NMA Seeks Stringent Law Against Rape

President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Dr Osahon Enabulele on Sunday in Abuja called for the establishment of forensic laboratories and stringent law against rape.

Enabulele, who was speaking at a media parley, condemned acts of rape to be depraving womanhood and capable of totally reducing the essence of her being, adding that it had become a sad reflection which increasingly occurred in the country.

He identified tendencies such as pathological and psychopathic factors to induce such act of rape, saying there was the need to establish forensic laboratories to track down and punish rapists.

“Essentially there are certain factors that drive such unholy tendencies and acts. “We know there are in every system, people we consider as systemic deviants those who are pathologically committed towards driving evil and driving such psychopathic tendencies.

“As far as for those ones, it’s for us to identify them and manage them in a way that they can even be re-orientated and re-stabilised.

“For every development such as this, we must always look at the social implications; we must look at the social triggers, because an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.

“Nobody wants to be stigmatised and so a lot of the ladies may not even be coming up, but for those that are coming up, we commend them. “We need to accurately determine these facts by way of encouraging the establishment of forensic laboratories that will assist law enforcement agencies to accurately track these cases, investigate them and come to a conclusion, as to identify the culprit.”

Enebulele observed that there was an increasing incidence of psychopathy – a condition that makes people have personality disorder and attracted to rape in some cases. He added that if proper equipment for handling rape cases were put in place, it would help law enforcement agents to easily track down rapists.

The NMA president observed there was a nexus between crime, violence and socio-economic deprivations,

He, however, advised government to create enabling environment for people to engage in useful ventures and reform the rape law as a means to guard potential victims.  “If  the right environment is created for our youths, if the right environment is created for Nigerians, nobody will have time for such vices.

“Nobody will have time to begin to think of whom next to rape; we think we need to draw them away from those environments, while giving those deterrents to ensure that this is no longer something that we can say exists in our environment.

“Again is the issue of reforming the rape law, I think this is one law that we must look at again and completely reform, in a way as to make it more deterrent.

“Most of the laws that we have in our country, including the criminal and penal codes, are laws that are extremely outdated, the same thing with the rape law, we need to look at it again.

“We need to reform it and make it a bit more deterrent, and advertise to the people of Nigeria to know the consequences of their actions.’’