Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan

Worried by the upsurge in the rape cases, the General Overseer of the Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria, Rev’d Sam Aboyeji,  has urged the National Assembly to legislate on naming and shaming confirmed rapists in the public, especially in front of their respective father’s house.

Public naming and shaming of confirmed rapists, according to, him would complement various legislations on rape, adding that holistic approach should also be adopted to recreate ideal family values, capable of preventing such animalistic instincts from male folks.

Aboyeji, who was represented by Rev’d Henry Obialor,  National Director of Home Mission of the church, at the installation of National Legal Adviser of the church, Rev’d Solomon Wade, as the District Overseer of the Foursquare Gospel Church, Ibadan District One headquarters, Oke-Bola, Ibadan on Sunday.

Wada, who hails from Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State, is the lawyer that humbly declined to the offer to serve as a commissioner in his state in 1999 and also rejected another offer to become a judge in Kogi State when his cousin, Idris Wada, was the governor in the state. He went into private law practice in Ibadan and pastoral work after he voluntarily retired from his flourishing banking career in 2011.

Aboyeji, however, noted that some states have adopted public naming and shaming soft confirmed rapists, saying if the National Assembly legislate on the method to nip the menace in the bud, the states in the federation could go ahead and domesticate the legislation. He also noted that Houses of Assembly at the state level could also make laws on public naming and shaming of confirmed rapists.

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Aboyeji stated: “We need proper teaching and proper family integration. The problem did not just start today. It has been there. If there is a problem in the family front, there will be problem in everywhere. If the father loves the mother, and that same love is transferred to the children, there is no way the children will suddenly become an animal, showing animalistic instincts. It is because the family unit has broken down, and we are seeing the effects in the public.

“So, we have to go back to  training and teaching our sons that the right things should always be done. Let us tell them, if they need to get married, they should get married. Apostle Paul says instead of burning with fire, get married.

But it is as if the world wants to fight the problem at the wrong side. The bedrock of fighting this, is going back to restoring sanity in the family. I am not talking about going to church, if Christ is in the life of somebody, he changes a lot of things. There are certain things you will not do because you know that you are a child of God.

“But based on the fact that somebody out there does not know Christ, I am not saying he is not going to church, they are two different things. I heard some people saying a pastor was caught in the act. It is not a matter of whether he is a pastor or not. But is he born again?  Is he a child of God? Has he had an encounter with Christ? So, if he has not, he will continue to behave like every other person. We have a lot of people bearing the name,  Chukwu, and they do not know Christ. Christ has not come into their lives. They are just church goers.

“The issue of sexual assault needs to be treated and should be treated very fast. The treatment should start from home. In the olden days, if anybody was a thief, and they caught him, they would take him to the front of his father’s house, naming and showcasing him; naming and shaming as long as you can prove that he was caught in the act.

“But many of our leaders, politically are involved in all these things. They are not even evolving policies as well as checks and balances, to curtail it. But I believe that if Christ is in us, we will be able to do the right thing and move in the right way. It is only the Christ that will bring the solution to us.”