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Lecturers who lose control of their sexual urge towards their female students will spend up to five years in prison if a bill presented on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday is passed and signed into law 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.
Briefing journalists after plenary, Omo-Agege said of the bill:
“When passed into law, it makes it a criminal offence for any educator in a university, polytechnic or any other tertiary educational institution to violate or exploit the student-lecturer fiduciary relationship for sexual pleasures.
“The bill 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”