“A final year female student of Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, reports a lecturer for failing her in two courses because she repeatedly turned down his advances.
The university authorities, per protocol, arrange for her scripts to be re-marked or re-graded by a neutral faculty member.
The student passes the courses and is now able to graduate instead of losing an entire year to “spillover.”
That establishes probable cause against the accused lecturer and should escalate the matter to a formal investigation and possible disciplinary action against him.
But what do the authorities of the university do? They promote the accused lecturer from the rank of senior lecturer to associate professor.
When the scandal becomes public and journalists inquire about the issue, the university responds by saying that all that matters is that the victim got justice and is now being cleared to graduate.
In other words, offender and harasser is not only left unpunished but is rewarded for his predatory behavior against his student, and that is all there is to the matter, as far as university honchos are concerned.
The message is clear to the colleagues of the accused: we’re not interested in deterrence and sending a message against sexual harassment, so if you’re a harasser, please continue; far from derailing your career, it may even even get you promoted.
But if we talk now they’ll say we’re criticizing home-based colleagues from abroad and that we should come back and lecture at home, as if location has anything to do with malfeasance and tolerance for it.
They want to change the topic but we will continue to highlight these issues because they’re happening in our primary constituency and we would be hypocrites if we refused to engage in self-critique.” – Moses Ochonu
