Group demands El-Rufai to withdraw gang rape threat on innocent woman

• Demands resignation of Kaduna Governor’s wife for endorsing tape

An advocacy group in Kaduna State, the NorthNormal has taken on the state’s Government House over threat of gang rape on an innocent woman who has been targeted for vengeance.

The group condemned the sexist, rapey and violent tweet series by Bello El-Rufai, threatening to gang-rape the mother of a young man who called him “daddy’s boy”.

The group expressed perturbation that the First Lady of Kaduna State, Hadiza Isma-El-Rufai, mother of Bello, endorsed the threat to rape a woman on her twitter handle for what the targeted victim does not know.

NorthNormal protested that “those tweets from Bello El-Rufai represents the ways women’s bodies have been used as a site for war and revenge, even in conflicts that do not concern them.”

NorthNormal argued that though, Bello was in conflict with a fellow man, his immediate sense of revenge was on a woman’s body because it has been perceived throughout history to be the weaker body, the more accessible tool and object. “We vehemently condemn this as it is the foundation of gender and sexual based violence. Physical and sexual violence are a direct consequence of perception like this,” NorthNormal declared.

The group, therefore, demanded retraction of the threat and public apology. “We also join Ugo Ikeakor in calling for Bello El-Rufai’s prosecution in line with his threats being a violation of section 23 of the CyberCrime Act 2015,” NorthNormal added.

NorthNormal, again, condemned the endorsement comments of his mother, Hadiza Isma El-Rufai, the Kaduna State First Lady, who is the head of the Kaduna State Sexual Assault Task Force. She was chided for justifying the son’s gang rape threat, saying that “all is fair in love and war.”

The group protested that “the very foundation of the justification that “all is fair in love and war” is a product of the crude feudal era where accountability of atrocities evaded society at large.

“We do not live in those times anymore.” The group lamented that the First Lady’s endorsement that her son’s vaunt to “pass a woman to his friend after he is done with her” does not amount to threats or insinuations of gang rape.

The group, then, declared her unfit to chair a panel seeking to fight sexual abuse since she cannot comprehend the meaning and language of rape and gender violence.

“Consequently, we call for her immediate resignation as chair of the Kaduna State Sexual Assault Task Force and a public apology,” NorthNormal.