The Tamale Sex Scandal: My Solemn Reflections - Part One

Actions and reactions forces are equal but opposite, as Newton's Third Law states. It is against this milieu that I am compelled to also add to the barrage of responses that have sprung from across the world in reaction to the sex scandal that has rocked the Metropolitan City of Tamale in a couple of weeks ago. The wised have always maintained that if someone farts to upset you and you do not compose yourself well in reply, you will shit yourself in revenge; a situation you will not want to find yourself in.

It is customary for young people of our societies to work hard, succeed and serve the society that made them what there are. It is a tradition that offers a sense of pride for those who are privileged to have acquired knowledge, skills or wealth either from within or outside the community to try to say thank you by contributing immensely to change conditions and better lives in the community.

Those outside the community have many ways they give back to the hand that fed them when they chance opportunities. Examples are the successful ones that have set up businesses and created employments to help boost the economy, some sponsor poor children to attain education to better their lives. Today young men and women raised in this community are medical doctors serving their people with all the pride you can think of. What about those in the lecture theatres and classrooms in the educational institutions?

These folks are laying the foundation for the future of our generation. Many sons and daughters of the community have gone out of the country and come back to as well add the little they can, some send remittances from outside the country that do so much for our ailing economy and will one day return to help in diverse ways. In the case of our brother from Canada, community spirits is not his game. What can I do for my community is not his priority, rather, what can my community do for me seems to be his lifelong ambition.

It goes without saying that, a young man of his age should normally be yearning for a loving and caring woman to settle down and readers will agree with me that any right thinking girl at a certain age will equally be looking for a partner and this does not exclude our brother from Canada.

What is more, it is every parent's wish to have a responsible young man introduced to them as a potential in-law, especially when their daughter is finishing school or gains employment. It again does not exclude this gentleman looking at him at face value. This phenomenon has existed for generations and still continues.

With this in mind, I find it sensible for any girl to try a relationship with a man who presents himself in a manner that she thinks is ideal for her definition of a relationship. I am pretty sure this was a presentation our brother made before all these ladies in this saga. Let us remember that every married person has to ask and answer themselves so many questions before going into a relationship of their life time.

Some of these questions have answers, some you will never get answers to and will have to prepare to live with them; a try and error part of life, a life situation no one can escape from, a situation I think our sisters fell victims to a couple of weeks ago. If there is a girl out there who thinks she could have easily escaped the tricks of this pervert or ever had all answers to these questions I am talking about, please I advise you to think again and hope that you are not found in a desperate situation like some of these ladies.

In addition to the above, may I emphasise here that an intimate relationship between two consenting adults is a daily occurrence in every community. However, what is outrageous about this one is the number of ladies involved in his crusade, the energy used, the ordeal he would have taken these ladies in such an ostentatious style, the measure and the catalogue of the footages he is able to archive and distributed leaves us no room to contemplate but to interrogate his activities and delimit his credentials for lessons to be learnt.

To begin with, I do not want to admit that any of these victims knew or consented beyond having just fun, neither will I accept a proposition that even a single victim of this dehumanising attack knew he was exploiting other girls, nor acquiesce with suggestions that they knew exactly what he was going to do with these footages. They would have been happy though to pose for a couple of pictures exclusively for memories and for him not to miss them due to distance but not for Facebook; I can guarantee that. This guy would have promised each and every one of them heavens and earth just to gain their trust and achieve his ulterior motive.

The next is to deal with questions that linger in our minds: Why will someone do this to his own people? How did he manage to get away with it? How could one person do this successfully? In a nutshell what would have been his motivation?

For these, we should be mindful of the fact that the world has changed a lot within the last two decades with the progress made in technology. A lot of businesses not known to our world have sprung up accordingly and this could provide us with some possible answers. The style, skills and efficacy displayed by this young man tells us we could be dealing potentially with a highly sophisticated porn star, a sex tourist or sex addict on the loose.

He could as well be a male prostitute that has decided to expand his business to a niche or a virgin market he knows better. As susceptible as our young girls are, it would have been difficult for any of these victims to have survived the tactics of a person with such a high calibre of proficiency, given the level of professionalism with which he would have carried out this international sex campaign.

As far as this unpleasant incident is concern, a lot has happened and we must not lose sight of the fact that these victims were being preyed upon by a vicious unstoppable predator and that, they never in their wildest imagination thought of doing such a despicable act. These are decent ladies of our community who are in search of responsible men for marriage. It is just unfortunate that they were found at the wrong place in the wrong hand. These ladies were let down by a community member they thought they could trust. We should not let them down for the second time and do our best to help them because we as a people deserve better.

With regards to posting such footages on social media and promising more to come, I can assure you it will not help the situation. Are we shaming him or further tarnishing the images of these beautiful innocent ladies who form the core of our society? I will think that it rather serves as ads for his franchise and will help him gain more clients for his business.

Remember there are under aged children on Facebook and posting more to register your frustrations towards the footages or demonstrate your anger towards the girl's encounter could only recruit our vulnerable brothers and sisters into his business empire when they could do something productive today to be responsible adults in the future.

Part two to follow
Abdul-Fatahi Abdulai
UK