*Dr. Martins Warned Men Against Assuming That Payment Of Bride Price Or Being Legally Married Gives Them Ownership Over Their Wives’ Bodies
If a man lives in Lagos with his wife or sojourns elsewhere and periodically visits the spouse who lives in Nigeria’s commercial capital, there is significant news for such persons: Have sex by force with her, go to jail for life.
And this is authoritative.
Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Ministry of Justice, Dr. Babajide Martins on Tuesday warned that husbands who force their wives to have sex with them face life imprisonment.
Dr. Martins handed down the warning during a briefing held to mark the commencement of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Awareness Month.
At the event, participants fired questions on sensitive family issues and sought to know the position of the law on them.
Answering questions on whether a married woman can take legal action against her husband for having sex with her without her consent, the DPP explained that although the act may not be prosecuted specifically as marital rape under the applicable Nigerian legal framework, Lagos State laws spelt it out as sexual assault by penetration, a criminal offence.
The DPP pointed to the provisions of Section 259 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State which states that sexual penetration of another person without that person’s consent constitutes a felony punishable by imprisonment for life.
He said the law defines consent as an agreement made voluntarily wherein the person has the freedom and capacity to make and communicate that choice.
Referencing typical marital squabbles in some homes, the DPP explained that where a husband and wife are having marital difficulties and the wife refuses sexual intercourse, the husband cannot use force to penetrate her particular private member.
Should such man utilize his manly strength or whatever and do so, and the matter is reported, prosecutors could pursue a charge of sexual assault by penetration rather than rape.
He further explained that federal law does not treat such as rape, stressing that Lagos State laws, domesticated for judicial administration in the state, do.
What this means is that similar act elsewhere might not attract the legal treatment and punishment that it does within the confines of Lagos State, People&Politics gathered.
Furthermore, Dr. Martins warned men against assuming that payment of a bride price or being legally married gives them ownership over their wives’ bodies, pointing out strictly that embarking on such act is a violation of the law as marriage does not give a husband the right to force his wife into sexual activity.
He maintained that such an act can be prosecuted as sexual assault by penetration under Lagos State laws with life imprisonment being the maximum possible sentence.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Dr. Martins.
