Sex-for-mark scandal: UNILAG lecturer, Boniface, suspended

Following the exposure in a 13-minute sex-for-grades documentary published on Monday by British Broadcasting Corporation, the management of University of Lagos yesterday suspended Dr Boniface Igbeneghu of the Department of European Languages and Integrated Studies, Faculty of Arts.

Boniface had been caught in a sting operation by the BBC.

The university authority, rising from an emergency meeting yesterday, suspended him indefinitely.

BBC Africa Eye, after interviewing several students who had been abused, sent undercover journalists posing as students to lecturers in the habit of harassing students.

Boniface, who is the head pastor of a Foursquare Gospel Church in Lagos, on his first meeting with one of the journalists, who posed as a 17-year-old admission seeker, commented on her appearance.

He revealed that there was a location inside the UNILAG Staff club known as ‘cold room’ where lecturers take female students for sexual pleasure.

On his final meeting with the journalist, he attempted to show her the ‘cold room’ experience by requesting a kiss.

BBC Africa Eye said that despite repeated requests, the lecturer failed to react to the allegations of sexual harassment. The trending video chronicled cases of sexual harassment of female students by some lecturers in some West African Universities including University of Lagos.

Following this exposure, the Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria has also ordered Boniface to step down from all ministerial assignments. The Church in a statement issued by its national secretary, Reverend Ikechukwu Ugbaja, dissociated itself from the act which it described as heinous and unscriptural.

A statement issued by the Principal Assistant Registrar, Communication Unit of UNILAG, Taiwo Oloyede, said the management had ordered the shutdown of the Staff Club ‘Cold Room’ mentioned in the documentary for further investigation.