Rage as cases of sexual harassment soar in Nigerian tertiary institutions
The menace of sexual harassment has been occurring in some tertiary institutions unabated sending anger across the land. How can it be checkmate? ADA DIKE writes.
There have been stories about how lecturers in some universities molest, threaten and take advantage of female students who they withhold their marks or reduce their scores in some subjects except they allow the lecturers to have sex with the before they pass exqms or graduate from schools.
Many students had in the past stood their grounds and vowed not to defile their bodies to pass exams. At the end, some of them were given the lowest mark which is known as, “Let my people go.”
Many students have implicated some lecturers with evidence which led to the suspension and conviction of some of them.
Few days ago, the University of Calabar Law Students, staged #NdifonMustGo peaceful protest, decrying the sexual harassment of the students by lecturers.
But on Wednesday, August 16, Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, through the Congress men and women of LAWSAN suspended the President of the Association, Comrade Benedict Otu, for supporting the protest against the faculty dean Prof Cyril Ndifon.
The recent news making the rounds on social media is described as “Shameful, notDistinguished and notProf Ndifon, In My Own Eyes And Experience” by Nelly Idagba, a lawyer and a virtual artist who wrote a piece from Abuja indicting a lecturer.
The post was shared on Agba Jalingo’s page. She revealed that the Prof who hailed from her state, Cross River was meant to be a fine intelligent man from her own warm part of Nigeria. “Coincidentally married to a cousin of my ‘husband’. Hmmm…Funny how nature brought the circle around.
“I was just turning 18 when I got into his class in Year 2. He taught Legal Method in the University of Calabar. This man made Legal Method seem like a thesis in Havard University.
“I recalled that fateful day after giving his lectures, he dropped his books on my desk and asked me to carry them and follow him to his office. I innocently did, but that was the beginning of my tragedy with him until I graduated from the Faculty with pains and push.
“Who doesn’t know NotProf Ndifon, and his monstrous pedophilic disorder in the Faculty of Law Calabar? It doesn’t matter if you are a boy or a girl, you must or may have known or sniffed into his evil predatory hunt or even been a victim.
“He started his sexual harassment with me immediately I arrived his office to drop his errand books by talking about very erotic stories and how much he liked me , and how I will come out in flying colours if I agree to be his girlfriend. It seemed really strange to me then because I was raised to reverence my elders especially a lecturer/teacher. I recall quickly calling my mother to report all he said; she asked that I avoid him completely, which I did. But guess what? It still didn’t help one bit!” She emphasised.
Furthermore, Nelly said: “This man made sure he failed me three consecutive times and harassed me at every given time I approached his office to question my result. I recalled he drank a certain tea with hemp constantly in his office which we gossiped as students because we thought that may have been one of the reasons he always got amorous with female students.
“Some of his words to me that period were: “If you do not sleep with me, you will leave the Faculty with a third class I promise you…even if you guide your private part, I will succeed or you will fail.”, and then he will give a demeaning and sarcastic laughter, he was a nightmare.
“One time, I sat for his ‘Harvard’ carry over while in Year 5 writing his course with second year students, he walked into the hall and made an announcement saying “If you are here and I had asked you not to write this exam, walk out.”
“I immediately knew he was talking to me but I kept on writing and he walked directly to my desk and used a red biro to cancel each page of what I wrote and asked me to submit. I cried and reported him to a lecturer who saw what he did. In the lecturer’s words, “sorry I can’t resolve your issue with him because he is my PhD supervisor.” He became a prayer point every evening in my home.
“I was so confused at some point that I thought I was a complete daft in academics until I invited my parents to challenge my scripts. He had apologised to my parents saying he had failed me in error and would correct the results, but he never did.
“On one occasion he sent for me, just when I opened his office, he immediately grabbed my white shirt trying to pull out my young fragile breast until a lecturer knocked on the door and he ran like a mouse in an open house looking for where to hide. This was my first shameful experience in the Faculty of Law, because rumors spread like wild fire on a young child’s life.
“Again, I reported NotProf Ndifon to the then Dean of the Faculty, to some of his fellow lecturers, to all and sundry, yet I carried my heavy cross like a leper.
“We almost had a committee of female law students suffering from the same virus. Even if the committee had an upper and lower level of which the former were those young ones who couldn’t fight the beast and succumbed to him and the later were those who tried and stood their fragile grounds until the end. I was lucky to fall in the later otherwise, I wouldn’t have ever forgiven myself if he crossed spirits intimately with me.
“Anyone who supports this man by joke or esprit de corps, is bringing in the wrath of evil upon his or her household. I chose to use this words for his cohorts because if the system was fair and worked, he would have been in jail years ago. Shame on NotProf Ndifon. May the God of the universe trap him on this one again and nip his buds down completely.
“Thanks to the younger generation of law students in Calabar, for standing up to what I(we) couldn’t.
“I specifically thank any man who condemns this despicable act even if it could have been convenient to have covered or slut-shame this little girls or women.
“Fish this NotDistinguised men and women out of the system before it rubs off on us all.
Long live my alma mater!!!”
Reacting to the unpalatable news about sex for marks in the university, Olumide A. said: “I’ve actually heard so much about this guy. What I don’t understand is how he’s been immuned to the law all this while.”
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Also speaking, Rotimi A. described the situation as very despicable. “A man looking this old sexually harassing girls, young enough to be his granddaughters. He should be locked up in a zoo with lions in the cage,” he reacted.
Shodimu Yemi advised Nelly Ijagba to take the next step and volunteer to testify before the panel set up by the university. “She could also sue this deranged Professor. Let’s help this young students that were bold enough to speak up.”
In the same vein, the founder of Celebrating Virgin Girls in Nigeria, Princess Adunni Adediran has frowned at the way some men endanger the life of girls by destroying their virginity which she called their glory they supposed to give their husbands after marriage. She advised tertiary institutions to nip the menace of sexual harassment in the bud.
