Two Abuja-based legal practitioners have expressed anger over the bid of Governor of Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola to effect castration as punishment for rape in the southwestern state.
The lawyers described Aregbesola’s intentions as “barbaric, inhumane and uncivilized” and implored President Goodluck Jonathan and other eminent Nigerians to stop him.
The Osun State government forwarded a bill to the state House of Assembly last week, seeking stiffer punishment that would include severing the penis and legs of convicted rapists. It is already being debated by the law-makers in the state and may be passed into law before the end of the year.
In condemning the bill, Barristers Kayode Ajulo and Emeka Nwaigu argued that although rape is wrong in its entirety, such law is primitive.
In his statement, Ajulo urged Aregbesola to rescind his stance on the law, saying it would set a bad precedence that would not do the country any good.
“I received with rude shock, the sad decision by the Governor of Osun State, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, to send a bill to the State House of Assembly for a law to castrate rapists in the state,” a part of the statement read.
“While the crime of rape should be condemned by all and sundry and the perpetrators met with severe sanctions, I, however, take exception to the apparent introduction of a barbaric law to cut penis or legs.
“Castration, mutilation and cutting of hands or legs, without doubt, are bad decisions that should not be allowed or encouraged because they are worse and more barbaric than the death penalty we are trying to remove from our penal code and criminal law.
“Governor Rauf Aregbesola, therefore, needs to be called to order and resisted on this irrational decision and misconception of the legal, socio-cultural and religious understanding of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Ajulo insisted that there are adequate punishments in our existing laws, even in the 1999 constitution to tackle the cases of rape without cutting bodily organs, and appealed to members of the Osun State House of Assembly to ignore the bill.
