CAN YOU STILL MARRY YOUR WIFE AFTER WATCHING HER BEING RAPED BY FOUR ARMED MEN?

IF YOU WITNESSED THIS AS A HUSBAND, WHAT WILL YOU DO?
By: Sadoh M. S.

      A case of emotional assault...abnormal rape case!

The first question to all men is: 'can you still marry your wife after watching her been roughly raped by four unknown gunmen in front of your house in the dark hours of the night?'

This incidence is on account of a tragic event which occurred in a village (named withheld for morality reasons) in the northern part of Edo State, Nigeria.

Sometimes in July 2007, during the period of incessant rainfall in both daytime and nightfall, there was the news around Auchi locality in a particular night that there was a serious robbery operation on the Benin-Auchi-Okene Expressway. This unholy incidence halted the total vehicular movement on the expressway for over three (3) whole hours. Approximately, between the hours of 8pm to 11pm, vehicular movement on the road was restricted to zero. This incidence, even as a regular and frequent ordeal faced by the people around this location, yet there had never been an operation as tedious and durable as a wholesome of three hours at a go before this particular one. This highway also serve as the major road that link the South-South region to Abuja. It is the major route from the Niger-Delta region to the northern part of the country. So, one should reason what it entails for such road to be stagnated of movement by hoodlums for such long duration.

Nobody knew actually when the daredevils freed the road but at about few minutes after 11pm, we noticed the resumption of vehicular movement. That signified to us the locals, that the hoodlums had left the expressway. At least we breath a sigh of relief as we considered our location free from unusual assault that used to happen occasionally when security agents confronted armed-men on the highway. In such situation when there mission would be aborted due to security agents confrontation, they normally run to the nearby villages and always turned the villagers to scapegoats in retaliation for their woes. Such we never expected on this very day.

At about 11.30 pm, a Mercedes V-Boot stopped at the upper part of one of the villages on the Auchi-Okene Road. Five men alight from the car and were engaged in an unconditional argument. They parked in front of one house that had a mango tree in its front forming a shade against hot sun during the day time. 

In the heat of their argument although in moderate voices, a young woman whose house they parked their car, carefully sneaked out of the room as she witnessed her husband was deeply asleep. As the first to hear their voices, she wanted to know who actually they were. As a woman who was married to the village from another town, she didn't actually realize such implications of coming out of the house at such late hours. Maybe she still assumed to be in the same village where she was born because we heard that such things were not common in their own locality.

She had opened the door in style and pretended to go ease herself as it is commonly done in villages before she realized how enormous she had garnered trouble for herself. The people she imagined to be ordinary travellers whose car broke down at their house, she discovered suddenly were armed robbers as she tried to squat down to ease herself. With a flash of dazzling torch, she was commanded in a harsh tone of a voice: "hey you come here...wetin carry you come out by this time?...just come here before I open fire on that your stupid head..."

With the harshness in their voices; with the dazzling of their fierce-light torches; with the appearance of their pistols and rifles: she had no second choice than to obey as commanded. As she got to their spot, they grabbed her, lifted her off the ground and floored her on the bare soil. It was the force they used in this process that made her screamed uncontrollably. And it was that scream that attracted her husband to wake up. He peeped through the window to know the origin of the scream he heard but only to notice that his wife was on the ground, under the mango tree with a man raping her while three others surrounded them, holding pistols and rifles. He saw another man behind the steering wheel in the car, waiting for any eventuality. He was helpless and astonished as he watched the first man finished with his wife and stood up, collected the rifle from another one who went down to mount his wife also. The woman grunted and moaned in pains and infliction but she could not screamed aloud so as not to receive the higher pain from the bullet!

After the second man had finished, the third armed bandit climbed her, she cried silently in pains and the husband could see from the window she was dying, but there was nothing he could do to avert or stop the scene. He couldn't bear the sight of seeing his wife been raped non-stop, hence, he relocated to the bed and started crying in obfuscation. When the third man finished, the woman started begging with finger signs indicating she would faint if the fourth man climbed her. Without giving in to her plead, the fourth man mounted her...

The husband woke up to a sudden departure sound of a car after crying himself to a sudden sleep. He went and peeped through the window as before but only to see his wife lying motionless alone. The armed bandit had finished raping her...and the car sound that woke him up was their departure! He rushed out to his wife but he discovered the reason while the armed robbers departure was done in such impetus of somewhat hurrriedness was because his wife couldn't bear the pains and agony of the rape anymore...and she fainted!

Now, what will you do if you were the husband? Can you still marry your wife in spite of the tragic event?