Governor Fashola opens register for sex offenders in Lagos State

Kudos to Lagos State Governor, Raji Fashola who is the
first Nigerian governor to open a sex offenders register. He
signed an executive order to provide for compulsory
reporting of actual or suspected child abuse and
establishment of a sex offenders’ register at the State
House, Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja, yesterday Dec. 1st.
He also identified Alimosho, Kosofe, Agege and Oshodi-
Isolo Local Govt as the councils with the highest cases of
Sexual and Gender Based Violence crimes in the state...
Below is what Fashola said
“I will like to tell those perpetrating the act in these
local governments (Alimosho, Kosofe, Agege and
Oshodi-Isolo) to desist now because we would be
coming after them. We will combat these crimes so
that they do not become big crimes in the state. Also,
in order to ensure that criminals are monitored, we
have created a crime data register which states
everyone who has engaged the criminal justice
system of the state, and we have close to a 100, 000
offenders on that register. And very soon, we would
start deploying people to the data rooms in the police
stations across the state to gather the bio data of
offenders including their photographs and others.
“This was why we have asked everyone to register so
that before you employ anyone, you will know his
track record. And this is the time for everyone
especially women to speak against it. This is the time
for us to have a local enforcement unit; either we call
it state police or whatever name we wish to call it, to
protect the women from frequent abuse from the
opposite gender. This is the time for women to rise up
and challenge employers who sets unimaginable
targets for their female employees. These were
targets they could not set for men,” he said
The Lagos State Attorney-General Mr Ade Ipaye added that
“We monitoring one hundred and thirteen 113 sexual
violence cases currently at the High Court. The Team
is working actively to ensure prompt prosecution of
these cases. The major aim of the Sex Offenders
Monitoring Programme and the Mandated Reporter
policy is to reduce repeat cases by providing names
and personal details of convicted sex offenders in the
State to a central database. The Database will be
accessible to individuals and organizations that need
information. For example, School proprietors who
want to recruit can access this Register as a form of
background check.
“The Mandated Reporter policy will make it
compulsory for all State School Administrators,
Counsellors, Teachers, Social Welfare Officers and
any other official of the State Government having any
dealings with children to report any suspected or
actual child abuse or neglect to the Attorney-General’s
office. It is envisaged that the Lagos State Sex
Offenders Register will be open and maintained by the
Lagos State Ministry of Justice in partnership with the
Lagos State Judiciary, the Nigerian Prisons and the
Nigerian Police”. He said.