BY Tony Edike

ENUGU-HUNDREDS of people, including young and old women, community and religious leaders from the seven Igbo-speaking states of Enugu, Abia, Ebonyi, Imo, Anambra, Rivers and Delta, weekend, held a prayer rally at Opi Nsukka, Enugu State, to seek God’s forgiveness for 12 youths in the community who recently raped women of between 60 and 80 years.

At the prayer rally which took place at St. Charles Catholic Church, Opi Nsukka, the rape victims, including a 70-year-old blind widow, narrated how the youths raped them at different times and inflicted severe injuries on them.

The praying and fasting event which was organized by members of Umuada Igbo (Daughters of Igbo) Nigeria and in the Diaspora, was used to pray for repentance, cleansing and forgiveness of the abomination committed by Opi youths, some of whom had since been apprehended by law enforcement agencies.

The participants also prayed for the forgiveness of some elders of the community believed to have been associated with the heinous crime.

Addressing the participants shortly after the prayer session, National President-General and Founder, Umuada Igbo Nigeria and in the Diaspora, Lolo (Dr) Kate Ezeofor, said the organization decided to hold the prayer rally at Opi Nsukka following the visit of over 100 women from Ogbozalla and Ibeku communities of Opi to their head office in Enugu on October 7, 2011, complaining about the abomination committed in their land.

According to Ezeofor, the aggrieved women told leaders of Umuada Igbo that young boys between ages 17 and 25 no longer allow women of between 60 to 80 years to sleep with their two eyes closed, as they go about raping them in the night.

She recalled that the victims had appealed to members of her organization to quickly intervene since their complaints to leaders of the community over the worrisome development since Easter Monday, April 25, 2011, yielded no positive results.

Dr. Ezeofor, however, called on leaders of Opi Nukka, to form a job creation committee to keep the youths busy, stressing that “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”

She promised that her organization would assist in attracting donor agencies to fund the committee when set up with a view to generating employment for the randy youths.

Also speaking, the Parish Priest in-charge of St Charles Catholic Church, Opi Nsukka, Rev. Fr. Atama Obodoechina, praised members of Umuada Igbo Nigeria for their deep concern over the unfortunate developments in the community.

Noting that the incessant rape cases had become a major challenge to the people of the area, the priest, however, expressed optimism that after the prayer session the abomination would stop, regretting that what happened in Opi land “is an abomination in Igbo culture and tradition”.

In their different remarks, the traditional rulers of Ibeku and Ogbozalla communities, Igwe Agbo Ezea and Igwe  F. A. Ogbuabo respectively, condemned the attitude of the rapists and applauded Umuada Igbo Nigeria for its concern over what happened at Opi Nsukka in recent times by some youths of the area.

They, therefore, warned that any youth caught in the act of raping old women in the area, henceforth, would be made to face the consequences of his unholy act in order to serve as deterrence to others.