that
happen and it can be very very frustrating.” he said

 When asked if every police station in Nigeria has the capacity to handle a rape case, Mba said

”What we have done overtime is to raise a generation of officers who
are trained and given some specialization in investigating rape cases
but the honest truth is that every police station can act as a first
responder.”