The Nigerian senate has introduced a bill that aims to prevent the sexual harassment of university students.
The proposed legislation follows a BBC investigation that uncovered alleged sexual misconduct by lecturers in Nigeria and Ghana.
The senate's deputy president said he hoped the BBC's investigation would help energise support for the bill.
Senator Ovie Omo-Agege said that he regarded sexual harassment in universities as unacceptable.
If the bill were to become law it would be illegal for lecturers to make any sexual advances towards students.
And under the proposed law, which was read in the senate on Wednesday, teaching staff could face up to 14 years in jail for having sexual relationships with their students.
The anti-sexual harassment bill was originally introduced in 2016 but didn't pass both houses of parliament.
Critics rejected the bill because it did not cover sexual harassment in the workplace and included a defence for consent. The defence for consent has been removed from the latest bill.
Footage of alleged sexual misconduct by academics at the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana was broadcast on Monday in Sex for Grades - a documentary by the BBC's Africa Eye investigative unit.
The documentary prompted outrage over harassment in Nigeria and Ghana and led to the suspension of four lecturers featured in the film. The suspended lecturers have denied the allegations.
What did the film show?
Four lecturers were secretly filmed allegedly propositioning or sexually harassing the BBC's undercover reporters.
Dr Boniface Igbeneghu, a lecturer at the University of Lagos and local pastor, was filmed making inappropriate remarks and requests toward an undercover journalist, who was posing as a prospective student aged 17, and later physically harassing her and asking to kiss her inside his locked office
Dr Igbeneghu then appeared to threaten to tell her mother if she was "disobedient" towards him.
The full hour-long documentary also featured interactions with two lecturers at the University of Ghana.
Both of the men, Professor Ransford Gyampo and Dr Paul Kwame Butakor, have been suspended but denied they were offering "sex for grades" in the undercover exchanges.
BBC
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
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Pirate activites drop in Nigeria
Recent records had shown drop in maritime crime and piracy in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea, head of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) said here Tuesday.
Addressing the ongoing Global Maritime Security Conference holding in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, Dakuku Peterside, NIMASA's director-general, said there have been improvement through different initiatives to tackle maritime insecurity.
According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), 73 percent of all sea kidnapping and 92 percent of hostage-takings occur in the Gulf of Guinea off Nigeria, Guinea, Togo, Benin and Cameroon.
Recently, the organization has noted "a welcome and marked decrease" in attacks in the region due to an increase in Nigerian Navy patrols.
Twenty-one incidents have been recorded around Nigeria as at July this year, compared to 31 in the same period of 2018, said Peterside.
The Nigerian official however reiterated the need for more partnership and collaboration between relevant stakeholders to tackle the maritime insecurity menace in the region.
Peterside told his audience that safe and secured waterways will boost maritime transportation in Nigeria and in the continent.
He said member states in the region had agreed to deal with the issue of insecurity of waterways from its roots and had developed initiatives to ensure this.
Xinhua
Related stories: Nigeria loses $1.5bn monthly to sea pirates and fuel fraud
Video - Nigerian government extends anti-piracy operation by 3 months
Video - Piracy in Nigeria
Addressing the ongoing Global Maritime Security Conference holding in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, Dakuku Peterside, NIMASA's director-general, said there have been improvement through different initiatives to tackle maritime insecurity.
According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), 73 percent of all sea kidnapping and 92 percent of hostage-takings occur in the Gulf of Guinea off Nigeria, Guinea, Togo, Benin and Cameroon.
Recently, the organization has noted "a welcome and marked decrease" in attacks in the region due to an increase in Nigerian Navy patrols.
Twenty-one incidents have been recorded around Nigeria as at July this year, compared to 31 in the same period of 2018, said Peterside.
The Nigerian official however reiterated the need for more partnership and collaboration between relevant stakeholders to tackle the maritime insecurity menace in the region.
Peterside told his audience that safe and secured waterways will boost maritime transportation in Nigeria and in the continent.
He said member states in the region had agreed to deal with the issue of insecurity of waterways from its roots and had developed initiatives to ensure this.
Xinhua
Related stories: Nigeria loses $1.5bn monthly to sea pirates and fuel fraud
Video - Nigerian government extends anti-piracy operation by 3 months
Video - Piracy in Nigeria
Nigeria's $875 million case against JPMorgan alllowed to proceed
An $875 million Nigerian government lawsuit against U.S. bank JPMorgan is clear to move forward after a London-based appeals court on Tuesday rejected the bank’s bid to have the case dismissed.
The bank had asked the court to quash the Nigerian government’s case, arguing that it had no prospect of success. All three justices at the Court of Appeal in London rejected JPMorgan’s argument in a ruling.
“I have formed no view as to the overall merits of the (government’s) claim but there is nothing in the terms of the depository agreement which entitles (JP) Morgan Chase to bring the proceedings to an end at this stage,” Lady Justice Rose wrote in the decision.
Tuesday’s decision upheld a February ruling from a lower court.
Nigeria is suing JPMorgan for more than $875 million, accusing it of negligence in transferring funds from a disputed 2011 oilfield deal to a company controlled by the country’s former oil minister.
The bank declined to comment on Tuesday's ruling. It has said it considers the allegations against it "unsubstantiated and without merit", and that it would fight the case in court.
A spokesman for Nigeria’s attorney general did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The case is one of several revolving around a $1.3 billion payment from oil companies Shell (RDSa.L) and Eni (ENI.MI) to secure offshore oilfield OPL 245.
The main trial related to OPL 245 is being held in Milan.
JPMorgan, acting under the instruction of previous Nigerian government officials, transferred money from those payments from an escrow account into accounts controlled by the previous operator of the block, Malabu Oil and Gas, itself controlled by former oil minister Dan Etete.
JPMorgan argued in its effort to dismiss the case that the approvals from those government officials was sufficient but the Nigerian government alleges that the bank’s transfers violated the duty of care owed to the government as a client.
Nigeria has also filed a $1.1 billion lawsuit in London against Shell and Eni over the deal.
Shell, Eni and their executives, have denied any wrongdoing. Etete, who was convicted of money laundering in France in 2007, has also denied charges against him.
The oilfield’s original license was awarded to Malabu in 1998, and is estimated to hold more than 9 billion barrels of oil, but has yet to enter production.
Reuters
The bank had asked the court to quash the Nigerian government’s case, arguing that it had no prospect of success. All three justices at the Court of Appeal in London rejected JPMorgan’s argument in a ruling.
“I have formed no view as to the overall merits of the (government’s) claim but there is nothing in the terms of the depository agreement which entitles (JP) Morgan Chase to bring the proceedings to an end at this stage,” Lady Justice Rose wrote in the decision.
Tuesday’s decision upheld a February ruling from a lower court.
Nigeria is suing JPMorgan for more than $875 million, accusing it of negligence in transferring funds from a disputed 2011 oilfield deal to a company controlled by the country’s former oil minister.
The bank declined to comment on Tuesday's ruling. It has said it considers the allegations against it "unsubstantiated and without merit", and that it would fight the case in court.
A spokesman for Nigeria’s attorney general did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The case is one of several revolving around a $1.3 billion payment from oil companies Shell (RDSa.L) and Eni (ENI.MI) to secure offshore oilfield OPL 245.
The main trial related to OPL 245 is being held in Milan.
JPMorgan, acting under the instruction of previous Nigerian government officials, transferred money from those payments from an escrow account into accounts controlled by the previous operator of the block, Malabu Oil and Gas, itself controlled by former oil minister Dan Etete.
JPMorgan argued in its effort to dismiss the case that the approvals from those government officials was sufficient but the Nigerian government alleges that the bank’s transfers violated the duty of care owed to the government as a client.
Nigeria has also filed a $1.1 billion lawsuit in London against Shell and Eni over the deal.
Shell, Eni and their executives, have denied any wrongdoing. Etete, who was convicted of money laundering in France in 2007, has also denied charges against him.
The oilfield’s original license was awarded to Malabu in 1998, and is estimated to hold more than 9 billion barrels of oil, but has yet to enter production.
Reuters
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