'Rape Is Not A Revenge Weapon', Read Josaya's Open Letter To Mike Sonko

Piece by: Caren Nyota
Lifestyle

Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has been the talk of the town barely four months in office. Sonko recently threatened to use Mungiki to rape Embakasi East MP Babu Owino, who allegedly made demeaning comments about President Uhuru.

Well, a Kenyan man by the name Josaya, has written an open letter to Mike Sonko and below is what he had to say;

"Dear Governor Sonko,

I am disturbed by a clip I saw of you threatening to send men to gang-rape Embakasi East MP, Babu Owino.

You were going at him for disrespecting President Uhuru Kenyatta. You were defending your boss.

Gov, you crossed a line any leader should never cross. It was politics, but you turned it into a sick twisted freak show, as you frothed and twisted your hands, demonstrating how your opponent would feel the wrath – and rods - of the said act.

That was not a low blow. Heck, we will need to find another name for that blow. Because? You sunk so low we will need to request petroleum prospectors to help us find where you are at.

Gov, let me tell you why this bothers me. It was business, but you took it personal. Personal because I am a rape “thriver”. (Not a rape survivor).

I am a rape victor: not a rape victim. I was raped in 1983. I was 11-years-old. That ugly accident happened in this beautiful city.

It happened in Makadara Estate, of Makadara Constituency, which you once represented in Parliament.

For about 27 years, I did not speak about it. I never shared it with my family. It ate me up. Tore me up, it did.

But, like Patti La Belle said, “I am here, still here, despite the odds”. Which is why I would love to think that I am thriving despite this traumatic event.

Let me educate you, buddy. The rape was an event. But healing ain’t. It’s a lifelong process. You never really heal from rape. You just take it one day at a time. You take it one emotion at a time.

And when you hear a man threatening he will send a gang on a rape mission, you are taken back to that event.

Emotions get the best of you. You are raped again. You are defiled again. That’s the power of words, Gov.

Strangely, I did not feel sorry for you as much as I did those sickos who were cheering you on.

Rule 93 of the Geneva Convention prohibits rape and other forms of sexual violence in both international and non-international armed conflicts.

Yet you were threatening that you would send goons to rape a supposed enemy, and they found it funny? Some were religious leaders.

Some were parents. “Respectable” people. Yet they did not find your diatribe vile in any way?

Let me break it down for you, Gov. What you spewed was not an empty threat. When you boasted about your – in not-so-many words - you were giving carte blanches to all the rapists in this county.

You were emboldening them. Telling them they can do as they damn well please. That you got their blasted backs.

Here’s the deal. Nobody deserves to be raped; whether they are serial rapists or saints. Nobody deserves to go what I go through.

Nobody deserves to live in fear of rape. Nobody deserves to be robbed of their innocence. Nobody should stagger even a fraction of a mile in these my pinching shoes. Nobody.

Rape is not a revenge weapon. Many kids who are raped blame themselves for what has befallen. They think they were bad, and the rape is their comeuppance.

I have been there, Gov. Still, I would not want the kids of the man who raped me to be raped. I would not wish this on anyone.

And I am sure you would not wish this ill to befall your adopted son, Gift Osinya.

Yours sincerely,

Josaya."

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This article was first published on Sde.