Rapists Face Life Imprisonment After Conviction...

                            

If the bill currently in the works in the Senate eventually becomes law, any person convicted of raping a girl below the age of 18 will be liable to life imprisonment.

In the same vein, anyone found culpable in any other sexual assault as well as engagement of children in prostitution will be committed to imprisonment not below the period of 10 years.

Also, conviction for child pornography and administration of substance with the intention to overpower another person for sexual activities will result in five years and 10 years imprisonment respectively.

The bill which scaled second reading in the Senate yesterday, was sponsored by Senator Chris Anyanwu.

While presenting a lead debate on the bill, Anyanwu said the need to evolve the bill had become imperative in view of the rampant cases of rape and the attendant trauma for victims in the country.

"Hardly any day passes without reports in the media of one form of abhorrent sexual crime or the other, ranging from rape, defilement of children, animism among others; children and young people of this country, both male and female, today face a growing danger as they are being routinely targeted by sexual predators and pedophiles who take advantage of their vulnerability and innocence, etching on their psyche scars that last a lifetime. What is most disturbing is that a growing number of these crimes are happening in schools and religious environments," Anyanwu said.

She listed cases of sexual abuse to include gang-rape, sexual tourism, sexual harassment, deliberate transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, culture or religious sexual offenses, non-disclosure of  conviction of sexual offenses and administration of substance to stupefy.
Speaking on the bill, Senator Atai Aidoko Ali (Kogi), who said sexual offenses were ambiguous, reasoned that the passage of the bill would be of great benefit to voiceless Nigerians.

But Senator Ita Enang argued that the bill was defective on two grounds and therefore could only be appropriate for residents of Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He said: "Other states already had their various laws including the FCT. It would bring the Senate to ridicule if it makes a law to duplicate an existing law." Instead, he said it would be improper to amend or repeal the existing laws since punishments were stipulated in the penal and criminal codes of various states.

But Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the session disagreed with Enang, citing a Supreme Court judgment which he said ruled that Senate laws would supersede existing laws in the states.

Also yesterday, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), for the second time stayed away from a meeting called by Senate Committee on Downstream Petroleum.
The committee had asked the corporation to provide information on multi-billion dollar crude oil swap deals between it and foreign investors. It also sought to know how NNPC had been spending its appropriation in the 2003 budget.

Speaking on the development, chairman of the committee, Senator Magnus Abe, who said the exercise was not meant to witch-hunt anybody but aimed at improving NNPC, added that Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would be invited to provide information at its disposal while it gives NNPC another opportunity.

He said: "This exercise is not a witch hunt but a desire to help the downstream sector improve its services. We cannot wait indefinitely on the NNPC. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has records of what (crude swap) is taken out of the country and inflow. This committee will make the same request to the CBN while we await the NNPC's reponse."