As the story of the non-guilty verdict of Benjamin Mendy fills the air today, down here in Nigeria, a Magistrate Court sitting in Kaura, Nasarawa state also today found one Josiah Moses not guilty of rape allegations he was accused of in 2019 after he had spent about four years in prison before he was found not guilty and released today.

Benjamin Mendy, the former Manchester City football star was in October 2022 accused of raping a 24-year-old woman, similarly, a 29 years old woman also alleged that the football star molested and attempted to rape her two years earlier. He was found innocent of the rape and the attempted rape allegations and was released today after months of being behind bars.

Well, Benjamin Mendy and Josiah Moses who were both found not guilty and released today were even fortunate enough to not have lost their lives from the ordeal, unlike one late Izu who could not take the framing and accusations and was forced to take his life in 2020. The story of Izu is always evergreen in my memory, a budding fashion designer in his early 20s. His name was added to the list of rapists that was circulated on Twitter. He reached out to the compilers of the list to clear his name, his accuser confirmed that Izu never raped or attempted to rape her but she won’t take his name off the list of rapists. Izu could not take it anymore and he had to commit suicide to end it all.

Understandably, it is a societal thing that when it involves rape everyone gets sentimental and emotional and sides with the accuser or the presumed victim while the accused person loses the benefit of doubt or the presumption of innocence as provided by the Constitution. Immediately you are accused of rape, there is the likelihood that everyone, including the investigators and prosecutors, even your family and friends will believe your accuser over you, even when you are framed.

As a lawyer, I cannot count how many persons I have encountered who are languishing in prison detention for false rape accusations. Some are still in prison because they are indigent and cannot afford a lawyer to help them out, in fact, Josiah Moses was not able to afford a lawyer, he was represented pro bono. Just imagine if our office had not come along to represent him free of charge he wouldn’t have been out yet.

People like the late Izu have lost their lives by being falsely accused of rape, people like Benjamin Mendy will forever have their lives and careers ruined, and people like Josiah Moses suffered and lost a whole four years of his life; all these incidents and many more poses the question, whether there is a punishment for false rape accusers, if there is, is it commensurate or stringent enough to deter mischief makers from falsely accusing persons of rape?

As the punishment for rape in most jurisdictions of the world is a life sentence, nobody cares if you are framed or not, if you are not able to prove that you didn’t do it you will be jailed for life for something that you didn’t do, the same way should the punishment for false accusation of rape attract a life jail term but no, that is not the case; in the UK the accusers of Benjamin Mendy is likely going to pay just £2000 as a fine and or some months in jail and that will be it while back home in Nigeria, there is no provision for any punishment not even monetary fine against the false accusers of Josiah Moses. The worst he can do is to seek monetary compensation from the state and not from his accuser since it is the state that prosecuted him.

Nigerian laws should be amended to provide punishment for false rape accusers, not just some punishment but a stringent one. Lying under oath to incriminate a person itself is perjury which is a crime punishable with at least 14 years jail term as provided in S. 118 of the criminal code act and if the perjurer lies to incriminate a person for an offense punishable with a death sentence or life sentence, the accuser is to be punished with life jail term. False rape accusers should be prosecuted under the provisions of section 118 of the criminal code since they lied under oath to incriminate another, but this is yet to be the case.

Aside from false rape accusers being prosecuted for perjury and sent to jail, they should as well be made to pay substantial monetary compensation to the accused, compensating him for the stain on his name and for the lost time. The name of a false rape accuser should as well be on public record so that anyone interested can access and see it.

Once people are aware that if you accuse someone of rape and it ends up being a false accusation, you will be made to pay heavily for it, there will be little or no false rape accusations and innocent persons won’t be losing their lives and be sent to jail for something they did not do.

As a disclaimer, I as an individual and also as a legal practitioner condemns rape in its totality and I believe that no punishment melted on a rapist is enough but my submission is while rapists are being punished, false rape accusers should as well be punished, with that we can minimize the case of false rape accusations which are most times concocted as a vendetta by scorned lovers or angry exes. The side effect no doubt is that it may discourage genuine rape victims to come forward but as a principle of natural Justice postulates that it is better and more satisfactory for ten guilty persons to go free than one innocent person to be punished, we can live with rapists going scot free than innocent people falsely accused being punished for the offence they didn’t commit.