Five-year jail term for lecturers who sexually molest students

Almost every other day, reports of lecturers sexually harassing their female students, come out of our ivory towers. In Nigeria’s extant penal code, consent or the lack of it is a critical factor in proving a rape case. This perhaps explains why philandering lecturers always escape the noose in court and their victims sentenced to life-long trauma. A bill before the National Assembly is seeking to make the ability to prove the act of rape enough to send a culpable lecturer to jail.

Lecturers that engage in sexual relationship with students would henceforth bag a five-year jail term if a bill in the Senate, seeking to completely prohibit any form of sexual relationship between them and their students is passed and assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege (Labour-Delta Central) and co-sponsored by 46 other senators, seeks to completely prohibit any form of sexual relationship between lecturers and their students, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

It will be recalled that mid last year, a part-time lecturer at the University of Lagos, Afeez Baruwa, allegedly raped an 18-year-old girl seeking admission into the University of Lagos.

But Baruwa, who carried out the act inside a study room in the institution, told the police that he did not rape the lady, insisting that the sexual intercourse between them was with mutual consent.

It was said that the father of the victim allowed his daughter to accompany Baruwa to the school on July 23, 2015 to follow up on her admission processes. Baruwa and the victim’s father belong to the same landlords’ association in the Abesan, Ipaja area of the state.

The benefit of the bill is that it imposes stiff penalties on offenders in its overall objective of providing tighter statutory protection for students against sexual hostility and all forms of sexual harassment in tertiary schools.

The bill provides a compulsory five-year jail term for lecturers who sexually harass students. When passed into law, vice chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics and other chief executives of institutions of higher learning will go to jail for two years if they fail to act within a week on complaints of sexual harassment made by students.

The bill expressly allows sexually harassed students, their parents or guardians to seek civil remedies in damages against sexual predator lecturers before or after their successful criminal prosecution by the state. What is your view about the bill?