UI, UNILAG set-up c’ttees to control sexual harassment

The University of Ibadan yesterday inaugurated an ad-hoc committee to investigate claims of sexual misconducts and harassments of students on the campus.

The vice chancellor of the University, Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka, who announced this, said the recent exposé of sexual misconduct in the Nigerian Universities was deeply disturbing.

Prof. Olayinka said the development necessitated a reminder that the University of Ibadan maintains the tradition and standard of zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Similarly, the management of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) has set up a Task Force on Sexual Harassment in continuation of its campaign against the menace and other related forms of inappropriate behavior.

The Principal Assistant Registrar, Communication Unit of the University, Mrs Taiwo Oloyede, in a statement, said that the Task Force is a Standing Committee which will send monthly reports of its activities to the Vice Chancellor.

UNILAG management had earlier set up a Panel headed by a Professor of Public Law and incumbent Dean of the Faculty of Law, Ayodele V. Atsenuwa to probe the allegations of sexual harassment levelled against its lecturers, Dr Boniface Igbeneghu and Dr Samuel Oladipo as well as other related cases.

Dr Igbeneghu of the Department of European Languages and Integrated Studies, Faculty of Arts and Dr Oladipo of the Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences were both suspended by the University management following their involvement in a sex-for-grade documentary published by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) targeted at lecturers in some West African Universities who harassed their students for sex in exchange for grades or marks.