A man has come forward with a harrowing account of alleged sexual assault by a female acquaintance, only to be met with the devastating news that, under Nigerian law, he cannot legally pursue a rape charge against her.
In a viral recounting of his ordeal, the survivor—whose identity has been withheld—detailed how a trusted friend allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted him. His story has reignited a painful national conversation about the invisibility of male victims in Nigeria's legal framework and the urgent need for gender-neutral rape laws.
'I Just Noticed I Couldn't Move My Hand'
According to his account, the incident occurred after he reluctantly agreed to visit a female friend in her neighborhood—an area he frequented to see another male friend for gaming sessions. She had persistently requested his visit, and he eventually obliged.
Upon arrival, she offered him a drink. Shortly after consuming it, he says he began to lose control of his body.
"I drank it, only for me to not be able to move my hand, move my legs," he recounted. "I just noticed that I'm trying to take out my belt, lose my jeans, and I kept saying, 'What is going on?'"
He described being cognitively aware but physically incapacitated, unable to resist as the assault unfolded. He later lost consciousness and slept off. The following morning, his friend acted as though nothing had occurred—no mention, no acknowledgment.
The Hospital Visit and the Lawyer's Response
The survivor's immediate priority was his health. "The first thing I did was I left. I went to the hospital and did a proper test if I have contacted anything," he said, underscoring the medical anxiety that follows such violations.
But when he sought legal recourse, he encountered a wall of statutory silence.
"I tried to sue a friend, a female friend, for sexual assault only for my lawyer to tell me that in Nigeria, a man cannot sue a woman when it involves rape," he said, his disbelief still palpable. "When a woman rapes a man, the man can't sue the woman—and I'm like, really?"
The Legal Reality: VAPP Act's Promise, Criminal Code's Silence
The survivor's lawyer was not entirely incorrect—but the full legal picture is more complex .
Prior to 2015, Nigerian law was unequivocal: rape was defined exclusively as vaginal penetration by a penis, effectively making it a crime that could only be committed by a biological male against a female. Male victims of sexual assault, whether by female or male perpetrators, were legally invisible .
The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, 2015 (VAPP Act) represented a watershed moment. For the first time in Nigerian statutory law, the definition of rape was expanded to be gender-neutral and inclusive of non-vaginal penetration.
Under Section 1 of the VAPP Act, a person commits rape if he or she intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus, or mouth of another person with any other part of his or her body or anything else without consent . By this definition, both males and females can be victims, and both males and females can be perpetrators.
The penalty is severe: life imprisonment.
The Critical Catch: Jurisdiction
Here lies the cruel paradox at the heart of this survivor's story.
The VAPP Act, for all its progressive expansion, applies only to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Section 47 of the Act explicitly limits its jurisdiction to the FCT. The 36 states of Nigeria must adopt and enact their own versions of the law for it to have effect within their borders. While some states—including Lagos, Ekiti, and others—have passed similar legislation, the majority have not .
This means that a male survivor in Abuja can, in theory, pursue a rape charge against a female perpetrator under the VAPP Act. A male survivor in any other state that has not domesticated the law is left to the mercy of the Criminal Code or Penal Code—neither of which recognize female-perpetrated rape against adult males.
The survivor's lawyer may therefore have been speaking the truth of his specific jurisdiction.
A Parallel Path: Civil Remedies and Fundamental Rights
While criminal prosecution remains jurisdictionally fraught, male survivors are not entirely without legal recourse.
Victims of sexual assault can pursue civil remedies, including claims for damages under tort law (assault and battery) and actions for the enforcement of their fundamental human rights . Nigerian courts have awarded substantial compensation to victims of sexual harassment and assault, including sums exceeding ₦16 million in some cases .
A victim—regardless of gender—can also seek protection orders restraining the perpetrator from further contact . These orders are available under both the VAPP Act (in the FCT) and various state laws on domestic violence and protection against violence.
NAPTIP and the Fight for Justice
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) is the designated service provider for the implementation of the VAPP Act . The agency has secured convictions for sexual offences against male victims, most notably the 2023 life imprisonment sentence of Dr. Abubakar Mustapha Danraka, a former Chief Pharmacist of the National Hospital, Abuja, for the sodomy of a minor .
This case demonstrates that male victims can achieve justice under the VAPP Act when the jurisdictional conditions are met and the evidence is sufficient.
'I'm Really Sad About It'
The survivor's testimony is not a legal brief; it is a cry of anguish from a man who feels erased by a system he trusted to protect him.
"I'm really, really sad about it," he said. "I wish I can do something to get justice."
His words carry the weight of countless male survivors across Nigeria—silent, disbelieved, and legally orphaned. They are told that men cannot be raped, that female perpetrators do not exist, that their trauma is not real because it does not fit the statutory mould.
The Road Ahead
Legal scholars have long argued that Nigeria's sexual offences framework is incompatible with its constitutional guarantees of equality and freedom from discrimination . Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, yet a legal regime that denies male victims access to justice for female-perpetrated rape creates a hierarchy of victimhood based entirely on gender .
Academic analysis has been unequivocal: "The Nigerian criminal law is still a long way from being all-encompassing and gender-neutral in its provisions on sexual assault" . The recognition and protection of every individual "irrespective of their biological sex is not only a legal necessity, but a moral imperative of the Nigerian criminal justice system" .
For this survivor, and for countless others, the question is whether Nigeria's lawmakers will hear that imperative and act—or whether they will continue to render male victims unseen, unheard, and uncompensated.
For now, his story stands as both testimony and indictment. He sought justice and was told, in effect, that his gender disqualified him from it. That is not a legal problem. It is a human failure.
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