Human Rights activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Femi Falana is not a stranger to controversy; and so when controversy arose over his role in the alleged “house arrest” of Enugu State’s First Lady Clara Chime by her husband the governor, he embraced it with both hands. Chief Falana discusses this matter, and others militating against the freedoms of women in general in Nigeria.

Clara Chime, Sullivan Chime and Mr Femi Falana, SAN

There was the particular case involving the First lady in Enugu. What lessons to be learnt from that?

It took time to even get the police to arrest him (The governor of Enugu State) on the orders of the court, and when he was eventually taken to court he and his lawyers were full of apologies and of course on that day the woman was liberated; released from illegal detention.

In all parts of Nigeria today rape is on the ascendance because of the attitude of law enforcement agencies and our courts.

There is also the traditional approach of parents particularly mothers saying I don’t want to expose my daughter, she may not get a suitor so why do I need to pursue a rape case. There is rape committed by pastors and teachers, uncles and people simply suffer in silence. Most of the time the police ask you to settle out of court. You will be compensated- forget about it .

Our courts have this rule that require corroboration in cases of rape but a Kenyan case Mogudu and Mogudu. The court of Appeal in Kenya has decided that since it did not require corroboration in male related offences, that aspect is discriminatory. The belief was that women were given to telling lies. Of course rape is never committed in the marketplace. That case has said this is unacceptable. Unfortunately our judges are still living in the past. Quite a lot of rape cases are lost on technical grounds.

What about rape cases in domestic situations?

It’s the same attitude. We have a lot of cases now, me and my wife

So there are no constitutionally recognized checks and balances?

Of course there are. If the complainant says I’ve been asked to forgive and forget. Nobody is going to give evidence against the rapist. The prosecutor is helpless. After a few adjournments the case is struck out.

What we are doing is to get the Lagos state house of assembly to recommend punishment for complainants and their relations who are trying to frustrate the course of justice.

In many countries you have hundreds of thousands of people in court to demand for justice when you have rape cases

You mean protesters

Yeah. But here everybody is on his own. They are even not followed up by the media.

Can you then be made to drop the pursuit of the case?

In this particular instance I was briefed by the mother who sent me an email to me. That was what the governor alluded to when he said he regretted the fact that he allowed his wife access to her ipad and telephones, as it you are dealing with a baby.

That case shows the lack of commitment of the society in fighting domestic violence. Not a single Women group in Nigeria, not one, issued a statement on that. In fact I was flabbergasted when a lady called me from Uganda to ask me what Nigerian women were doing about that.

About four years ago the Nigerian high commissioner to Kenya beat up his wife in the embassy which is regarded as part of Nigerian territory but Kenyan women went to the streets. I took it  up then with the minister of foreign affairs, Mr Odein Ajumogobia SAN who informed me that the man had a wonderful record and he had only few months to go.

I then declared to the minister there was no way he could retain him. Happily he was moved and that is what is expected in any civilized society. But here people called me. It became a case of Falana gbo ti e (Falana mind your own business) I have never met this gal from Adam but I am very satisfied that we liberated her from the den of the governor who claimed-  and a senior lawyer for that matter-  that the wife was mentally challenged. Is that a psychiatric hospital?

Supposing he was really trying to protect her

The governor was attorney general in that state for eight years. Under the asylum law  it’s illegal to keep anybody who has a mental case in your house and in this there is no trace of insanity. It is just an attempt to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it. That invokes some sympathy. The man took ill sometime, flown to the United Kingdom for treatment. So that is the basis of my involvement.

Isn’t that why some of these cases ought to be politicized? There is another case also about a former member of the National Assembly who was alleged to have attempted to hit the wife on the head

What actually is required in those cases is that we need women organizations to rise up because most of the time the victims are prevailed upon by their relations including contractors amongst them not to pursue any case against their husband. You are simply told, your father did worse things to me.

Pro-bono public, in the interest of the public otherwise cases of domestic violence would go on unchallenged and the law is there. For instance the Lagos state government enacted a law in August last year against abandonment of pregnant women. That law has stipulated five years in prison.

Supposing you do it in another state?

That is why the campaign has to go round.

What advice would you give to the legislators?

Look at loopholes in our laws and see how to remedy them. How penal codes and criminal codes will have to be modernized to remove sections that support the oppression of women

Can you oblige us with examples?

The penal code allows a man to beat up his wife like a child, as long as it is reasonable. Who determines what is reasonable. The constitution says any woman who is married is an adult so if I marry a 10 year old child she is regarded as a mature person.

Two years ago my wife challenged a police policy that requires a woman police officer not to get married for the first three years and if she is going to, to get a written licence from the Commissioner of Police.

Her male counterpart can get married even the very day of recruitment. When this matter came up the counsel to the police said this law is to protect police women from marrying dangerous men. Of course that was countered by the fact that, can’t police men marry dangerous women too? On that occasion the court nullified regulation 124 of the police act that allows this kind of discrimination.

Hundreds of women police officers came calling. Many of them were married but they were still bearing their maiden names because they didn’t have to go through horrendous embarrassment with all the implications. These barbaric provisions have to be tested in our courts