Recently, operatives of the Delta State Police Command arrested a 32-year-old man, Ernest Okiemute, for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend in the Orokpor community in Ughelli North Local Government Area of the state.
According to reports, the suspect beat the victim, one Precious Ekarume, with a belt and stick because she refused to commit abortion. Giving an update on the incident on Sunday, April 21, an activist, Kelvin Ejumudo, said: “Violence against women is prohibited. The boyfriend beat Miss Ekarume up because she got pregnant by him and he wanted to force her to abort the pregnancy and she refused. She was beaten to stupor with a belt and stick and he told her nothing would happen even if he killed her. The lady was able to reach out to me via the help of community leaders and I immediately swung into action with the help of the Area Commander, Ughelli, Delta State Command of the Nigeria Police Force, ACP Ademola Adebayor, who detailed police officers for his arrest.
Mr Okiemute is cooling off in the police cell in Ughelli Area Command and will be charged to court soonest. We have a law in Delta State called the Violence Against Persons Act 2022, hence nobody has the monopoly of violence on any other person within the state.”
Ordinarily, this story would be funny if it wasn’t also tragic. It reeks of crudity and meanness. The pictures of the battered expectant mother are gory and speak to a terrible state of affairs. In the first place, what did Mr. Okiemute expect from his unprotected dalliance with his girlfriend? Was he expecting her to perform some biological magic? If he didn’t want a child, he should have used protection or ensured that his partner took advantage of family planning initiatives which are typically made available to all sexually active women regardless of their marital status.
Of course, the ideal practice is to undertake sexual relations within the family framework, but the government recognizes, quite rightly in our own view, that this isn’t always the case, and has provided remedies for the situation. It, therefore, boggles the mind that an individual who chose not to take advantage of this facility went ahead to inflict grievous bodily harm on his sexual partner because she got pregnant and would not commit abortion. By the way, is the suspect aware that requesting for abortion and trying to enforce it is a crime? Isn’t he aware that abortion, except undertaken in certain extraordinary circumstances, like when a pregnant woman’s life would be endangered without it, is illegal in Nigeria?
If this incident shows anything, it is how morally deficient certain young people have become in the country. Many young men believe that they own the young women with whom they are engaged in sexual relationships and can treat them as they please. Such dangerous beliefs must be curbed through social education and law enforcement. On their part, many young women cheapen and demean themselves, hooking up with all sorts of shady characters in the name of the so-called love that hardly lasts a year in many instances.
Apparently, the suspect in this case has no regard for the victim because she has been an easy catch; he hasn’t had to pay any bride price and does not want a baby. He has, as it were, had a ‘wife’ at no financial cost. This is, we believe, a terrible state of affairs. Young women and men do not need to endanger their lives in the name of romantic relationships. If a man can beat a woman who is unmarried to him to stupor, what would he do if she eventually becomes his wife? He would treat her the same way he always had: with utter contempt.
All of this is of course rooted in family dissonance. This bizarre case should remind Nigerians how far away from normalcy and decency the society has drifted. It is discomfiting to imagine that young men and women who should ideally drive Nigeria’s quest for a renaissance are really knee-deep in ignorance. Still, beating anyone blue and black is a crime and must be punished. This is a classic case of violence against women. The Delta State government should take more than a passing interest in the case and use it to make a statement on the unacceptability of violence against persons in the state.
