When Lotanna Igwe-Odunze aka Sugabelly came out to openly accuse Mustapha Audu and his friends of Rape, a lot of Nigerians doubted the story.
Some even described her as a prostitute looking for cheap publicity. One Emeka Osemeka tweeted “@sugabelly you are a disgrace to women. The narrative I just reads shows you are a slut and you enjoyed every bit of it.”
One Anonymous also wrote
However, Leader of the Bring Back Our Girls group and Former Minister of Education, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili has taken to social media to sympathise with Sugabelly.
She tweeted
With the grace of a matured woman, Sugabelly took all the comments and turned it into a blog post.
Meanwhile for a long time, her blog posts on the rape case has been a bit vague but in today’s post, she came out to openly name names and give vivid descriptions.
She wrote
Every time I see a white Nissan Altima, my palms go sweaty, and my knees get weak. It’s an involuntary reaction born of so many nights being driven around Asokoro pinned to the floor of Tunji’s white Nissan Altima, barely able to breathe, the stench of weed stinging my eyes while I choked on the penis of whomever it pleased Mustapha to force me to pleasure that day.
I can’t have music playing while driving around in a car either. Or just sitting around at home. I can’t have music playing period. Especially not Maroon5. If I get into your car, please drive in fucking silence or you will make it hard for me to breathe.
While giving another account of how Mustapha Audu urged his brother to also rape her, she wrote
Mustapha was a monster like you cannot even begin to imagine.
His brother Bashir, was the same age as me, and Mustapha decided, that one way or the other, it was his duty as big brother to rid Bashir of his virginity. At what was supposed to be a casual get together for suya and drinks at Tunji’s house, he dragged Bashir and me into the bedroom, and pushed us inside, saying to Bashir “Fuck her!” before locking the door, and leaving me alone in the darkness with his brother.
All my pleas to Mustapha were in vain, and the only thing we heard from Mustapha from the other side of the door was “Don’t let me come back and find out you’re still a virgin.”
On a different date, his cousin, Jibril raped me in that same room. I screamed, and screamed, and fought, and struggled, eventually sticking my fingers into his nose, and biting his hands. In retaliation, he bit me hard on the nose, and later that night, I explained away the swelling on my nose I came home with as an unfortunate meeting with the edge of a swimming pool.
All the while I was screaming, Tunji and Mohammed were discussing business, and when my screams interrupted their conversation, Tunji came by to look at me, naked and pinned beneath Jibril, only to laugh and shut the door firmly behind him.
Describing how the events has hugely affected her life, she said
Every day is a struggle to not end my life, and I have had to spend a small fortune on therapy and mental health services, as well as anti-depressant medication to make my life livable. Even then, I have to constantly fight through waves of pain, anger, shame, self-loathing, and the urge to make it all just go away to get through each day, and I don’t always succeed.
In 2011, I tried to jump off a bridge, and was hospitalized against my will on a 72 hour hold to save my life. Before that, I had attempted to kill myself by taking an overdose, and woke up in a pool of my own vomit.