By Cosmas Omegoh
An end to sex-for-marks in Nigerian universities appears to be drawing near.
Some higher institutions, it has been learnt, have mounted efforts to dissuade their members of staff from plunging them into disrepute.
Doing so, they are raising hope that an end to the ugly culture might as well be underway.
Some lecturers who are upbeat about this now ray of hope flayed their colleagues who ask their female students for sex in exchange for marks, declaring their conduct immoral, unethical and shameful. According to them, strong measures are being put in place to ensure that lecturers caught abusing their privileges are appropriately punished.
They said allowing the ugly trend an unfettered rein portends grave danger for society and scholarship.
It would hardly be forgotten that not long ago, some tertiary institutions suddenly became fertile grounds for news. Not news about their breakthroughs in research in science and technology, but news about their staff embarrassingly harassing their female students, asking for sex in place of marks.
Two years ago, for instance, the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, had its two lecturers implicated in a scandal by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary as they solicited sex.
The lecturers, Dr Boniface Igbenegbu, and Dr Samuel Oladipo, were lately sacked after a panel of investigation finally found them guilty for sexually harassing the female folk.
Shortly before that, a certain Prof. Richard Akindele, a lecturer at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife, was also dismissed by the institution following an allegation of sexual harassment.
But that trend does not seem to have stopped. Some lecturers are still believed to have continued with the act. And this has been going on discreetly, unreported as alluded to by a cross section of lecturers who urged urgent critical stakeholders’ action to save the Nigerian tertiary education system.
Take on sex-for-mark vice
“If I say I have not heard about sexual harassment in our universities as the chairman of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Calabar (UniCal), I will not be fair to myself and my generation,” Dr John Edor told our reporter, while reacting to cases of sexual harassment even in his institution.
Hear him: “This causes a revolution in my conscience; it causes a revolution in my mind to hear that lecturers exchange grades for sex; it is unholy; it is unacceptable.”
The same felling was expressed by Prof Joseph Olagunju of the Postgraduate School, Lagos State University, Ojo.
He said: “I strongly condemn the act in the strongest terms.
“You don’t have to give conditions for passing your students especially when they are of the opposite sex. It is immoral; it is condemnable in absolute terms. It is a thing I hate with passion. Amorous relationship with the opposite sex is condemnable not minding the religion one practices.”
Similar sentiments were expressed by Mr Kelvin Ugorji, a lecturer at Imo State Polytechnic, Umuago, who told our reporter that “the issue is totally unacceptable; it is unethical,” while admitting that “sadly, that is what is ravaging many Nigerian institutions at the moment. He maintained that “there is no moral justification for any lecturer asking for sex before awarding marks.”
The blame game
Prof Olagunju said that he is unhappy each time a few bad eggs in the university system mess up, but regretted how the society goes on to pin isolated cases on everyone in the ivory tower.
“I’m not so particularly happy about how people give unnecessary hype to this sex-for-marks narrative in the university community. I’m not happy not because I support the act, or I’m involved in it.
“The question I ask is why making the academic community the centre point for discussion when such isolated incidents occur?”
While condemning the attitude of his colleagues, he recalled that “Nigerian legislators, and politicians are deeply involved in the unwholesome act, yet nobody vilifies them. It is disheartening the way people ridicule the academia because of this.
“I’m not saying that the conduct of our colleagues is anything to writing home about, but the question is why giving it hype all because the academia is involved?”
He noted that “if actions are being taken against those involved, then we should commend the university authorities for being bold in dealing with the situation. But pinning it on the academia and often associating them all with this indecency often puts me off.”
Recalling part of the root causes of sexual harassment in the various high institutions, Mr Ugorji revealed that “in most cases, the students are the ones forcing their lecturers into this evil act, although no lecturer has any moral justification to be involved in it. There is no basis for any lecturer to ask for sex before awarding marks.
“But the students themselves are part of the problem. A good many of them don’t read to pass any more. They resort to what they call ‘sorting’ – that is giving lecturers money for grades. And when some don’t have money, they give what they have, especially when they meet lecturers that are evil.
“I tell my students that there is no justification for a lecturer to fail any student that has performed well. And so, the vulnerable ones are those who approach their teachers and say ‘sir, I can do anything to pass.’ Once a student makes this offer, a debased lecturer falls for it.”
Sadly, the lecturer is a product of the society, Dr Edor reasoned and the university is not insulated from the vices you find in the society.
“The key actors in the university community all come from the society. So, they are not actually totally isolated from the vices that are present in the larger society,” he said, while explaining why some lecturers misbehave despite their knowledge and training.
Efforts at eradicating vice
Disclosing how he encourages his students to avoid sex-for-marks pitfall, Mr Ugorji said: “I urge my students to do their own bit.
“A lecturer will be proud to have students perform well in his exam. I can bet that it is only a mad lecturer that will fail any student that has done well in their exam.
“It is true that some lectures tell students if you don’t give in you will fail. But that is condemnable in absolute terms.
“Students who give in to such harassment don’t know their right. They don’t know how to stand firm. If a lecturer fails a student, they should have the courage to report. If two or three students report a lecturer, his game is up.
“Many students don’t know that they have the right to ask that their papers be recalled if they feel victimised. If a lecturer says ‘if you don’t do this you will fail,’ don’t do that and heavens will not fall.”
At UniCal, Dr Edor said that there is an ongoing holistic approach initiated by ASUU to starve off potential cases of sexual abuse of female students.
He believes that as long as the approach is followed to the letter, the vice would be stamped out.
“As a branch of ASUU,” he revealed, “we have constituted a group called ASUU-Students Relations Committee. It is saddle with the responsibility of dealing with the relationship between members of ASUU and the students.
“We have created a platform to say, if you have no confidence in your pastor, if you have no confidence in your HoD, or your SUG leadership, please come and report this vice to ASUU as a branch. We will pick it up and do the needful.
“If lecturers were dismissed, as long as due process was followed and they were found culpable, it shows that the university community does not condone such vice. It shows that such is a sanctionable offence.”
At LASU, Prof Olagunju remarked that sex-for-mark vice is equally receiving appropriate attention.
“We have a policy on we are enforcing right now; it specifies punishments for the offender once caught.
“There is a book published on that matter and circulated among all staff, detailing what constitutes sexual harassment and the punishment attached to each offence.
“We are urging greater awareness of how to deal with the situation. We are pleading that victims should not be sigmatised; that is why most of them don’t have the confidence to come forth and report. But we need to give them the confidence to come forward so that we will deal with the monster decisivel,” he said.
Recalling how similar cases were handled in the institution in the past, he said: “We have dismissed quite a number of people. At the last council meeting, a man at the Foundation programme based in Badagry was dismissed for such offence. There was also a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences who was dismissed on account of the same offence. So our university now has a strong policy on sexual harassment, and we are enforcing it.
“We also have a dress code in LASU now; we insist our girls should not dress indecently.”
Sexual harassment damages scholarship
As simple as sexual harassment might sound, its impact is damaging said Prof Olagunju.
“Of course, this has very negative impact on the academia. It impacts negatively on the institution. It should not be allowed to fester in any way because it damages the image of the institution
“UNILAG was utterly embarrassed by the BBC undercover reporting on the matter which led to the dismissal of some of our colleagues.
“If that goes on, there will be disenchantment among the female in the community. That will heighten impunity on the part of perpetrators because they are not being punished. That has grave implication for our society,” he said.
It lowers standards, Ugorji admitted. “It encourages students not to read again. They believe they can ‘sort’ their teachers both in kind and cash. Will a lecturer ever fail a girl he has slept with? The moral justification to stop them when they err goes out through the window.”
And this is what Dr Edor has to say: “Sex-for-marks does a lot of damage. It is not mathematical damage. Here, we are talking about a damage that cannot be measured materially.
“It means we will be churning out graduates who ordinarily do not have what it takes in their head to have graduated – just because they laid down with lecturers and they had their grades allocated to them. The ripple effect goes on.”
Way forward
Going forward, Dr Edor called on all critical stakeholders in the education sector to rise to the challenge, declaring that “they need to be on their toes to see how we can checkmate this vice very significantly, if not stamped out completely. And who are critical stakeholders? They are the media, the university community, parents and members of ASUU. Victims and potential victims must speak up; they must speak up!”
But it is not all about speaking up, Ugorji suggested; the management of various institutions should act fast because “the lecturers are part of the problem.
“Various institutions should live up to their expectations by giving their students the confidence to report any lecturer found wanting and then take immediate action.
“But when the student makes a report, and the person reported to is a friend, or relation of the culprit, what happens?”
He then advised “the students should be given an orientation on how to report to the management when they are sexually harassed. If they don’t say it out, the evil will continue to spread.”
For Prof Olagunju, “the right way to go is to hand students the confidence that the culprits would be brought to justice. Of course, they should be bold to make reports.
“If we don’t make some people an example, the trend will continue and we will be worse for it.”