A bill for a law which
prescribes five-year jail term for lecturers who engage in sexual relationship
with students passed its first reading in the Senate on Wednesday.
The bill, sponsored by 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, Mr. Omo-Agege said that the nation’s institutions of higher learning
must be sanitised to rid them of lecturers who saw female students as “prize’’.
According to him, 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.
“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,’’ he said.