Nigerian lecturers, under the auspices of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, have constituted a committee that would be monitoring the activities of lecturers in the public universities so as to put a stop to the issue of “Sex for Marks” penchant of randy lecturers.The President of ASUU, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, disclosed this on Friday in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on the sidelines of the town hall meeting of the union on the journey so far.
It would be recalled that the BBC had last year released a 13-minute video, where Boniface Igbenuhue, a lecturer in the Department of European Languages, Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, was seen and heard in one of the discreetly recorded videos telling an undercover reporter who had disguised as a 17-year-old admission seeker to switch off the light so he could kiss her.
“Everything that we discussed here, be assured that your mother will not hear and anything that happens between me and you, nobody will hear about it,” Boniface told the young undercover journalist.
The BBC Africa Eye video year-long investigation documented the sexual harassment behaviour of some lecturers at the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana. In one scene, Dr Paul Butakor of the the University of Ghana was filmed asking an undercover journalist if he could become her “side guy”, adding that “a side will see how best to contribute to your career”.
Prof. Ransford Gyampo of the same university was heard telling another undercover reporter that he will marry her. He then asks her what school she went to. After she responds, he says: “There is a rumour that the students of that school like penis.”
While lamenting the spate of the sex for marks attitude in the nation’s universities, the ASUU President said, “our union would not support such attitude so as to improve the academic excellence of the students”.
Ogunyemi continued, “We have set up committee to be monitoring the activities of our members in the nation’s Universities on the issue of sex for marks and anyone caught will be made to face disciplinary action.
“We are not in support of such attitude because the nation’s universities supposed to be a center of academic excellence and not to be a center of awarding marks to those that does not deserve it.
“Our union have been condemning such attitude and we will not allow such to grow anymore and anyone found culpable would be made to face disciplinary action so as to serve a deterrent to others”.
On the plan by the Nigerian government to announce the resumption of students of nation’s universities, the ASUU President said they would not resume until the government resolve the pending issues before the government.
He also said, aside this, all laid-down COVID-19 protocols must be put in place in the nation’s universities, stressing that, “this would make us to resume for academic activities in the nation’s universities”.
According to him, “It is disturbing that, the federal government has failed to respect all the memorandum of understanding reached with unions on their demands.
“And, with this, no university lecturers would resume work until these demands are met because the federal government are not ready to address the issue and this would not augur well for the educational development of the universities in the country”.
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