Icheoku admonishes that the Nigeria Sexual Offenses Bill 2015 is not far-reaching enough when it pegged the age of consent and sexual maturity of the female at merely eleven years old. An eleven year old is but a child, not matured enough to understand the ramifications of their acts and therefore cannot give an informed consent including that of their bodies being violated by very old males. This is the reason why having sex with an underage female person, who could not give a valid consent, is treated as statutory rape in most decent societies. Therefore the Nigerian Congress's legislating of the age of consent of under eleven years is very immoral and irrational, admitted it was done to accommodate Northern Nigerians' Islamic Sharia practices and proclivities of having sex with underage minors? Icheoku queries, but for how long would the rest of other civilized Nigerians be forcibly yoked to these people's personal and religious idiosyncrasies and preferences for mundanities and are forced to accommodate and live with same in this twenty first century world?
What manner of a people or country is this retrogressive and instead of thinking how to take people including their little young girls to Mars, are busy legislating how to take advantage of little children and forcibly so, as wives? Icheoku asks what happened to maturity and age of making an informed consent? What is wrong in marrying fully grown adult females, instead of preying on innocent little children who barely know their left from their right or how to even wipe their behinds or maintain other basic hygiene? Icheoku does not know about you, but this legislation is one heck of a mighty children abuse, which can only be tolerated in an archaic society, bent on retrogression and not one geared and prone to a progressive future. This legislation is a great absurdity and a great disservice to the Nigerian womanhood; and any woman who stands for it is not deserving of being indeed called a mother. How can Nigerian women allow their men dominated legislative houses to pass such a law which unduly discriminates against women and which seeks to take undue advantage of their very young girl-children's naiveté and force a life of sexual-slavery upon these little innocent girls?
Icheoku bemoans this law as not clever but primitive; it is nothing short of a ploy by randy sex perverts to damage young little innocent girls and force a life of perpetual sexual servitude upon them. Young innocent little girls of barely puberty, now to become mothers and wives and you wonder what has taken a turn for the worse in the Nigerian society. What are these men afraid of by not taking matured women as wives except that they are perverts who want to dominate, conquer, subjugate and molest these fledgling young minors and abuse them as they like and without fear of any fight back. Like Icheoku previously condemned the anti-gay law when it was passed as being retrogressive, Icheoku hereby also condemns and rejects the latest legislation coming out of the stables of Nigerian legislative houses as very retrogressive, abusive, uncaring and damaging to the psyche of those would be child-victims of those old perverts seeking to take advantage of this new law. Icheoku therefore calls on President Muhammadu Buhari not to sign the bill into law because it is repugnant, mind boggling and not intended to achieve anything or to move the society forward.
Moreso it comes with its attendant health risk of increased sufferers of Vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF); a result of damaged vaginal muscles by over-sized penises trusting violently into this yet to be fully developed and matured young children vaginae. Icheoku asks why would any civilized society want their innocent little girls to be so damaged, both physically and mentally, being exposed to sex at such a very tender young age of eleven years? In short this law is indeed crazy and crazier because some of these legislators have little children of their own who are girls or are they saying they will not agree for other men to seek their hands in marriage, while it is okay for them to so do to other people's children? Recall that Senator Yerima of Katsina State has a ten year old child-wife he imported from Egypt; and Emir of Kano Mohammed Sanusi III was on record very recently denying that he had taken a child-wife as was being rumored. Icheoku asks what is wrong with these people that have no scruples destroying the lives of innocent young children in this manner, instead of directing resources towards their good education into becoming doctors, lawyers, academia and future leaders of tomorrow? Why must it be these men's instant sexual gratification that is in paramount occupation of their minds and every thing they do is geared towards satisfying their unquenchable libido? Icheoku says Christie Anyanwu screwed things up with this legislation and only President Muhammadu Buhari can right things at this stage by refusing to sign the bill as it is and send it back to the house for upward review of the age of consent and sexual maturity which is currently pegged at eleven years.
Sexual Offences Bill and the online mob - Senator Chris Anyanwu
ReplyDeleteIn the past three days, I have been inundated with calls, emails and text messages from all over the world over some mystical issue called “age of consent” supposedly pegged at 11 years in a bill passed in Nigeria. What is amazing to me is that some of the people who have been furiously peddling this story are supposedly learned people. But for some reasons best known to them, they have failed to apply the usual rigor to check out their facts before broadcasting.
I am not just amazed, I would say I am even amused that the furor is about a bill that I presented, something that has been in the works since the Sixth senate, has gone through the scrutiny of legal drafters, has passed through an intense public hearing with many judges, state attorneys general and law reform people participating. What is most intriguing is that with the exception of a few persons, most others simply joined the wave, ranting and cursing on the web over something that they have no clarity on. Rarely did the conversations I read flow in the direction of a genuine search for the veracity of the story. And when I read a former Minister join up with utter banalities like: “the Senate has passed a law which makes it legal to have sex with an 11 year old child”, I was ashamed for the hecklers, worried for the young men and women out there who may be looking to such persons for example.
Now what exactly did Senate do? It passed a bill to protect Nigerians big or small, male or female and especially the young and vulnerable persons—children, persons with mental disabilities, elderly persons– from all forms of Sexual offences. It is called “The Sexual Offences Bill 2015” and I am proud to have proposed it.
Last Friday, I read a story in one of the national dailies about a little six year old girl who was first raped to death and then set ablaze.
In the past, such stories would have been aberrations that would dominate news for weeks. But now, people hardly notice because they are common occurences. Nigerians have been numbed by horror. Many don’t feel anything anymore. The crimes that happen here are so horrendous they cry out to heavens. But no one listens. This time, the Upper Chamber decided it is time to not just listen but act. It passed the 47 page landmark bill. On the two occasions that I have presented the bill, not one Senator opposed the spirit and intent of the bill. Infact, the Senate was so concerned this time around that it toughened the proposed bill, prescribed stiffer penalties, minimizing the gaps in our legal system which created room for dangerous offenders to get away with a slap in the wrist each time they commit a more heinous crime.
ReplyDeleteFrom clause 1 to 46, the bill comprehensively covers offences ranging from the common to the unknown: from rape, sexual assault, defilement, gang rape, child sex tourism, child prostitution and child pornography; incest by male and incest by female persons; to indecent exposure, sexual harassment, sexual offences related to positions of Authority, administering substance with intent to stupefy and overwhelm, deliberate transmission of HIV and any other life threatening sexually transmitted diseases. It updates laws passed as far back as 1945 and handed over to Nigeria by the Colonial Administration and brings them up to scratch with contemporary practice. We also include some crimes that have not yet manifested in Nigeria but which we know will soon arrive because Nigeria is well hooked into the global village.
The bill also introduces innovations to strengthen the practice and further protect the vulnerable such as supervision for dangerous offenders, disclosure of conviction of sexual offences, vulnerable witnesses protection, punishment for false allegation, admission of forensic evidence, and medical treatment orders for offenders etc.
In the 47 page document, there is no where it states that 11 years is “the age of consent”. Infact, the bill passed by Senate, makes no mention of 11 years. The whole noise and fury is a clear case of someone reading a legal document up-side down; choosing to retain a phrase in the draft which had been rejected and cancelled out during the final reading and then reading it totally out of context.
It was a classical case of mischief or ignorance but here’s what Senate passed in reference to the Defilement of Children in clause 6 (2): “A Person Who Commits An Offence Of Defilement Shall Upon Conviction Be Sentenced To Imprisonment For Life”. No age. No 11 years as age of consent. If that had happened, many of us would not have been party to that kind of law.
Mercifully, The Sexual Offences Bill, as passed, does not deal with the definition of who is a child. That has already been done by established laws . However, in clause 6(3) it makes allusion to the age of 18 years as the terminal point of childhood when it talks of deception as defense. This conforms with section 29 of the constitution and the Child Rights Act. Given these facts, all the fire and brimstone rained by the online mob was about nothing and came to nothing. People were merely making vacuous noises without attempting to get the true facts. Had some reporters who were quoting the social media taken the trouble to get and read through the Votes and Proceedings of Senate for that day, they would have been able to educate the public on what actually transpired.
No one who has gone through this revolutionary bill passed by Senate and concurred by the House would have nothing but gratitude and respect for the 7th Senate. It is now clear that mischief and ignorance fired this undeserved insult. In these “change” times, it will help if we all learn new ways. We must refrain from being too quick to judge and condemn. I so submit.