The Senate on Tuesday cooled consideration of the Criminal Code Amendment Bill, 2025, after a controversial abortion clause in section 230 divided the chamber.
The clause, contained in Section 230 of the Bill, and dealing with life imprisonment for anyone who defiles a minor, seeks to increase the penalty from three years to five years imprisonment for anyone supplying drugs or instruments to procure abortion.
However, the section which was to be reworded to read, “Any person who unlawfully supplies to or procures for any person anything whatever, knowing that it is intended to be unlawfully used to procure the miscarriage of a woman, whether she is or is not with child, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for five years”, stirred intense debate over the controversial clause
The bill, which seeks to update the Criminal Code Act (Cap C38, Laws of the Federation, 2004) and impose stiffer penalties for several offences, was presented for concurrence by the Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, APC, Ekiti Central. It was one of three bills transmitted from the House of Representatives, alongside the Federal Road Safety Commission (Amendment) Bill and the Dietitians Council of Nigeria (Establishment) Bill.
The Criminal Code Amendment Bill aimed to modernise Nigeria’s outdated penal law, enacted over a century ago, and introduce tougher punishments for offences including defilement, abduction, attempted suicide, and possession of human body parts. Under the proposed amendment, anyone convicted of defiling a child, whether male or female, would face life imprisonment or capital punishment a significant shift from the old law that imposed only 14 years imprisonment and applied exclusively to female victims.
However, the bill met stiff resistance when lawmakers debated the amendment to Section 230, which deals with supplying drugs or instruments to procure abortion. The clause immediately drew concerns among senators, who argued that it could criminalise doctors performing life-saving medical procedures in emergency cases.
Senator Abdul Ningi, PDP, Bauchi Central, raised a critical point, warning that the section, as framed, could endanger both medical practitioners and patients in cases where abortion becomes necessary to save a woman’s life.
“We must be careful not to make laws that endanger lives or punish medical professionals acting in emergencies,” Ningi cautioned. “There are situations in hospitals where a woman’s life is at risk, and doctors have to act immediately. If this law is passed without clarity, we could be punishing those saving lives,” he said.
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Other senators shared similar concerns, urging that the section be reviewed to distinguish between unlawful abortion and medically justified procedures. In response, Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele agreed that the clause required further scrutiny and moved that the entire bill be stepped down for additional consultation to prevent legal ambiguities and moral conflict.
Presiding over the session, Senate President Godswill Akpabio supported the decision to step down the bill, emphasising that the issue of abortion remained a highly sensitive moral and medical subject that must be carefully handled. “We will not rush into passing a law that may criminalise legitimate medical intervention,” Akpabio said. “This Senate will ensure that every clause reflects fairness, compassion, and modern legal understanding.”
Before being suspended, the bill contained far-reaching reforms to strengthen the criminal justice system. Among the key changes were raising punishment for unlawful detention with intent to defile or detaining a woman in a brothel from two years to five years imprisonment; increasing the penalty for conspiracy to defile from three years to five years imprisonment; raising punishment for supplying drugs or instruments to procure abortion from three years to five years imprisonment; deleting the offence of attempted suicide and replacing punishment with rehabilitation and mental health recovery; increasing punishment for unlawful possession of a human head from five years to ten years imprisonment; raising penalty for endangering the life or health of an apprentice or servant from three to five years imprisonment; and increasing punishment for the abduction of girls under 16 years from two years to ten years imprisonment.
During earlier deliberations, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, APC, Edo North, argued that the defilement provisions must protect both male and female minors, noting that sexual abuse is no longer limited to one gender. “The law must recognise that both boys and girls can be victims of defilement,” Oshiomhole said. “We cannot continue to operate with colonial-era assumptions that abuse affects only girls.”
The proposal received widespread support across party lines, with senators agreeing that the new criminal code must be gender-neutral and reflective of modern realities.
The bill will now return to the relevant Senate committees for further legislative work, consultation, and redrafting, particularly on the controversial abortion clause. Once harmonised, it is expected to be reintroduced for consideration and possible passage.
Despite being stepped down, the bill remains one of the most comprehensive criminal justice reforms in recent years and one that, if passed, will introduce life imprisonment for child defilers, rehabilitative measures for suicide attempts, and stronger punishments for human rights violations.
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