I saw a video of a task force and some law enforcement agencies from the government of Delta State assaulting some alleged prostitutes in Oghara, Delta State. The task force went down to the brothel or the “ashawo quatre” where the prostitutes conducted their business and beat up some of them in order to disperse them and also arrested some of the alleged prostitutes or “runs girls”. They even videoed the girls and posted it online.
The truth is, prostitution or harlotry be it as it may is morally wrong but that does not make it illegal or a criminal act and morality as we say is not law. There is a clear cut between what is immoral and what is illegal. There is no law currently in force in Nigeria that criminalizes prostitution in southern Nigeria. The penal code criminalizes prostitution in Northern Nigeria but the legal jurisdiction of the penal code does not extend to southern Nigeria. This means that it is illegal and criminal to engage in prostitution in Northern Nigeria but it is not a crime in Southern Nigeria.
The Nigerian Criminal Code does not outrightly criminalize or penalize prostitution. What it does in Section 223 of the act is to criminalize procuring or pimping of prostitutes and other related offenses like defilement by threat or fraud and administration of drugs on girls and women or running a brothel.
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Procurement here is talking about pimping or pimps who take advantage of underage persons and make them have unlawful carnal knowledge or pimps who sell out or traffic girls and women into prostitution or those who run a brothel, but expressly, a girl or even a guy who is of age who has decided to engage in prostitution or harlotry in Southern part of Nigeria is not breaking any law.
At best, an alleged prostitute can only be charged for immoral acts or corruption of public decency if they are arrested but they cannot be charged directly for prostitution because there is no law criminalizing it in Southern Nigeria.
What the task force should have done is to go after the pimps or the owners of the brothel that they engage in the act because those are the ones who are committing a crime. The activities of pimps or madams, underage prostitution and the operation or ownership of brothels are what have been penalized under sections 223, 224, and 225 of the Nigerian Criminal Code.
