President Buhari Sends ‘Hit Hard’ Message To Randy Lecturers

President Muhammadu Buhari has warned randy lecturers in tertiary institutions in Nigeria to desist from sexually harassing students in exchange for marks, or prepare to face the wrath.

Naijaparry reports that Buhari, represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Dr Sulaimon Raman, at the 44th convocation ceremony of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, said: “the sex for marks syndrome is becoming rampant in our institutions of higher learning.”

“The government will not hesitate to hit hard at any officials found culpable in such acts.”

Buhari’s warning is coming more than two months after the BBC released a 58-minute documentary showing Dr Boniface Igbeneghu, a lecturer in the department of European languages at the University of Lagos (UNILAG),
appearing to be demanding for sex from a BBC journalist who posed as a 17-year-old admission seeker.

The lecturer mentioned “cold room” – a place where lecturers meet to “touch students’ breast” at the staff club of the university.

He said “nothing good comes free” and the ‘cold room’ experience is the price some female students have to pay to have good grades.

Similarly, the documentary also indicted Dr Samuel Oladipo, who teaches Economics at UNILAG, and two senior lecturers at the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo, and Dr Paul Kwame Butakor.

The management of UNILAG has since suspended the lecturers.
As regards the need for nation-building, President Buhari called on the academic community to show more commitment to research, critical thinking, moral disposition, discoveries and inventions.

Buhari, who acknowledged OAU had carved a niche for itself as a foremost university, tasked the university management to ensure continuity with the patrimony of excellence bequeathed to it by its founding forefathers.