OF SEXUAL PREDATOR LECTURERS IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

The first time I heard about sexual harassment of female students by male lecturers in the university was while in my first year at the University Of Lagos about two decades back. We as medical students had just one year to do on the main campus at Akoka, and there was no reseat option for us; it was either a pass, on to the medical school at Idi Araba or a fail, and repeat the year at the main campus. The albatross for many of us medical students then turned out to be a physics lecturer.

To stand a fighting chance at passing at all, we had to buy a textbook, he coauthored with another physics professor, the head of department at the time, if memory serves me right. By the time the results were about to be released, the studentry was awash with news of impending disaster concerning the yet to be released results. Those who were not sure about passing started paying visits to those they thought could do and undo at the Physics Department, to see what could be done to salvage their situation before the results would be eventually released.

Soon enough, the rumour mill was awash  with names and faces of girls who were said have to given in to the sexual demands of the physics lecturer, to have their marks upgraded to the 40% pass rate. Sadly, the physics lecturer these girls were alleged to have slept with, so they can proceed to medical school, had these maculopapular rashes allover his face, and most likely other parts of his body, and even as I write this, I visualize his face. Luckily I'd no dealings with him (as it was also rumoured that guys parted with money for his favours) besides seeing him lecture in class from the back where I usually sit, without understanding anything he was teaching, confident only in my ability to understand the same lecture at extramural classes a certain TOA (from a set ahead of mine, but in the science department), organized in the evenings, not only for science students, but also engineering students, in maths and physics, that made that lecturers' classes a walkover, save for the fact that one needed a certain number for attendance, to be eligible to write the exams.

In medical school though, not much of that did we hear, though the randy anatomy lecturer was said to have scored a number of girls in my class, but it remained unclear, if it was for marks, as one of the girls failed the exam and reseat, and had to repeat the year. Anyway, my reason for writing this is because of the recently released tape of the voice of a lecturer, Professor Richard Akindele of the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU in Ile-Ife, demanding to have sex five times with one of his female students as a prerequisite to upgrading her marks from 33 to the pass rate of 40. Everyone I've come across concerning the authenticity of the tape, from former OAU students belonging to my secondary schools' alumni WhatsApp group, to friends who attended the school, especially as MBA postgraduate students, confirmed that the voice on tape is distinctly his, and I wasn't surprised that the university has now suspended him, while investigations continue. A very unusual occurrence considering that its difficult to prove such cases as this, especially without video evidence, going to show how peculiar the man's voice is that everyone who hears it, instantly agrees that it is of the man (who is also a high ranking member of clergy in his church) in question.

It is significant that the two incidents I've so far mentioned, happened in federal tertiary institutions, noted for their strictness, and for some level of credibility, concerning their certificates, when compared with state and privately owned universities, where news of this sort have long been the norm rather than the exception. A friend of mine once told me how she was able to pass a course she'd failed, while schooling at a state government owned polytechnic in southwestern Nigeria, by sending her friend and classmate, who was dating the lecturer to help appeal on her behalf, to which the lecturer agreed but only if she agreed to pay a certain amount of money. Eventually, she didn't pay, but still passed because she asked her then boyfriend, who belonged to a powerful cult in school to threaten the lecturer who went on to drop his demands.

Another student at OAU made the mistake of telling the lecturer of a course she'd been carrying from her first year, and had serially failed that she had a deadline to complete her studies, including her project, so she could relocate to the United States. Once the lecturer found that she was boxed into a corner, he made her an offer she couldn't reject. The Saturday she was to be "sacrificed" she washed herself, dressed up, and left sorrowfully to the "abattoir" to be slaughtered. When she returned to her room, after the lecturer had had her way with her twice, she was inconsolable that whole day.

When the case of the OAU lecturer came up recently, many of the females who stormed social media outlets, to air their views, stated that in some instances, the lecturers would ask female students to pay for hotel rooms where they intend to carry out their nefarious activities, including for food and drinks, and several attempts to have these lecturers face the full wrath of justice have met with stiff resistance by lecturers and school authorities, with blames going to the females students for not been studious enough, or for wearing provocative dressings, for which many of the schools in Nigeria have come up with dress codes, targeting females especially, in response.

I had earlier stated my surprise at the fact that this case involving Professor Richard Akindele of the OAU received this much attention from the authorities, when you consider that another case involving an Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma lecturer, who managed to turn the case around in his favour, despite overwhelming video evidence, by claiming he was set up by students who waylaid him, and forced him into a room with a female he hadn't known from Adam, before compelling him to sign a cheque in a bid to blackmail him, abounds amongst several of such cases with yet more compelling evidence, where the offending lecturers still get to walk free.

Many of these lecturers are able to go free of accusations of sexual misconduct because they are usually presented before their peers, who aren't exactly without their own indiscretions with female students, and would only crucify one of theirs when and only if they'd exhausted all loopholes that can be exploited to give their own a soft landing, while crippling the academic career of the female students, who may have gone to extraordinary lengths to gather the guts to bring their predators to book, besides the trauma they may have to silently bear the rest of their lives, because of their ordeal. This angle of exponentially growing cases of
sexual predation by lecturers on female students, remain one of the reasons Nigeria's education system is on a slide, and until it is recognized by stakeholders in the sector as an existential threat, and efforts to curb it systematically highlighted and executed to the latter, our educational system will not be rid of the darkness currently enveloping it. Hmmmmmmn!

'kovich


Read Also: https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2018/04/22/2-aau-female-graduates-who-accused-lecturer-of-sex-for-grade-jailed/

AS PRESIDENT BUHARI DISSES NIGERIAN YOUTHS

Was it not the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who in his masterpiece, "BEAST OF NO NATION", described then Head Of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, as using words such as,
      "my people are useless,
       my people are senseless,
       my people are undisciplined",
on Nigerians, in his first stint as Head of State in the 1980s, after coming to power via a military coup, which many who were of age at the time could quite relate to, as one who was quick to apportion blame to others, and hardly ever taking responsibility for a bad turn of events, which dogged his regime back then, just as awful as it is doing today, on all facets of governance?

Sadly enough, when fortune smiled on him once again, and he was gifted the rulership of Nigeria again (on a platform aimed solely at removing former President Goodluck Jonathan, than it is for any thing he'd rightfully done in and out of power, besides an anticorruption posture, that was vindictive at his first coming, and an act of vendetta against those who denied him power all these years in this second coming), he doubled down on his shameful rhetoric, of demonizing every Nigerian but himself, so much so that by demarketing Nigeria in the early days of his presidency, he caused the country to go into recession, as the people and country he presided over couldn't be trusted by foreign investors, whose funds just before the 2015 elections helped make Nigeria's economy, the fastest growing in Africa. 

At the slightest opportunity,  he would remorselessly take Nigerians to the guillotine, as "cleaners" would be charitable regarding his penchant to talking down on Nigerians, without considering the consequences, especially before a world that's gotten used to not seeing or hearing anything good about his country, sometimes but not many times deservedly so, so much so that he didn't vehemently reject the assertion by former British Prime Minister, David Cameron (a tax defaulter by reason of storing his wealth in tax havens) before his Queen, that Nigeria is "fantastically corrupt", rather seeing such an odious slight on his people as vindication of what he'd always said.

Unfortunately, this same man has in the past few years since coming to power, harbored very corrupt individuals in his kitchen cabinet (the case of the grasscutter, easily comes to mind here), as well as in his main cabinet. Wined and dined with corrupt Nigerians, including those on whose shoulder he rose to power. Enabling them and doing their bidding, against the wishes of Nigerians, and the letters of the constitution. Known fraudulent characters have also found refuge under and within his government. 

But the recent cause of anger amongst Nigerians, especially youths is his recent description of that critical mass of the Nigerian public (which he claimed, at a summit in London, forms sixty percent of the population), as "LAZY", inferring that they have an entitlement mentality, because they say they are from an oil producing country, and therefore should get everything free, and that from a man who'd lived virtually almost all of his life off Nigerians and her oil wealth, who in the same breath as he was casting aspersions on Nigerian youths in London, couldn't hold up his excitement in declaring that "Shell", that serial violator of the rights of oil producing communities in Nigeria, as well as Nigeria's greatest environmental polluter, had intimated him of their intention to invest a huge sum in the oil sector, he swore to wean Nigeria from in an attempt to diversify the economy, only to turn around to stick with oil alone, not just by making himself the substantive petroleum minister, but going ahead to plunge scarce resources into the elusive search for oil in the North, doing exactly what he just accused Nigerian youths of. 

Interestingly, he made this speech at a time his deputy was in Lagos, visiting tech startups, founded by youths, already recognized by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates during their visits respectively to Nigeria. Sadly, only President Buhari failed to see, and hail these landmark achievements by youths, who have gotten so far without any form of assistance from government over the years. Much more unfortunate is the fact that he rose on the backs of many of these youths on social media to power, only to miss a most significant opportunity to laud their works before the international community. Electing to continue in his characteristics bashing of anything and anyone Nigerian, as his custom is, leaving a sour taste in the mouth of discerning Nigerians, who he continues to disappoint and embarrass routinely. 

I wonder, if statements like the one he made in London, is the sort he dishes out when unscripted amongst his sycophantic aides, and which they find so funny as to tag him a "funny man" if only we knew him the way they do. If it is so, then it is quite unfortunate, and indicate of the extent people can carry sycophancy to, enough to laugh sheepishly to expensive jokes made in bad taste, sometimes and probably insulting the sensibilities of those present at such occasions. 

It's unsurprising as well, to find his deluded supporters online and offline, doing their best to justify the latest London misyarn, only to find themselves muddling further already muddled waters, when it would have been better if they just kept quiet in the hope that even this gaffe, like the myriad before it will speedily pass, or be superseded by the next nightmarish news of killings and death across Nigeria (the numbers of which wartorn countries like Syria and Yemen can only attempt to equal on their worst days of battle), that's now become the hallmark of this administration, with the government having no answers or response, aimed at curbing if not bringing an end to the senseless killings either by murderous and marauding herdsmen or the now ever present menace and reality of Boko Haram in Nigeria's northeast, despite several lies by government of their defeat or impending defeat, as the government sadly fails Nigerians in fulfilling its primary responsibility to Nigerians per diem.

President Muhammadu "THE BLAME" Buhari has never shown one of the most distinguishing attributes of a leader, and indeed has never exhibited it, as he can't and couldn't be caught taking responsibility for anything wrong, while at the same time willingly lapping up praises to his exhibition of piety, ascetism and holier-than-thou attitude, built largely on false premise, that's done very little to impact the Nigerian people as he basks in his aloofness in power, like none before him, and maybe and hopefully after him. Unfortunately, many Nigerians fear that the 2019 elections may not signify an end to the  constant verbal abuse at the mouth of their president, as the institutions that ensured his ascension have been intentionally and systematically compromised, in order to make it difficult for him to democratically lose power.

'kovich