NPC urges stiffer penalties for sex offender

THE National Population Commission (NPC) has called on the Federal Government to formulate and review policy that would make it easy for the government to thoroughly investigate and prosecute men who are in the habit of sexually harassing teenage girls so as to put a stop to this deviant behavior. Chairman, National Population Commission, Eze Festus Odimegwu, who made the call while speaking at the 2013 World Population Day (WPD) in Calabar on Tuesday, urged the government to mete out great stiffer penalties for sex offences, stressing that demographic aid health survey shows that adolescent fertility in Nigeria in 2008 stood at 121 live births per 1,000 births.

He said the figures are very high, considering the fact that other African countries have drastically reduced adolescent fertility rate, adding that Nigerian fertility haywires as a result of teenage girls being harassed on daily basis by deviant men.   According to him, such incidence have often times led to unwanted pregnancies, which in turn, lead to population explosion, stressing that unless draconian measures are taken, such heinous crimes would continue to raise its ugly head. He added that the conventional two-year jail term meted out to offenders was not enough to deter other men from committing sex offences. Odimegwu pointed that if government was interested in addressing the problems, it should first of all map out the strategy that would drastically reduce poverty among adolescents.

Meanwhile, to avoid undue interference, Justice Oyejide Falola of Osun State High Court yesterday refused to announce the date for the final ruling on the case of rape instituted by a former National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, Miss Helen Okpara, against a traditional ruler in Obokun Local Council of the state, the Alowa of Ilowa-Ijesa, Oba Adebukola Alli. According to Falola, “For two reasons, I will not give a date of judgment because almost a day to the earlier judgment, the media were aware of the date of the judgment; they now started calling my lines and disturbing me. Therefore, this case is adjourned indefinitely for judgment and the date is to be communicated to the parties through hearing notice”.

Justice Falola was unable to deliver his ruling at the last adjourned date following the request by the monarch, through his counsel, Mr. Taofeeq Tewogbade, who applied for extension of time for judgment to allow for further defence on the matter. However, Mr. M. O. Adedokun, a Senior State Counsel from the state Ministry of Justice, who represented the Director of Public Prosecutions  (DPP), insisted that the court should deliver its judgment on the matter. He stressed that the case had gone through a series of adjournments, hence the need for the court to discountenance the application for extension of time.   Adedokun then averred that “the attitude of the defense counsel is an attempt to frustrate the judgment”, and urged the court to dismiss the application in the interest of justice and fairness. But Justice Falola then granted the defence leave to bring up the new issues.

culled from
The Guardian
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126770:npc-urges-stiffer-penalties-for-sex-offenders&catid=1:national&Itemid=559