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• Lecturers lament ill, insist it’s global phenomenon • Say vice portrays decadence in society not particular to ivory towers
By Cosmas Omegoh
Recently, some Nigerian university teachers saw their once flourishing careers grind to a screeching halt for sexually molesting and harassing their female students.
Like the god of the wilds, they had vowed that their students would neither pass their examinations nor progress until they were gratified with sex. To them, that was all that mattered. So, they stayed fixated to the dream of having an affair with those students they were supposed to supervise and mentor until they were caught and handed a cup of sour wine which they drank to the dregs.
Yet many have not learnt their lessons, and have continued in the same trajectory.
Now, some eminent Nigerian scholars have been bemoaning this turn of events in the universities, lamenting the scale at which it is happening. They are sad that their colleagues are bringing shame to the temple of knowledge.
However, anyone believing that the rot going on in the universities right now will go away someday soon, might be mistaken.
That is the reality the quartet of Profs Ademola Aremu, Joseph Olagunju, Godwin Okoye and Benjamin Ekenyem want everyone to know.
Their stand is that sexual harassment on campuses is more of a global phenomenon than a Nigerian problem.
And by extension, it mirrors the decadence in the Nigerian society.
In separate encounters with the Sunday Sun the they stood together in condemning the action of their colleagues which smears the rest of them who are committed to their calling, and called for urgent action against them for going astray.
Sexual harassment worrisome
Prof Aremu is a major in Petroleum Engineering at University of Ibadan (UI).
An activist and a former ASUU branch chairman in UI, Aremu has been in the university system for more than two decades and has seen things happen.
Hear him: “Morally speaking, it is very worrisome.
“But don’t forget that the university system is a part of Nigeria. What is happening in the university is a representation of what is happening in every part of the country.
“We should not make it look like it is the problem of the university system alone. It permeates all facets of the Nigerian life. It is a part of the moral decadence in our society right now. That has eaten deep into the fiber of the country. No sector is spared.
“Some people at some sectors are doing far worse things, and going scot free. This is not really moralising it. But we should not look at what is going on as localised.”
Olagunju, a professor of Biological Sciences, and former Dean, Postgraduate School, Lagos State University (LASU), Lagos is alive to what is going on.
He not only described the acts of some university lecturers on campuses as worrisome, but also “shameful,” maintaining that it is a reflection of how deep the country had plunged.
He said: “The problem is worrisome; it demeans the ivory tower. It is a big shame that sex-for-marks is being associated with lecturers in our universities.
“But that is a reflection of the decadence in our society.
“It is not only in the academic institutions that we are talking about sexual harassment. Go to the entertainment industry for instance. There, the producers – so they say – harass the actors before they give them a place in the movie set.
“Everything is a reflection of the current moral decadence in our society.”
Prof Okoye, who teaches Political Science at University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), believes that sexual harassment by university teachers is a “moral issue,” which he describes as “horrible.”
While buttressing claims that it also happens overseas, he said: “I remember an incident in a university in the US where I once taught. A lecturer was caught and dealt at a time he had just few years to retire. He lost everything he worked for.
“So, it is really a global problem that will never go away soon. It has always been there. And perhaps it cannot be eradicated completely.”
He said the focus of the discussion needed to focus more on the unwillingness of the leadership of the various institutions to do the right thing and punish the offenders, emphasising that “it is worrisome, it is wrong, it immoral, it is illegal, it is unacceptable!
“I’m a father; I have three girls. I wouldn’t want anybody to mess with my daughters; I won’t like anyone to subject anyone else’s daughter to that madness either.”
Prof Ekenyem, the vice chancellor of Vision University, Ikogbo, in Ado-Odo, Ogun State, acknowledged that sexual harassment of students is an ill currently plaguing the Nigerians university system.
Ekenyem, a professor of Animal Production, while also describing the act as “worrisome,” called it “an impunity to those who are vulnerable.”
He said because of the peculiar nature of private universities, such might be difficult to experience now.
“That is not common in our university and perhaps other privately-owned or faith-based universities because here, for instance, morals are paramount,” he pointed out.
He too identified the challenge as “part of the societal decay – in schools, churches and mosques.
“It portrays how much our society has decayed. And we are worried at the rate which that is happening now.
“At Vision University, for instance, because we are faith-based, we have zero tolerance for such vices like sexual harassment or cultism.”
Reason lecturers misbehave
By Aremu’s reckoning, a lecturer ceases to be normal if he insists on sleeping with his student just because he is teaching her.
“We need to subject this matter to an examination to know why it is gaining prominence.
“However, one thing I have noticed is that the condition of service in the university system in Nigeria is too poor to say the least.
“But if anyone says the condition of service is very bad, they need to opt out of the system with their integrity intact, rather than resorting to giving students marks, or asking them to sort him out.
“At a time lecturers were being paid well, we never heard about what is happening now.
“But I think that in a bid to survive, some people are doing all sorts of things.
“That is why part of what we are canvassing is improved condition of service, increase in take-home pay. If we have these, then we will see what effects they will bring.
“We have seen how poverty can affect people’s senses. We have seen how poverty can make people debase themselves to the extent that they don’t know what they have done. Recall that we all don’t have the capacity to cope to a certain level. We all are not at the same level,” he said.
Student also contribute to malaise
Prof Ekenyem brings new perspective to the issue by blaming some ladies for contributing to what happens to them.
“I know for a fact that some of our colleagues are wild and terrible.
“But sometimes, some of the students so harassed predispose themselves to the problem. A lot of them don’t work hard. A lot of them won’t read. They won’t attend their lectures. A lot of them may not even take their exams, yet they want to pass. When they do this, they make themselves vulnerable.
“Some of our colleagues who are morally poor will be looking at the possibility of having them. Sometimes, some of them offer money to pass. They go to clubs; they come to class weak. They might not be there during tests. Yet, during examinations they want to pass and pass very well.
“And so when they make themselves available, it becomes difficult to define where the availability will stop. That is why you see some of our colleagues cashing in on the lapses of some of the female students.
“If the student goes to offer money for grade, the next time the lecturer might demand sex. Then, if they don’t offer him sex, he might want to intimidate them because they have already made themselves his customers.
“But if a student reads her books, attends her lectures, and passes her exams, it might be difficult for even the most stupid lecturer to force himself on her. A lot of them are not serious minded,” he noted.
He urged universities to identify this as a serious problem and be ready to punish any erring lecturer.
“There are lecturers who don’t allow students to enter their offices with their cell phones so that they don’t make any recording. Such lecturers should be placed on the watch list,” he advised.
Dangers of the vice
Aside the growing belief that when lecturers demand sex they demean themselves, Aremu insisted that this also has telling implications for the society at large.
His words: “If you are training a medical doctor, and rather than allowing the training to be thorough you short circuit it, tomorrow it might be your family member she will be attending to when they present sick.
“If you impact half knowledge on an engineer who will later be designing a bridge or a structure, we know what the danger that will be if that person is not well trained. Those things are better imagined.”
To Olagunju, “this does a serious damage to the academic system. How do you have faith in a student who comes forth to tell you they graduated with a First Class?
“Supposing such candidate used money or sex to buy their grade? That taints everybody in the system. That is the reason this issue must be dealt with to maintain our sanity as institutions and even as a society.”
And for universities that has paid lip service to the ill, Prof Okoye says it affects them without them knowing it.
He said: “The damage this does is immesurable and here is an example. In the State of Georgia, USA, for instance, there are 38 public universities, excluding the private ones. Those universities advertise massively to woo students. And so, there is competition.
“There, the image of a university is everything. If what happens here happens, and someone is harassed or raped, nobody is going to send their children to such university.
“But in Nigeria, that is not so. We don’t have enough institutions. Millions apply for spaces and are rejected because of lack of spaces. So, there is nothing like damaging the image of the institutions unlike what happens in the USA.
“And so here, whether a university is known as the rape capital of Nigerian or not, parents don’t care a hoot; they will always send their children to the school because they don’t have choice.
“But morally speaking, that is horrible. The, leadership of the university should feel a sense of shame when any of such happens.”
How malaise can be tackled
Prof Aremu believes like his colleagues do, that the ill can be curbed, saying that beginning with the erring ones is the right road to take.
He wants them to first and foremost be of high moral value.
“I think if a lecturer is interested in any girl he should go out normally to woo her, rather than harassing her.
“If you are a lecturer, your moral level ought to be very high. When it comes to the ethics you are supposed to be found up there,” he said.
Then turning to the larger society, he said: “We need to deal with the problem as one of our national malaise. What we should be mostly concerned about is how do we get to the root of this problem?
“It is not enough to jail those that have been caught; it is not. When they come out from jail what happens?
“The worst thing that will happen is not to dismiss them.
“But we also have to consider what happens when they are outside there. Will they not continue? That is why we need to ask the question: why is this happening the way it is happening now?”
For Prof Olagunju, cases of sexual harassment like every other vice in every society need to be tackled with the enabling laws, either at the level of the government or institutions to deal with people who are found culpable.
“All we need to do is to straighten our structures and our institutions to sanction people who are found guilty,” he said.
He maintained that if any vice is committed in the ivory tower it “is totally against our social norms and values, we deal with it.
“We should not be afraid to deal with any offender, using our rules and regulations, and existing institutions that are empowered to deal with such conduct.
“If something is becoming a problem, it is telling us that we need to act decisively. We need to step up to deal with such a problem to serve as a deterrent to others who may have such intention of doing that.
“Use our enabling laws or state to deal with such situation is the best thing to do. There is no institution that does not have sanctions to deal with the situation. We should be bold enough to enforce sanctions.”
As for Okoye, that is equally the right road to follow.
“What we should fight for now,” he said, “is to have very stiff penalties to stop those heartless and senseless people that paint the image of lecturers black.
“I’m sure that less than two per cent of the lecturers engage in that madness.
“I have always been an advocate of application of stiff sanctions.
“In the US, if you are caught, you face civil suit from the victim or her family. And if it goes against you, you pay thousands of dollars as fine.
“Here, we must be prepared to have the will to sanction, to penalise, to punish and deal with people caught in that type of activity.”
Prof Ekenyem also believes that various institutions can curb sexually-related offences in their domains by using appropriate sanctions.
“The problem has continued to increase because there are no strict institutions and measures to curb it. That is why it is becoming common thing,” he said.
He urged the management of the various universities to raise the bar to ensure that women while on campuses are protected against randy lecturers.
“Various university managements should identify sex-for-mark as a very serious crime that needs to be stopped. To this end, they need to set up a special committee that will monitor the goings-on in the universities, especially the relationship between lecturers and their students.
“They should encourage students to have access to the vice chancellors. There should be phone numbers available to the students to report directly to the VCs. There should be a channel of informal communication between the students and the vice chancellors. That might be prejudicial, but at the end of the day, the VCs should be able to know the issues that are real and those that are not. But the target is to get the culprits.
“This will help to monitor the illicit relationships between the students and the lecturers. Lecturers who have high moral integrity can be appointed to the committee to monitor this,” he said.
How it works in private varsities
Ekenyem disclosed that in faith-based institutions like his, extra care is taken to ensure that the school is not tainted,
“Our lecturers at Vision University, for instance, are closely monitored by a unit in charge of quality control.
“We are young and new. So, we have control over monitoring. We monitor both teaching and conduct of lecturers and students. And so for now, that is not a problem to us.
“Also, being a faith-based university, we introduce programmes that enhance moral values. That too is helpful,” he added.
