Lecturers to face 5year jail term for sleeping with students - Senate

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.

“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.