A bill for an Act which prescribes five-year jail term for lecturers who indulge in s3xual relationship with their students passed First Reading on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday. The only exemption in the bill is where the student is legally married to the lecturer before admission in the school as a student.
While seeking to completely ban any form of s3xual relationship between lecturers and their students, the bill provides that students who falsely accuse lecturers of s3xual harassment could face dismissal from the school but no jail term was prescribed.
The bill, sponsored by Ovie Omo-Agege (LP, Delta Central) and co-sponsored by 46 other senators, states that the consent of the student shall not in any way serve as a defence as the bill imposed on tertiary institutions the responsibility of protecting students who initiate a s3xual harassment charge.
Briefing newsmen after plenary, Senator Omo-Agege said that the nation’s institutions of higher learning must be sanitised to rid them of randy lecturers, adding that when the bill is passed and signed into law, any lecturer found guilty will be liable to a jail term of up to five years but not less than two years with no option of fine.
His words, “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 s3xual pleasures.
“The bill imposes stiff penalties on offenders in its overall objective of providing tighter statutory protection for students against s3xual hostility and all forms of s3xual harassment in tertiary schools.
“The bill provides a compulsory five-year jail term for lecturers who s3xually 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 s3xual harassment made by students.
“The bill expressly allows s3xually harassed students, their parents or guardians to seek civil remedies in damages against s3xual predator lecturers before or after their successful criminal prosecution by the State.
“The bill also seeks to protect, from s3xual harassment, prospective students seeking admissions into institutions of learning, students of generally low mental capacity and physically challenged students,” he stated.