The Lagos State Government has warned husbands that forcing sexual intercourse on their wives without consent could attract a life sentence, even though the state’s law does not recognise the act as rape.
The Director of Public Prosecutions in the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Haroun Adebayo, gave the warning at a media parley organised by the Executive Secretary of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA), Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi, to mark the start of the agency’s Awareness Month for September 2026. The event held in Alausa, Ikeja.
Responding to a question on whether a married woman can sue her husband for rape, as is possible in some other jurisdictions, Adebayo said Lagos law does not classify such an act as rape. He explained, however, that it could still amount to sexual assault by penetration — an offence that carries a life sentence under the state’s criminal law.
He said that where a couple is having marital difficulties and a husband forces sex on his wife against her will, the wife has the right to report the matter, and her husband could be prosecuted accordingly.
“Any man who thinks that because he paid his wife’s dowry, nobody can challenge him over domestic violence should report such a man to the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency,” Adebayo said.
He added that under Lagos State’s criminal law, a man cannot be accused of raping his wife while they remain on good terms. But once a dispute arises and the wife withholds consent, he said, the husband has no right to force her.
“If the husband forces her and the wife reports him, we will not charge him for rape but for sexual assault by penetration, and the punishment is life imprisonment,” he said.
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