Prosecute Ozoro Festival Assault Culprits — Ezekwesili

Former minister of education and founder of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has urged the police to punish all identified offenders of sexual assault on women in Ozoro village in Delta State.

In a statement yesterday she noted that Nigerians must collectively act firmly or risk enabling a dangerous precedence in other matters where Nigeria normalised impunity.

A festival in Ozoro was turned into horror last week as women were sexually harassed, though community leaders claimed the assault was by unidentified youths who hijacked the event.

Ezekwesili said the moment demanded more than reactive arrests, but a public accountability process led by the Delta State government, clear deterrent signals through swift judicial action, nationwide reinforcement of zero tolerance for gender-based violence and strengthening of community-level intelligence and policing systems.

According to her, the scale and coordination of the sexual attacks in repulsive videos and images suggest that those criminal violations of women were not at all spontaneous.

“It raises urgent questions about intelligence, community policing and the visible presence or absence of law enforcement. The failure of governance is evident in the deeply disgusting, disgraceful and completely unacceptable acts that depraved men audaciously perpetrated in that community.

“There is no culture, no tradition and no circumstance that justifies the assault of women. What occurred in that Ozoro community was not cultural expression; it was criminal violation and violence against women,” she said.