Lagos Urges Buhari Not To Sign ‘Offensive’ s*xual Offences Bill

The Lagos State government has voiced its opposition to the contentious s*xual Offences Bill (2014), which is currently awaiting President Muhammadu Buhari’s assent.

The controversial bill is among the 46 bills hurriedly passed by the 7th Senate in its last days and forwarded to the Executive for presidential assent.

The Bill reportedly makes 11 years the legal age for consent to have s*x with a child.

Addressing a briefing in Lagos yesterday with members of the Domestic and s*xual Violence Response Team (DSVRT), Solicitor-General for Lagos, Mr. Lawal Pedro, said there were certain provisions in the bill considered “offensive, obnoxious, inconsistent and likely to increase the incidences of s*xual abuse in Nigeria”.

According to him, the state, which has been championing the fight against s*xual violence opposed the bill because “it seeks to introduce a strange defence based on the innocent act of a child (referred to as deceit) and belief of the perpetrator that a child is above 18 years when he committed the act of defiling the child”.

Mr. Pedro argued that given this scenario, the National Assembly was incompetent to legislate on general laws, such as s*xual offences in a federation save for the Federal Capital Territory.

The solicitor-general said the government would soon forward a memorandum containing “our thoughts and suggested amendments that should be considered before assent is given to the s*xual Offences Bill (2014)”.

He said government would, however, not hesitate to seek legal redress if President Buhari went ahead to assent to the bill without first considering the amendments suggested.

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