THE OCHANYA CRY
She was thirteen...
But her story AGED a nation.
Her laughter, snatched.
Her innocence blongioned
She bled into tradition where truth
Was cross-examined and silenced.
The parents named her Ochanya Elizabeth Ogbanje -
In the court world, she was just anither case file.
An evidence.
Mere exhibit.
Story of another girl-child turned a whispers.
She was only eight…
When monsters wore the mask of family.
A home meant as learning safe haven
Became a laboratory of distraught
Each night, another lesson in assault.
Each dawn, a new chapter of shame.
As a cousin turned sexual predator.
His father sooner joined as accomplice.
While his mother, her aunt, looked away.
Warned to maintain silence like everyone
A noisy silence, more hurtful than the rape.
And the system?
Ah—Nigeria’s justice system—
They dressed in wigs white as innocence,
but their hands dripped red with neglect.
Gavel pounding on her grave instead of her rapists.
Law turned to lullaby—
singing the monsters to sleep.
They said, “No proof beyond reasonable doubt.”
But tell me—
how much proof does a dead girl need?
Ochanya died with a wound that spoke louder than petitions.
VVF tearing her apart,
while society stitched lies over truth.
Her body became testimony,
but even that—they dismissed as “insufficient evidence.”
Victor, the cousin fled.
Andrew, hus father walked free.
Felicia, her Aunt, got only five months.
Five month of incarceration her retribution
for five years of silence and a child suffering.
Tell me—what does justice mean
in a language only power understands?
Ochanya’s name means God’s favour.
But what favour protects a girl-child in a land
where her body is both battlefield and case file?
They say time heals.
But the soil across the country still weeps her story.
Each raindrop of girl-child cry turning whispers:
"Please, someone help us..."
"Raise your voice or sword to free us..."
For every Ochanya trapped “under a male’s weight,”
for every girl silenced by “A country’s shame,”
for every persons too afraid to fight,
for every judge who forgets empathy in his law book
this is not just poetry,
this is a voice of protest.
We will speak until your gavel trembles.
Until your silence cracks.
Until justice is not a prayer,
but a practice.
Ochanya, our daughter, speak out
not as victim,
but as voice.
Not as the wounded,
but as witness.
You did not die in vain.
You became a mirror reflecting our moral decay.
And we, your voice
the few in a careless and napping generation
will keep raising your name like a flag,
until the courtroom hears your cry echo in its walls.
Ochanya…
Your story is the anthem we refuse to stop singing.
Your pain, the poem that births a revolution.
And when justice finally, prayerfully stands
tall, uncloaked,
unbought,
Your spirit will rise,
and the earth will whisper back:
#JusticeForOchanya - finally.
But her story AGED a nation.
Her laughter, snatched.
Her innocence blongioned
She bled into tradition where truth
Was cross-examined and silenced.
The parents named her Ochanya Elizabeth Ogbanje -
In the court world, she was just anither case file.
An evidence.
Mere exhibit.
Story of another girl-child turned a whispers.
She was only eight…
When monsters wore the mask of family.
A home meant as learning safe haven
Became a laboratory of distraught
Each night, another lesson in assault.
Each dawn, a new chapter of shame.
As a cousin turned sexual predator.
His father sooner joined as accomplice.
While his mother, her aunt, looked away.
Warned to maintain silence like everyone
A noisy silence, more hurtful than the rape.
And the system?
Ah—Nigeria’s justice system—
They dressed in wigs white as innocence,
but their hands dripped red with neglect.
Gavel pounding on her grave instead of her rapists.
Law turned to lullaby—
singing the monsters to sleep.
They said, “No proof beyond reasonable doubt.”
But tell me—
how much proof does a dead girl need?
Ochanya died with a wound that spoke louder than petitions.
VVF tearing her apart,
while society stitched lies over truth.
Her body became testimony,
but even that—they dismissed as “insufficient evidence.”
Victor, the cousin fled.
Andrew, hus father walked free.
Felicia, her Aunt, got only five months.
Five month of incarceration her retribution
for five years of silence and a child suffering.
Tell me—what does justice mean
in a language only power understands?
Ochanya’s name means God’s favour.
But what favour protects a girl-child in a land
where her body is both battlefield and case file?
They say time heals.
But the soil across the country still weeps her story.
Each raindrop of girl-child cry turning whispers:
"Please, someone help us..."
"Raise your voice or sword to free us..."
For every Ochanya trapped “under a male’s weight,”
for every girl silenced by “A country’s shame,”
for every persons too afraid to fight,
for every judge who forgets empathy in his law book
this is not just poetry,
this is a voice of protest.
We will speak until your gavel trembles.
Until your silence cracks.
Until justice is not a prayer,
but a practice.
Ochanya, our daughter, speak out
not as victim,
but as voice.
Not as the wounded,
but as witness.
You did not die in vain.
You became a mirror reflecting our moral decay.
And we, your voice
the few in a careless and napping generation
will keep raising your name like a flag,
until the courtroom hears your cry echo in its walls.
Ochanya…
Your story is the anthem we refuse to stop singing.
Your pain, the poem that births a revolution.
And when justice finally, prayerfully stands
tall, uncloaked,
unbought,
Your spirit will rise,
and the earth will whisper back:
#JusticeForOchanya - finally.
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