Juliana Francis and Wale Elegbede
Two lecturers in Nigeria and Ghana
universities have been accused of sexually harassing female students in the
schools.
The alleged activities of the two
lecturers were caught by hidden cameras of BBC, while they were sexually
harassing female students.
The BBC news broke just Ahmadu Bello
University (ABU) authorities on Sunday, announced the termination of 15 staff
and demotion of one academic staff on account of conducts bordering on
corruption and sexual harassment.
The BBC Africa Eye’s released the sex
for grade documentary yesterday, zeroing on two universities in West African,
University of Lagos, Akoka, in Nigeria and College of Education in Ghana.
According to the documentary, after
gathering dozens of testimonies, BBC Africa Eye sent undercover journalists
posing as students inside the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana.
The UNILAG lecturer, Dr. Boniface
Igbeneghu, attached to Faculty of Arts, who is also the head pastor of a
Foursquare Gospel Church in Lagos, was exposed in the documentary, attempting
to solicit sex from a 17-year-old girl, seeking admission into the school. The 17-year-old
girl is actually an undercover journalist.
Igbeneghu, who invited the admission
seeking student into his office for a supposed tutorial, later started
discussing sex with her and also tried to compel her to, “switch off the light”
in his office and kiss him.
The lecturer made these attempts on the
supposed ‘fresher’ even knowing that she was underage.
While revealing to her that other
lecturers have sex with female students in return for marks, added that whatever he and the girl
eventually did, would never been known by anyone, except the two of them.
Before he tried to kiss her, he told her
about UNILAG Staff club, known as ‘Cold room,’ where lecturers take female
students to commit all sorts of immoralities.
Unaware that a hidden was filming his
every action, Igbeneghu, said: “Do you know that I am a pastor and I’m in my fifties?
What will shock you is that even at my age now, if I want a girl of your age, a
17-year-old, all I need is to sweet tongue her and put some money in her hand
and I’ll get her.”
Meanwhile the Vice Chancellor of UNILAG,
Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, speaking with our reporter, said that Igbeneghu
would be suspended.
The Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria,
reacting on the incident through its national secretary, Reverend Ikechukwu Ugbaja,
said: “The attention of the leadership of Foursquare Gospel Church has been
drawn to a video clip trending on social media platforms titled: ‘Sex for grade; undercover in West African
universities-BBC News, where in a lecturers in the University of Lagos, named
Dr. Boniface Igbeneghu, also described as a pastor in Foursquare Gospel Church,
was allegedly involvedly in sexual misconduct with some female students of the
university.”
The reverend further stated: “The
general public is hereby informed that as a holiness and bible believing
church, we do not condone such heinous and unscripted act among our ministries.
We totally dissociate ourselves from the purported conducts of Dr. Igbeneghu
and promise to take appropriate measures as soon as on-going investigation is
concluded. Meanwhile the pastor in question has been asked to step down from
all ministerial assignments.”
Another lecturer from College of
Education in Ghana, Dr. Paul Kwame was also indicted in the video documentary.
The investigation, which lasted for
close to a year, according to the BBC Africa Eye Reporter, @kikimordi who
conducted the investigations, was carried out due to the clamour to expose
these bad lecturers. She said: “Hundreds of you asked us to do this
investigation. We heard your call #SexForGrades”
A lecturer of Obafemi Awolowo University
(OAU) Prof. Richard Iyiola Akindele, last year, was reportedly sentenced to two
years in prison for sexually molesting female students.
The Chief Executive officer of the
Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Babatunde
Irukera, while applauding ABU sack of 15 staff and demotion of another, noted
that the Commission views the move as a strong disciplinary action, followed
investigations that established unsolicited and unwelcome sexual advances and
behaviour toward members of the school community, illegal allocations of, and
alteration of the grades, including extortion of students.
Irukera said: “The inappropriate
behaviour undermines the quality and validity of education and questions the
credibility of education outcome. The Commission urges educational institutions
to pursue aggressive and open initiative to ensure harassment; corruption and
other vices are eradicated from the educational system.”
No comments:
Post a Comment