A 70-year-old rapist has been jailed for two days by Justice John Bosco Allieu, an action that has caused outpouring of outrage across Sierra Leone.

The elder was found guilty of raping a 13-year-old girl, whose parents he served as a night watchman.

Sierra Leoneans took to social media and radio following the sentence, with some calling for the sacking of the judge responsible.

Gender equality and rights campaigners said the move by a Freetown High Court was a slap on the face of the efforts to curtail sexual and gender-based violence in the country.

The convict was scheduled for release on Wednesday.

Reports indicated that Justice John Bosco Allieu had doubted the man’s mental state, even though he failed to order a psychiatric evaluation on him.

The ruling came just days after the launch of a national campaign against rape, spearheaded by First Lady Fatima Bio.

The high profile campaign dubbed Hands Off Our Girls, was launched in Freetown over the weekend by President Julius Maada Bio and graced by five West African first ladies.

The president and his celebrity wife have boosted the fight against sexual violence, which was rife in Sierra Leone, with words and actions in the last seven month of his coming to power.

Notably, President Bio recently heightened the debate around rape with his call for a harsher punishment for anyone found guilty of committing it.

Last month, an organisation which provides shelter and support for gender-based violence victims reported that it had a seven months old baby as the youngest victim at the time.

And that came amidst a public debate sparked by images of a five-year-old girl left paralysed after being raped by an elderly relative.

The head of the influential women’s rights campaign group, 50:50, Dr Fatu Taqi said the controversial ruling appeared to make mockery of the president’s and the first lady’s efforts and declaration.

“For me, it is a case for the president to act on the matter. Let him show that what he says he marches it with action,” she told a popular radio breakfast show on Wednesday.

The UN Women representative in Sierra Leone, Ms Mary Okumu, also expressed concern and said the ruling called for a review for the interest of justice for women and girls.

The judiciary has always been blamed for the rise in sexual abuse cases, due to what critics say were delays and low conviction rates.

President Muhammdu Buhari and the Nigerian military have been patted on the back for their concerted efforts towards ending terrorism in Nigeria.

This is just as latest report has scored the military high on human rights compliance in its war against insurgency.

Professor Ahmed Danfulani, Chancellor, Centre for International and Strategic Studies (CISS) gave the verdict on Wednesday, at the presentation of five year report on the war against terrorism in Nigeria.

The report, which covered the period between 2013 and 2018, specifically hailed for ensuring professionalism in the conduct of operational issues.

It also noted a wave of accountability in the finances of the military, successful rescue of hostages without harm, among other achievements.

Danfulani, while presenting the report, saultedt the current regime led by President Buhari and the military for rebuilding the confidence of the people in standing against the atrocities of Boko Haram.

The speech below:

There are certain fundamentals about reports. They document what has happened, what is happening and can also predict what will happen. Reports are in a sense history being documented with objectivity. They can reveal to us what is being done right, what is in need of improvement and what can be done differently.

These are positive attributes of reports. But in the contemporary world, reports are also being weaponized.

Reports have become active ingredients in the manufacture of consent, escalation of dissent, brainwashing entire generations and in so doing perverting history.

It is not surprising to have witnessed in recent years incidents of reports being released to make terrorists appear as saints and soldiers fighting them to appear like losers.

Entities that are part of the problem can easily pretend to be the solution under this arrangement.
Nigeria is the practical instance of how reports are manipulated to distort history.

This happens because the body of reports on the country’s war on terrorism have largely been foreign often with intents that cannot be verified for sincerity hence the loss of objectivity.

The resulting subjectivity is not just an opposite of objectivity but has proven to be costly to the country and those fighting to liberate if from terrorists.

Events are recounted from the viewpoint of interests that see Nigeria as a means to an end and not a sovereign entity whose territorial integrity and aspirations must be respected.

The report being presented today therefore sets out present facts about the war on terrorism in their pristine form, untainted by any vested interest. The facts have been painstakingly collated over the said period so that there is a control to the myriad of other reports.

The implication of this is that Nigerians, indeed the world, now has a benchmark for assessing other reports. It is a matter of treating what is being presented here today as the master against which to verify other reports that can be treated as copies.

As part of the backlash from Amnesty International’s recently published fallacious report about Nigeria, some concerned indigenous groups have continued to show solidarity with the Nigerian Army.

At a time a bulk of the country’s so-called non-governmental organisations have formed an alliance with the UK-based organisation, the Save Humanity Advocacy Centre (SHAC) has remained resolute, describing their contemporaries as “enemy of Nigeria.”

Instead of condemn the malicious report, several local groups and NGOs jumped in support of the A.I just for their selfish interests.

In a statement released on Thursday, through Adams Odoh, Executive Director, the SHAC questioned these groups and their motive despite Amnesty International’s apparent dangerous intentions.

The SHAC, however, advised these local groups to desist from colluding with Amnesty International and other affiliates in the name of foreign grants that are actually meant to promote neo-colonial agenda in the country.

“The Save Humanity Advocacy Centre (SHAC) has noted with some measure of disappointment the manner some indigenous NGOs lend themselves to imperialists. The specific incident referenced is the eagerness with which some NGOs rushed to be the first to endorse the puke inducing report published by Amnesty International. This is even after the report, “Harvest of Death Three Years of Bloody Clashes between Farmers and Herders in Nigeria,” has been dismissed as a cross between the documentation of fertile hallucination and high fantasy fiction, “ Mr Odoh began.

“Without prejudice to the condemnation of the report by experts, SHAC is of the opinion that the report would have naturally been consigned to the dustbin of history but for the overzealousness of some these indigenous NGOs that practically parroted its content, rehash it and elevated it to the level of canon. It is a shame because it speaks to the deficit in self confidence that has left the country at the mercy of the whims and caprices of people that attempt to decide the fate of Nigerians from the plush lobbies of conferences and gala events in faraway lands.

“Those that inflicted poverty on us might have taken their pay cheques and left but Amnesty International that is supervising the spread of terrorism that is meant to decimate the land is still very much among us. It achieves its goals by publishing fictitious reports. The reports gain traction when indigenous NGOs fall over themselves to be more imperialistic than Amnesty International. Success for Amnesty International is to see the land drowned in blood. Amnesty International has blood on its hands and those that promote its reports or any of its works taint their hands with blood, blood of the innocent.

“Some persons with knowledge of Amnesty International’s strategy in other countries will tell their collaborators in Nigeria the truth, and they will do so for free. The whole friendliness and invites to estacode paying conferences will dry up once this criminal organization is allowed to destroy the country; none of the prospective proposals used for recruiting the local NGOs for its infamous cause will translate into visas or resident permits when the blowback of Amnesty International’s dangerous agenda hits us all.

“We want to make it categorically clear that only the enemies of Nigeria collaborate with Amnesty international. So anyone that partners with Amnesty International towards the realization of its destructive goals in Nigeria is an enemy of the country and must be treated as one. They would be named and shamed as those abusing the sacredness of NGO work to promote terrorism, which implies that like Amnesty International, they have blood on their hands.

“In a similar vein, we urge all self-respecting NGOs to begin drafting contingent plans for isolating Amnesty International from their folds. This will include turning down invitations to events organized by or being attended by Amnesty International, declining comments or inputs in documents being complied by the international NGO, not extending invitations to the NGO and flagging cases of falsification and lies told by the organization.

“For the Nigerians representing Amnesty International against the safety of humanity. Our fervent hope is that they have reconciled with their inner self for when the evil they are executing for their organization echoes back on their lives. That is the time they will know the anguish that their colleagues experienced in other countries to the point of committing without Amnesty International as their employer battling an eyelid or raising a finger even when the hints that haunted the deceased were done at its behest.

“The only way to not have blood dripping from one’s hands like Amnesty International is to distance oneself from the organization irrespective of what is on offer. We urge Nigerians and local NGOs to not be part of the problem. Don’t be part of the problem. Attempt to ride the shirttail of Amnesty International to greatness and ride it to hell.”