A group which
made the call at an interactive session with both the Senate Committee on
Diaspora & Non-Governmental Organisations and the House of Representatives
Committee on Civil Society & Development Partners, in Abuja, decried that
the law, provided that a man could beat his wife, so far it does not result to
”grievous bodily harm should be cancelled.
Specifically,
section 55 states that, “Nothing is an offence which does not amount to the
infliction of grievous hurt upon any person and which is done- (a) by a parent
or guardian for the purpose of correcting his child or ward such child or ward
being under eighteen years of age; “(b) by a schoolmaster for the purpose of
correcting his child under eighteen years of age entrusted to his charge;
or
(c) by a master for the purpose of correcting a child servant or apprentice
such servant or apprentice being under eighteen years of age; or (d) by a
husband for the purpose of correcting his wife such husband and wife being
subject to any native law or custom in which such correction is recognised as
lawful”.
Speaking on
behalf of the CSOs, the Executive Director of Centre LSD, Dr. Otive Igbuzor,
insisted that there are many laws in Nigeria that need to be changed. He
regretted that under the aforementioned section, bodily harm was defined as a
harm that could lead to someone being hospitalised for at least 21 days.
“The ugly
implication here is that when the victim is hospitalised for 20 days; the law
does not regard the case as one that resulted to grievous bodily harm. Besides,
what happens to those that were not taken to the hospital?
“We as CSOs
are therefore using this platform to beg that you people must not leave the
parliament and allow that law to remain”. Besides, Igbuzor, tasked the 8th
session of the NASS to handle their oversight functions with sincerity, saying
“If the legislature were doing there oversight properly, these monumental
corruption we are discovering today would not have taken place”.
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