There is only one option for the female
students to get an A grade in their courses — sleep with the male
lecturer taking the course or refuse to do so and keep failing.
For a male student, because he is
sexually unattractive to the lecturer, the only way to bail out himself
is to hire a lady who will sleep with the concerned lecturer on his
behalf in order to pass the course.
Sexual harassment, especially of the
female students by male lecturers, is perhaps not a new thing in
tertiary institutions in Nigeria and globally, with many people tagging
it as the “greatest education epidemic” ever known.
But in Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo
State, one of the first four federal polytechnics established in the
country — in 1963 — frustrated students told PUNCH the
extent some randy male lecturers go before they could pass them in their
courses.
“The better ones among the lecturers
give us the option of paying by cash for the course or finding a lady
who will sleep with them on our behalf before we can pass. Passing a
course costs us between N10,000 and N20,000,” a Higher National Diploma
student of the Department of Accountancy, simply called Alex, told Saturday PUNCH on the telephone.
However, the downside to choosing to pay
by cash rather than sex, according to Alex, is that the student can
never get more than a C grade.
He continued, “Paying by cash is for
those who want just a pass. But if I find a girl who will sleep with the
lecturer on my behalf, I’ll get an A, for sure. I’ll get at least 90
per cent in the course, even if I write nothing exceptional in the exam.
This option of paying with money instead of sex only comes from about
one or two of the lecturers out of 10.
“Some of the lecturers tell us point
blank that they don’t need our money. They will tell us to find them
ladies who will sleep with them before we can pass their courses. They
teach very important courses, so you cannot ignore them. They will keep
failing us until we’re given notice of withdrawal from the institution.
It’s something that has happened to a friend who claimed to be a
born-again Christian. The guy wrote the Unified Tertiary Matriculation
Examination afresh and is now at the University of Benin.
“So this is what we guys do: If I have a
loyal girlfriend and I beg her, she can sleep with the lecturer on my
behalf. The lecturer picks the hotel of his choice on the day we’ve
agreed. I will book for it. I’ll order for the meal he’ll eat before the
action. He will sleep with my girl and give me my A. I’ll give the lady
my name so that the lecturer will know she’s from me.
“But if my girlfriend says no, then I
have to hire someone else. I will get a prostitute from outside, pay
her, book for the hotel the lecturer has picked, order for their meal
and then I get an A in his course. I have done this for three lecturers
now.
“The reality is we can’t pass their
courses by mere brilliance. Only one or two lecturers are sane in my
department. They don’t ask for anything. We read hard to pass their own
courses. For the rest, sex is the key. This is why most of us don’t
fidget when exam period approaches. We know the way out. The lecturers
have shown us.”
Another male student in the Department of Accountancy who spoke with Saturday PUNCH,
simply named Dickson, in HND 1, said he usually budgets some money
right from the beginning of the semester to hire prostitutes who will
sleep with the randy lecturers on his behalf.
He said, “I love my girlfriend and can’t
allow her to sleep for me. Some other guys do that. They beg their
girlfriends to help them. It’s not a coded thing. We all discuss it. The
prostitutes make serious money from us, all because of the extent these
lecturers have gone.
“Apart from the money my parents give
me, I hustle on my own in the school. If I want to pass a course now, I
need to budget at least N20,000 for it — N7,000 for hotel booking,
N3,000 for meal and N10,000 to pay the prostitute.”
Asked how he hustles on the campus, he
said he co-founded a computer centre outside the school premises from
which he makes some money.
Alex and Dickson told Saturday PUNCH that the randy lecturers usually pick the expensive hotels in the city to enjoy the pleasure at the cost to the students.
“Some of the hotels are along the
Benin-Okene Expressway, Ekpoma-Auchi Road, Benin-Auchi Road, etc. The
least amount for booking is N5,000,” they said.
A lawyer and social commentator in
Lagos, Bisoye Odubona, said the “devilish practice” the lecturers had
caused the students to indulge in could turn them into riff-raff.
He said, “How will a student get N20,000
to pay the ‘total package’ on a course, all because of a randy
lecturer? Don’t be surprised that these students might be stealing
laptops and smartphones of their colleagues and selling them in order to
raise money just to get an A.
“I know sexual harassment happens in
tertiary institutions, just like everywhere else, but I never knew it
had gone to this level. These are the lecturers turning our graduates to
riff-raff. They deserve a cruel punishment if they are ever caught and I
hope they are.”
All-expenses paid sex nights
According to some other students who spoke with Saturday PUNCH, sex is the only bailout option from these randy lecturers’ snares.
But even the sex option doesn’t come cheap.
“There was a lecturer then, a very
randy one, who taught us Public Sector Accounting in HND 1. That was
around 2013. He would tell us openly in the class, ‘I don’t want your
money. I am richer than you. Give me a girl and you get your A,’” an
ex-student of the department, simply known as Sam, who now works in Port
Harcourt, told our correspondent.
He added, “There is a popular hotel
along the Benin-Auchi Road where these lecturers used to tell us to book
when they wanted to sleep with the ladies we gave them. It is one of
the most expensive hotels to rent in the city. It’s also a bit distant
from the school, so they would not be seen, I guess. They chose whatever
hotel they wanted and we would pay for it. It’s an overnight session.
An all-expenses paid sex night for them.
“Some other lecturers gave us two
options to get good marks — sex or money. If you chose sex, you were
sure of getting grade A in the course. If you chose money, you would get
C, D or E, depending on how much you paid. The least was N10,000 per
course when I was in HND 1 and N15,000 for HND 2 students. Out of the 10
courses I offered in HND 1, three of the lecturers wanted sex only.
Four others would give you the option of sex or money, depending on the
grade you wanted.
“In HND 2, I offered nine courses. Five
of the lecturers taking the courses were highly randy. Only two were
good lecturers. They would give you marks according to what you wrote.
Those two were highly disciplined. There was a particular lecturer who
would tell us to come to class (even on Sundays) at so-so time. He would
be in class 10 minutes before the time and start teaching empty class
if no student was around. He would be talking to the board and empty
seats until we arrived. He was very strict, but I liked him.”
Apart from the Accountancy Department, Saturday PUNCH
also gathered that this practice also happens in some other
departments, for example, the departments of business administration and
management, public administration, banking and finance, and so on.
“It’s only that the practice was
rampant in Accounting Department. Everybody knew that,” said Moses
Franklin, a former student of the school who graduated in 2014 and now
works and lives in Lagos.
He added, “The situation is just not
too obvious in some other departments. If you sleep with the lecturer,
you get a good A, like 90 per cent, even if you know nothing. Sex is
their food. They cannot do without it. They are cursed with it.
“I remember a certain lecturer then, one
of the randy ones, who was paralysed in an accident while I was in HND
1. God was merciful on him, he didn’t die. But despite that, the man
came into the class in a wheelchair one day and said, ‘The fact that I’m
paralysed doesn’t mean I’m impotent. I can still use my hands.’ From
the way he was making gestures, he meant he could still use his hands to
fondle ladies’ breasts and buttocks; a very mad man.”
“Sleep for two”
This is a slogan some students of the
school have coined from the situation, as explained by Joseph, another
HND 1 student of the Department of Accountancy of the school.
He narrated how it works, “For the
lecturers who want only sex to pass us, they demand from the ladies as
well. Any lady who refuses to agree is frustrated by the lecturer. But
for us guys, since they can’t have sex with us, they ask us to bring
somebody that will do the job for us.
“We hire prostitutes to do the job for
us. We rent the hotel room, pay for the lecturer’s meal, then pay the
prostitute some cash, depending on our agreement.
“But surprisingly, some female students
in our department are also exploiting this situation to make money for
themselves. They tell us not to go outside to hire prostitutes. Instead
of paying prostitutes, they ask us to let them assist us and we pay
them. But in the process, the female student, apart from doing the male
student a favour, also does herself one. She sleeps with the lecturer
for the guy, for her own sake too and she still gets paid by the male
student.
“It’s called ‘sleep for two.’ The lady
helps both the guy and herself at once. Both of them get As. But if the
male student has a loyal girlfriend, she does the job freely, except
that the guy still pays for the hotel booking and meal.”
“This is highly sickening,” an
educationist in Port Harcourt, Dr. Fidelia Peters, simply said, not
knowing what else to say when she heard about the situation.She only
added, “Those lecturers deserve to be placed in front of the firing
squad and be got rid of. All of them will perhaps be blaming Nigeria’s
woes on corruption, but look at it, are they not also corrupt?
“Talking about eliminating corruption,
this is where it should start from. How can we improve or be
intellectually sound if we are being taught by these sorts of lecturers?
How can our education system improve? Not sure this is possible.”
The President of the Academic Staff
Union of Polytechnics, Mr. Usman Dutse, said members of the body were
always being cautioned against extorting and sexually victimising
students.
“The students should report to the
management. If they want the situation to be addressed, they have to
report such lecturers. If perhaps they are afraid, they could report
under condition of anonymity and such lecturers will be dealt with. But
when they keep quiet, nothing much can be done. We hear these things too
and we usually caution our members,” he said.
Sleeping for marks: Ex-female student’s account
While male students hire prostitutes,
female students have to sleep with the randy lecturers themselves or
they risk failing. For them, there is no option of hiring a prostitute
or paying with cash in order to pass.
A former student of the school, simply
called Mercy, who graduated in 2014, narrated her experience to our
correspondent in Lagos.
She said, “All along, I was a very
serious student, and of course, I should. I was sent to the school to
study, not to sleep with lecturers to get marks.
“I didn’t do my National Diploma in
Auchi Poly. I only did my HND there. I was not exposed to that kind of
practice in my previous school. Probably it was not rampant there. When I
got to Auchi Poly, I didn’t know those lecturers had set their eyes on
me until when it was time to do my project. All the courses I offered
while in the school, I never got more than a C, maybe in one or two. I
did have lots of Ds and Es, and sometimes Fs, despite studying and
writing well. That is why I graduated with just a pass from the school.
“When it was time for project, I never
knew why this particular lecturer who taught us Public Sector Accounting
in HND 1 was frustrating me. He also took us Financial Management in
HND 2. He was my project supervisor. I submitted 10 project topics to
him, but he didn’t approve any. I started submitting project topics to
him right from the beginning of the first semester in HND 2, but he
didn’t approve any until it got to mid-second semester. It got to a
point when I was frustrated and felt like committing suicide. So I
approached him one day, ‘Sir, I don’t even have any project topic idea.
Please tell me what topic to work on.’ He replied, ‘You’re funny. It’s
because you don’t know what to do like your colleagues. Go and ask what
your friends are doing. Have you ever come to greet me in my office?’ I
became dumb, couldn’t utter a word. I made up my mind never to succumb
to his pressure. That’s why he approved my project topic in the middle
of second semester when most students had gone far ahead of me in
writing almost all the chapters of theirs.
“When he finally approved it, I started
rushing through it. He approved the last chapter of my project two days
before the day of defence. I was helpless, but there was nothing I could
do but to accept my fate. On the day he approved it, I had to sleep in a
business centre in the school to write, type, print, make photocopies
and spiral-bind it. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t take my bath. I slept in
the school till the morning of the day of defence. I couldn’t go to the
hostel for two days. In the morning of the day of defence, I showed up
and tried my best. After my presentation, he shook my hand and refused
to let it go. He was practically fondling with my fingers. He asked me,
‘You think you are smart, right?’ It was when the final results came
that I knew what he was talking about.
“Other lecturers who took us Managerial
Economics, Accounting Theory and Practice and some others were like
that. Very randy people. The lecturer teaching us Taxation had his only
special way. His case was different from others. No matter what you
wrote, you could never get more than a C grade. He could set his eyes on
and sleep with a female student, but that didn’t translate to special
marks. His was not a quid-pro-quo situation. We were always scared of
him. He was a great womaniser.
“If a lady refused to give him sex, he
would frustrate her. If he saw a guy hanging out frequently with the
lady he had set his eyes on, he would assume the guy to be the lady’s
boyfriend. He then set his eyes on the guy. He would take the guy as his
competitor and the reason why the lady refused him. He would frustrate
him by failing him over and over again until the guy was given a notice
of withdrawal. We ladies used to pray that the man shouldn’t like us.”
Mercy said she wished she didn’t school
in the institution, adding, “but to get an admission is not easy in
this country. I am carrying a pass certificate around because of what I
passed through in those lecturers’ hands. I do wish sometimes I didn’t
school in Nigeria.”
“I tried reporting, but the lecturers
would tell us they’re irremovable from the system. They wielded great
influence, they claimed. ‘If you like, go and report to the rector,
there’s nothing she can do,’ they would say,” she said of the lecturers.
Why students give in
Sexual harassment in tertiary
institutions is used as a tool to create a fear of the future in the
minds of the students by the lecturers who indulge in it, a
psychologist, Mrs. Moyo Owolabi, said.
She said, “The students want good grades
to boost their Grade Point Averages, which have an eternal influence on
the way they are treated in the job market later in life. Everyone
knows that most companies hire based on the academic result a candidate
has.
“If you don’t have a minimum of 2-1,
for instance, there are some jobs you cannot apply for. They tell you
specifically it’s a minimum of 2-1. So the desperation for good marks
will always be there. The lecturers too know this, and they use it to
exploit the students. ‘If you want a good score, sleep with me or pay
with money.’ That’s what they say. In many tertiary institutions, this
is happening.”
The institution’s spokesperson, Mr.
Mustapha Oshiobugie, asked students to report the lecturers to the
school authorities, vowing that lecturers who harass their students
sexually would be sanctioned if found guilty after investigation.
He said, “We hear all these things, but
they are false. When we ask students to report such lecturers, they
wouldn’t come forward. No lecturer is above the law here, so when
students come forward with reports, we will question the lecturer, but
they wouldn’t come.
“We tell them that if perhaps they are
afraid, they should tell their parents to report on their behalf, but we
don’t see anyone. The students can also write us with proof and we will
look into the allegations.
“We cannot just question a lecturer
without a proof. There are policies in place which allow us to deal with
such lecturers, but we need the students to report first, not just
carrying rumours about. Our former rector — Dr. (Mrs.) Philipa Idogho —
even gave her phone numbers to the students, but they wouldn’t report.
And we can’t take on a lecturer based on rumours.
“They have the opportunity to report to
even the Dean of Student Affairs, or why do we have him? We encourage
our students to avail themselves of the opportunity to report.”
An education advocate in Lagos, Ms Viola
Akhigbe, told our correspondent via Twitter that it was high time the
authorities set up structures to fight sexual harassment in all forms in
the institution.
She said of sexual harassment, “I think
it is one of the most horrible developments of our time. In all
fairness, some tertiary institutions in Nigeria, as in other parts of
the world, have put structures in place to prevent incidences of sexual
harassment, such as policies, increased awareness and heavy sanctions.
Unfortunately, the effects of these measures have not been significant
enough to stop the perpetrators.
“In the first place, we need to see
sexual harassment, not as a school problem, but as a societal issue. It
is a social crime which requires a whole societal response. Institutions
need to be more articulate, decisive, sincere and transparent in their
policy provisions and procedures for handling incidences of sexual
harassment so that people are not only aware, but can also trust that
justice will be served.
“Students themselves have to become
smarter in handling such cases. Technology can definitely be helpful
here, because evidence is also important. Our society is becoming more
alive to issues of social responsibility and technology has been such a
blessing. So lecturers, and indeed institutions, should not imagine that
they will continue to get away with sexual harassment. It just must
stop!”
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