Nimi Braide did not find it difficult to remember that February 24, 2000 was Thursday. It was a day she has not forgotten in her life – and may probably not for the rest of her life. Fourteen years after, the incident still remains fresh in her mind. It is one she would like to totally forget about, but the wherewithal to do that is what she is yet to find.
Around two o’ clock in the middle of the night of that Thursday, when many people’s romance with their beds usually gets warmer, she found it uneasy to sleep, her eyes wide open. At first, she thought it was not strange because as a young girl, her parents and siblings had got used to her usually complaint of feeling uneasy and being unable to sleep; she had since learned to live with it.
But that night’s case was different. When she could no longer bear the thought that something unusual was about to happen, she woke up her cousin with whom she was sharing same room. He just calmed her down and told her to get to sleep. But her instinct was right.
Five minutes after getting back on the bed, the voices became even clearer. It was then her aunt emerged from the adjacent room to break the bad news: five hefty armed men had invaded their compound and were approaching their apartment.
But before they (the armed robbers) would leave that night, they wreaked havoc on the fragile-hearted 17-year-old lady. They threatened they would shoot her in the head if she refused to do their bidding, and in turn, the five-man gang raped her. It was awful, and the pain that followed the incident is one she is yet to be relieved of.
She shared her story with our correspondent, “On Thursday, February 24, 2000, some minutes just before 2am, I was uneasy and could not sleep. It was not particularly strange. This statement had characterised my life from an early age and so my family members were quite used to hearing that particular complaint. I was sleeping in the boys’ room in our house, with my cousin.
“As I laid on the bed, I heard voices and at first, I thought it was just my imagination which I was used to, anyway; but to my surprise, the voices kept getting more distinct. I was terrified and could not sleep again. I woke my cousin up and he managed to wake up; but he simply told me to go back to sleep, assuring me that there was no need to be afraid.
“As I tried to heed his advice, my stomach was churning. Not up to five minutes of trying to go back to sleep, my step mother’s sister crawled out from the girls’ room and whispered to us that armed robbers, wielding flashlights, were in the compound and that they were approaching our apartment. It was then I knew my fear had come to reality.
“As she finished saying that, my cousin who told me to be calm earlier was then wide awake. In the twinkling of an eye, my father entered into the room and took all of us into his bedroom. He did not know what to do too. At this time, all hell had broken loose as our dog fondly called ‘Tiger’ was barking furiously as the intruding men approached nearer.”
Suddenly, Tiger’s’ barks were silenced after it was shot by the armed men and this made the family to become even more frightened. Then they (the robbers) forcefully gained entry into the Braides’ apartment.
They asked the Braides to cooperate with them or else they would kill the whole family. Room after room, they searched and took jewellery, money and other valuables, but their mission was yet to complete.
Nimi continued, “Suddenly we heard a loud blast as our dog was silenced by these intruders. We were all frozen in fear. Our house had no burglary proof, so they forcefully kicked the door which was hanging on only by its hinges. Only the key still remained locked, and so about two or three of them went through the backyard to my father’s room and commanded him to open the door for them.
“He opened the door to find the five armed robbers and one of our neighbours on his knees as they made him crawl from his house to ours. The compound was floored with gravel and I could imagine how painful it must have been for him.
“On entering our apartment, they kept my father with one of them in the living room while others focused their attention on us in my father’s room. There we were – my father, mother, step mother, aunt, cousins and brothers – waiting for our ‘judgement.’ We were a large family.
“They searched for anything they could find. They asked my mother to hand over her jewellery and she did so. They continued ransacking and collecting whatever caught their fancy. Some went to the other rooms, opened up boxes and packed all the holland wrappers that my father bought for us and his gold studs.”
One would think they would have been satisfied with all they had collected, but they were not yet done; they had a lot more in mind.
“Are the girls in the house?” they demanded. Nimi’s aunt, her step mother’s sister, was the first lady they saw because she was tall and huge in stature. Nimi told our correspondent that she was not perhaps in view as fear had reduced her size.
“And even when they were throwing stuffs on me during the search, I remained motionless. On seeing my aunt, they remarked that she wasn’t the only girl and that they knew there was another girl, but nobody said anything,” she said.
She added, “One of them eventually stumbled upon me. They asked my father to kneel down and say his last prayers as they covered him with a bed sheet and fired a shot in his room, obviously to drive home the fact that they meant business. By this time, we were crying. They asked my aunt, my cousin (male) and I to follow them and we did.
“We were told to strip ourselves naked and we did that also. When my aunt seemed to have understood their intention, she told them she was menstruating. They insisted on seeing the evidence but not before warning her of the consequence if they found out she was lying. She assured them she was not and they confirmed it.
“My turn came and unfortunately, I wasn’t menstruating. So when they asked me if I was also menstruating, I said no. The leader of the gang sent two of his men inside to kill my father. At that moment, I thought about all the people (about 30) who were dependent on my dad and I begged them to spare him. The gang leader asked if I would cooperate with them and I nodded my head in agreement with terror.
“He asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said no. He asked me again and still I said no and at that point, he slapped me. All that while, I was standing naked as was my aunt and my cousin on that cold Thursday morning. It was about 3am.”
Nimi was then escorted at gunpoint to a part of the compound that she said she didn’t even know existed in their residence, the reason being that the family had just packed there eight months earlier and she was away in a boarding school at the Government Girls’ Secondary School, Dutse. There and then the expected happened.
“They asked my cousin to spread his shirt on the ground, asked me to lie down, and with a gun placed on my body, they took turns on me until all of them had raped me,” she said.
After the act, she laid still on the ground, whimpered like a wounded animal, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her whole body system shut down.
“When they had finished, they led me back to my cousin and aunt and led us back into the apartment. I was in pain, shame and shock,” she said.
For days to come, Nimi was enveloped in grief and mourning. Her father could not even behold his daughter’s eyes again to the extent that he had to start wearing dark shades to avoid eye contact.
Neighbours who heard of the incident started trooping in to their apartment to offer sympathies; the mourning that accompanied was not in any way different from the one associated with a bereaved family.
Nimi said, “My father went to make a report and asked me to have my bath and put on a brave face as neighbours had begun coming to sympathise. I can’t forget that bath; bits of grass and dirt were on my body and it hurt so bad that I could not even pee.
“For days, there was a heavy blanket of gloom in the house. My father would wear shades to hide his tears as he couldn’t look me in the face. I went to the hospital nearby for some tests and also medication. Economically, we were challenged as the little money we had was taken away by the robbers.
“To make matters worse, my grandfather was on medication for prostate cancer, so funds were not available. The test results showed that I had been infected with Staphylococcus Aureus. With no money on hand again, my father said I would begin medication when he had money, but the doctor explained to him that the concentration was high and if I was not treated immediately, ten years from then, I would not be able to conceive.
“On hearing this, he went to borrow some money so I could start treatment. At that time, I was 17 years old and preparing for my WASSCE, NECO and UME as a student at the Government Girls’ Secondary School, Dutse. I had gone home to receive treatment for malaria when the incident happened.”
The years following this ordeal have not been easy for Nimi, “but that is a story for another day,” she said. It was visible that she had not yet recovered from the experience. She later told our correspondent that her narration was simply borne out of boldness and would only plead that the government would take the rights of girls seriously as many could have gone through similar experiences but are afraid to talk about it.
She said, “I cannot tell you I have survived the trauma yet because I have not. When I still remember that day, I get frozen. The experience still affects my everyday life. I still get panic attack. It is an ongoing experience.
“At times I behave in a certain way that people wonder what is wrong with me. There was a time I used to categorise all men as evil until later I realised I was generalising.”
At the same time, Nimi, now a single mother of a 10-year-old girl, will never leave her daughter with a man no matter how closely related they are. She is also asking the government at every level to provide centres where victims could recover themselves from the trauma and convict men who are found to have committed rape.
“I am now a single mom with a 10-year-old daughter. I don’t think I can leave my daughter with one uncle and say she should stay with him. I can never do that. I am always afraid something similar may happen to her. I am always conscious of men who are around me; you can understand how it affects me,” she said.
Rapping should be dealt with like that of EBOLA in our Nations, communities.
Life imprisonment should be the penalty for the culprit.
#Drop your comments below if you are against RAPE but do not drop any comment if you support RAPE, pls.
Thanks
-culled from punch
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