ASUU Rejects Sexual Harassment Bill

University lecturers under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and female university undergraduates under the platform of National Female Students Association of Nigeria confronted each other openly at the Senate on Monday.

The debate was provoked by the Sexual Harassment Bill presently before the National Assembly.
The university lecturers said at the public hearing held at the Senate that the bill was in bad taste as it was targeted at the members of the academic community.

However, the female students shocked everyone when they openly protested and raised alarm over alleged harassment of its members in universities across the country by randy lecturers.

The students insisted that the bill must be passed irrespective of the opposition by their lecturers.
National President of the student association, Comrade Idongesit Micah, at a pubic hearing of the Sexual Harassment Bill organised by the Senate committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, lamented the spate of harassment of female students by lecturers.

In a memorandum submitted to the committee, Comrade Micah, while calling on the upper chamber to immediately pass the bill into law, stated that doing so would ensure punishment of offenders guilty of the crime.

She said: “Let me be very clear on our position on this bill. This is a bill that must be passed into law.
“It is either we enact this law to send sexual predator lecturers to prison for correction according to law under the fine democratic tenets of the rule of law or we provoke helpless parents, husband, or guardians to, some day, pick a loaded gun and deal with this problem in a babaric manner.

“Therefore, we passionately urge the Senate to ensure that it does not by inaction impose the Hobbesian state of nature of a banana republic on victims of sexual harassment in our tertiary institutions and their relatives by provoking them to fight for themselves by all means possible, including outside the law.”

But the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, said the bill, if passed into law in its present form would undermine the autonomy of universities in the country.
As a global norm, universities and other tertiary institutions are established by law as autonomous bodies and have their own laws regulating their affairs.

“This includes misconduct generally among both staff and students, clearly articulated appropriate redress mechanism.

“Any law or bill which seeks to supplant these laws violates the university autonomy.
“In this particular instance, the bill violates the Federal Government of Nigeria and ASUU agreement of 2009 and as such should be rejected,” he said.

He further noted that the bill was discriminatory because it was targeted at educators.
He said it was unfair to come up with such a bill, stressing that sexual harassment was a societal problem and not peculiar to tertiary institutions.

He said the bill was also a violation of Section 42(1) of the 1999 Constitution, adding that it was embarrassing that the legislative arm could seek to make such that violated the constitution.

Ogunyemi also pointed out that besides violating the constitution, the bill failed to take cognizance of various extant legislations that adequately dealt with sexual offences.

He further faulted the bill, saying it failed to provide convincing evidence to show that sexual harassment in tertiary institutions had attained a higher magnitude than in other spheres of the society.

“The bill is discriminatory, selective, spiteful, and impulsive and lacks logic and any intellectual base by attacking the character and persons of those in tertiary institutions rather than addressing the issue holistically.

“Furthermore, the bill is dangerous and inimical to the institutions as it contains several loose and ambiguous words and terms which could also be used to harass, intimidate, victimize and persecute, especially lecturers through false accusation,’’ he said.

However, the National University Commission (NUC) supported the passage of the bill in view of its relevance.

The Executive Secretary of the Commission, Prof. Julius Okojie, said while the federal and state universities had administrative structures for handling grievances, there was nothing wrong in having a legislation to help with that.

My take: if ASUU is sure the lectures are not guilty of this "sexual harrasment"why kick against it? 
For me i feel if you cannot take the heat you leave the kitchen..They should allow the bill take its effect, if a student is the one coming to sexually harrs as them, then the lecturers  should report such student..i see no reason why a student will not be in class for lecture and then they want to use sex as a means of passing the course they never studied for...