Taming sexual predators in tertiary institutions

CLEMENT IDOKO writes that beyond the law, more needs to be done to wipe out the menace of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions in Nigeria

AT Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, back in 2006 and 2007, I was made to resit for my two-course units because of my resistance to constant sexual overtures by one of our wicked lecturers. He told me then frankly that he must have sex with me. He would ask me to go and pay for a particular hotel in town and wait for him insisting that if he did not sleep with me, I would not graduate from the university.

“He made good his threat when surprisingly, I had carryover in his course first Semester in 2006, that was my 200 Level, and in another course in 2007. But then, I took everything in faith and vowed never to succumb. Of course, I didn’t report to the university authorities because there was the culture of silence and the fear of the unknown,” Mrs Rita Sule, a social worker told Tribune Education in Abuja.

Rita is one of so many who would not voice out their predicament. The fact, however, remains that the problem of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions in Nigeria has been on the rise, and seems to get worse lately. Perhaps the perpetrators have been encouraged to see their behaviour as normal, since the issue had not been taken seriously until recently.

This appeared to have given impetus to the lecturers, in most cases, to escalate their actions by demanding for sex in exchange for undeserving marks to their female victims. The fear of the unknown also deters victims from reporting sexual predators.

However, the recent cases that played out in the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo; Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ife; the University of Lagos (UNILAG), and most recently, the alleged case at the Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State have clearly shown that the female victims of sexual harassment are beginning to speak out about the predatory actions of their lecturers.

Meanwhile, there are some who contend that male lecturers are also, oftentimes, sexually harassed by their female students. In some cases, male lecturers are seduced by students who do not want to rely on their intellect and hard work to succeed in examinations.

Some of them dress seductively, wearing skimpy dresses that expose their vital parts during visits to their lecturers. Some more desperate ones go even farther!

Concerned by the situation on campuses, the Nigerian Senate, in 2016, passed the Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Education Institution Bill, which provides for a five-year jail term for a lecturer convicted for sexually harassing male or female students.

The bill, which was sponsored by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, also proposed a fine of N5 million in the alternative. It also made provisions for lecturers and educators, who might be falsely accused by their students, to initiate processes by which students could be punished for false accusation.

While explaining the rationale for sponsoring the bill, Omo-Agege said the menace of sexual harassment had gone unchecked for a long time.

On how the Senate arrived at the five-year jail term, the lawmaker said: “As you recall, when we pushed this bill, we actually proposed a punishment of three years and a fine of N1 million; but the Senate, in its wisdom felt that even that was not enough and they wanted to send a stronger message. As a result of that, they have increased the punishment from three years to five years and the fine from N1 million to N5 million or both.

“We have now removed the element of consent as a defence. As you know, most of you are familiar with the law. Consent is always a defence to a charge of rape. The way we make it statutory rape, whether or not consent is given, becomes immaterial and the prosecution will no longer have to prove whether or not the consent of the female was obtained.

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“That is the case with minors, and that is what we have achieved today with our female students in higher institutions. Now, it is touch and go. You stay away from these girls. You touch them as a lecturer, you know there is a price to pay. Somebody describes it as a ‘zip up legislation’.”

A lecturer at the Department of Accounting of the Obafemi Awolowo University,  Professor Richard Akindele, was suspended for demanding rounds of sex from a female student.

He was allegedly exposed when the audio conversation between him and the female student went viral in April this year. In the four-minute audio clip, the lecturer was heard demanding sex with a student five times before he could upgrade her 33 marks to a pass grade.

However, following the report of the investigative panel set up by the university’s management, Professor Akindele was suspended (and eventually sacked).

Nonetheless, the question many are asking is: who protects the lecturers? This question becomes pertinent in view of the fact that the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities had contended that the law against sexual harassment focused only on punishing the lecturers without considering that they are often victims too.

President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, said pointedly that the lecturers had rejected the then proposed sexual harassment bill by the Senate in 2016.

He was quoted in a report to have stated that the sexual harassment bill was targeted at only male lecturers, adding that the rule of lawmaking does not permit one to target legislation against a group or an individual.

He said: “That bill was too restricted. What the lawmakers did was to narrow down on lecturers. Laws should be made open; not saying lecturers, male lecturers who are in tertiary institutions harassing female students.

“The phrases in the bill, which we brought out, showed ample instances of direct targets at lecturers. Everyone can study it closely. You will find places where the lawmakers make it an offence for lecturers to wink or smile to students, forgetting that learning takes place in a friendly environment.”

A lecturer in the Department of Business Administration, Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa who preferred anonymity said he was yet to read the law on sexual harassment, but from what he had read in the news, the law was basically set to protect the female students.

He noted that the issue of sexual harassment in the eye of the public is lecturers demanding sex from students, which is merely half the story.

He said: “How can you say the lecturers are equally protected when specific punishment is spelt for the lecturers convicted of an offence and not a similar punishment is spelt for the students who might falsely accuse the teacher or be the one to sexually harass the teacher?

“In any case, sexual harassment is not limited to lecturer and students only; it happens within the students themselves and in the workplace.

The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), however, said the bill passed by the Nigerian Senate is sufficient to deal with the problem of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

NANS’ National Public Relations Officer, Comrade Bestman Okereafor, told Tribune Education that the law, while spelling out punishment to lecturers, also provides for them to seek redress in case of blackmail and false accusation.

He insisted that lecturers are well protected by Nigerian laws, saying if, for instance, a lecturer is falsely accused of sexual harassment by a female student, such a lecturer has the right to sue for character assassination in addition to disciplinary action by the university concerned, including expulsion of the female student.

He said the steps being taken by some institutions to either sack or suspend lecturers involved in sexual harassment are commendable, saying sex-for-marks is one of those vices contributing to falling standards in tertiary institutions in the country.

“We must be candid; sexual harassment is a masculine thing. Lecturers who want to satisfy their libidos seek all manner of ways to coerce the students since they know that they hold the future of such students in their hands. The female students who consensually give their bodies to lecturers in order to upgrade their scores cannot claim sexual harassment or assault,” he said.

Okereafor, however, called on the female students too to shun indecent dressing within and outside the campuses so that they could always protect the dignity of motherhood.

Other respondents who wished to remain anonymous also said that the culture of silence needs to be discouraged, urging management of the various tertiary institutions in the country to set up independent panels to which victims of sexual harassment may report incidences of such harassment; establish whistle-blower policies that should involve protection of the victim who come forward to expose sexual predators. Ignoring the situation, they said, could lead to a cycle of harassment and victimization.

They also stressed that students too must learn to be assertive and establish strong personal boundaries. Students, they added, should also be discouraged from approaching teachers or lecturers to solicit grades before or after tests or examinations, as such a situation, where a student drops in on a lecturer to solicit grades, encourages harassment.

Tribune Education recalls that the executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Rasheed, speaking at the Redeemer’s University in Ede, Osun State, recently called on vice chancellors to ‘name and shame’ lecturers who sexually harass their female students.

“The universities should be willing to punish and stamp out the incidences of sexual harassment because it is damaging to our collective reputation, and we just have to do something. Please say it and do it; and whenever you punish or sanction somebody in this regard, let your effort be duly publicised.

“Let the world know that somebody has lost his or her job because of sexual harassment or somebody has been demoted from being a professor to Lecturer 1 because of sexually harassing a student.

“We in the NUC will be helping you. We can be collecting the names of the offenders monthly and advertising in all the newspapers to expose them as culprits of sexual harassment because we are determined to fight them. This is one area of academic corruption we are fighting.”