Ovie Omo-Agege, the Deputy President of the Senate, has said the Senate would commence the much-awaited constitution amendment exercise after the Sallah break, next week.
Omo-Agege stated this when two groups – Women Education Advocacy and Development Initiative and League of Women Voters of Nigeria, – paid him courtesy visits.
He explained that the sexual harassment bill which he sponsored, was not targeted at lecturers. He said the proposed law, recently passed by the Senate, was meant to flush out the few bad eggs tarnishing the image of university teachers.
He said, “Immediately after the Sallah, we are going to hit the ground running with constitution review exercise. There are a lot of bills dealing with women rights advancement. We will take the Ugandan and Rwandan experiences into account to see how we can meet up with the agitation of our women in the constitution review exercise. This bill is not targeted at our lecturers in tertiary institutions. To the extent that it is targeted at anybody, it is targeted at the errant few, the few predators in their midst. We have them everywhere. It is not only in the tertiary institutions. Majority of the lecturers, professors are good people. We know them, we went through the institutions. So we speak from experience. The majority of lecturers, professors in higher institutions are good and decent teachers whose sole objective is to impart knowledge so that we can have the enabling environment to prepare our leaders of tomorrow. So, this bill is targeted at the very insignificant few who cause most of these atrocities. And we have decided that we should put a stop to it. I am sure that even most of these lecturers know that they are not the target”.