By Hassana Maina
During my interview with arise tv, where I was speaking on the sexual harassment allegation Senator Natasha laid on the presiding officer of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio. The other guest ended with ‘this is blackmail, it is blackmail’, there wasn’t enough time for me to respond but I have spent a lot of time reflecting on what a woman got to do?
It was Maya Angelou that said, ‘ every time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it, possibly without claiming it, she stands up for all women.’ Nigerian women are perhaps the most oppressed demography in the country, with low representation in elective and appointive positions. Senator Natasha Akpoti is only one of the four women Senators in the Senate that has 105 male senators, to therefore state the obvious, the Nigerian senate is an old boys club. Therefore, when Senator Natasha stated without mincing words that the Senate President told her he will ensure ‘she has a smooth ride in the Senate’, if she ‘takes care of him’, her ordeal resonated with different women in Nigeria and sent shivers down the spine of as many men that have women who are comfortable enough with them to share the ordeals they go through as women in their public and private lives. Senator Natasha’s story is not just hers, it’s that of a young girl in the University, a woman working in corporate or simply, any woman that dares to exist in the public space. The global patriarchal culture, makes it nearly impossible for women to speak up about this and thus, sexual harassment is often whispered in hushed tones and when the reason for this is interrogated, one would come to the conclusion that even the victim would not want to upset her predator. The reason for this is not farfetched, at the core of what emboldens sexual predators to lay siege on their prey, is power. Often times, in the case of sexual harassment, the victims are often always powerless, and it is this abuse of power coupled with this culture of impunity where the spotlight is placed on the victim, with spectators turning into defence lawyers for the accused, asking the victim what she was wearing or why she even thinks she is the type of woman that is aesthetically pleasing for a man to abuse, and if all that fails, the spectators then turn into judges, stating that this is blackmail.
Are all women that speak up about sexual harassment to their friends in the comfort of their houses blackmailers, or does it only become a blackmail when these women demand justice? According to the UK Home Office survey on the sexual assault reports that was conducted in 2005, it was estimated that only 3 percent of the 2,643 rape cases that was reported over the period of 15 years was ‘probably’ false. I would have used a Nigerian survey to highlight this, but I know my country people reading this are not strangers to the failure of our institutions especially in the area of accurate data collection and data analysis.
Let us look at precedence, Senator Natasha is not a lone voice in calling out the Senate President Godswill Akpabio for sexual harassment, according to a report by the BBC on 17th July, 2020, the then NDDC Managing Director Ms. Joy Nunieh accused the then Minister of the Niger Delta Senator Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment. This is important to note because I would think that if five years after, a similar case of harassment is levied on Senator Godswill Akpabio, it will call for an independent and impartial investigation to ensure that the integrity of these institutions are not in the hands of a person that is prone to abuse his office in that way. Surely, these allegations should interest independent bodies like the ICPC whose primary mandate is to ensure public office holders do not abuse their office to carry out an investigation. It is really not a good look on the Senate to suspend their member for six months, after said member has alleged that the presiding officer has sexually harassed her. Going by the principle of causation, one can clearly draw the conclusion that Senator Natasha’s actions on the floor of the Senate that is the ground for her suspension, is the direct effect of trying to do her duties of representing her people in a work environment where the presiding officer is allegedly constantly making her uncomfortable by sexually harassing her. To be clear, this is not only about Senator Natasha, this is about all women that have faced sexual harassment in the workplace and if it surprises you, that there are many women with similar stories, then you will have to appropriate blame across our institutions, the society we exist in and even us as individuals. To witness the alacrity in which the Senate passed a suspension order against one of them that spoke against abuse of power, is to wonder what hope many women who face sexual harassment in their work place have.
It is important I state here categorically that there is nothing a woman can do that will make her immune to sexual harassment, not education, not marriage and apparently, not even political power, to ensure a radical change of this norm where sexual harassment is prevalent, we must interrogate power. Who do we give power to? How much power do we give the person? What are the systems that we have established to ensure this power is checked? All of these is extremely important because where power does unchecked, impunity finds a breeding ground.