I am certain that a number of readers would have heard the term Sodom and Gomorrah. I am not sure when I first came in contact with the word – was it from the proverbial use of the term or from reading the bible. However it was, I remember it so often used to portray a morally degenerated society associated with same sex relationship. This portrayal tends to get some legitimacy when sodomy is used as a legal term to depict same sex relationship.
This frame popped again into my mind yesterday while I sat at a meeting listening to a report. One of the reporters noted that girls in downtown Lagos live a ‘hell like life’ because of the risk of rape. And my mind kept wondering how it is that adolescent girls live in a community with a constant threat of rape. The possibility of rape is so real in their lives. Not been raped was the exception. How can this be normal.
I am not a bible expert, but my reflections of the Bible reiteration of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was not because the men of the town demanded for Lot’s male guest as sex partners, but because during the negotiation, the right number of righteous men could not be found in Sodom and Gomorrah. If only 10 righteous people could have been found. If only.
The downtown communities in Lagos I liken to Sodom and Gomorrah and can only assume the ‘righteous’ in these community remain silent. Believe me, rapists have no need for words: only sentences. I am glad that anyone caught committing rape is sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in Lagos State. I move for an amendment of that Law and ask that anyone who abets and aids rape (observers, those who beg for someone convicted of rape, someone who knows a rapist and does not report the person to the police) should equally be sentenced to imprisonment for the same period.
Where there are no righteous and or where the ‘righteous’ do not speak up thereby abetting crime through their silence, their action results in the breeding of communities referred to as Sodom and Gomorrah. When Sodom and Gomorrah eventually falls because the ‘righteous’ cannot be counted as righteous in the league of the Almighty, the ‘righteous’ shall not be spared. Can we have more people speak up against rape? This is a silent epidemic with severe mental health consequences.
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