(By Ifedimma Onwugbufor)
According to a publication on Vanguard newspaper of May 12th, 2016, a bill was sponsored by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and co-sponsored by 46 other senators which “seeks to completely prohibit any form of sexual relationship between lecturers and their students …” According to Senator Omo-Agege, “the nation’s institutions of higher learning must be sanitized to rid them of lecturers who saw female students as a ‘prize’”.
Of course, sadism is endemic and if nothing sells in Nigeria, it is hypocrisy and bigotry - they top the list. This one-way zombie faculty is the reason the same group of people who frustrated the removal of fuel subsidy in 2012, which would have augured better for the nation’s economy were it implemented, make up today’s government that is eventually effecting the same fuel subsidy removal after four years.
All of sudden, one of the greatest problems Nigeria faces in recent times is the number of sexual ecstasies and orgasms that lecturers enjoy with their students. How laughable. Why is Nigeria so blessed with citizens who think through the tip of their penises and the bump on their nipples? With many legislators that talk from every opening on their bodies, should Nigeria be glad or distraught? How does the sexual bout between a lecturer and the student affect the equivalence of the Naira to the Dollar? How does foreplay between a student and the lecturer affect the pump price of PMS? How does a twenty-minute seventh-heaven derail the establishment of good governance in every constituency in the federation? What marketplace is this that is referred to the National Assembly, by the way? What absurdity is this new bill that seeks to denigrate lecturers to a position of toys in the hands of their students?
First off, no responsible and diligent student would cheapen him or herself enough to have sex with the lecturer, under no circumstance. Many legislators married their spouses while they were students; now is this bill prohibiting lecturers from establishing mutual love relationships with their students; or is this referring to sexual harassment? In another light, anyone can feign abuse – in other words, a student who doesn’t attend classes, fulfill the requirements for the course under study and fails an examination, can wake up and cry, ‘abuse’?
This bill is a nonsensical effort raised by a bigot who is reacting to a personal issue that exists in his/her head or family. There is absolutely no justification to move such a bill in the first place; there are many levels of petitions that can establish when a student is victimized for failing to be laid by a lecturer. A confident student fulfills every requirement for a specific course which includes at least 75% lecture/class attendance, submission of projects, field work, assignments or term papers; attendance of mid-semester test, in addition to the final examination. Let it be known that a student who does not fulfill the required class attendance percentage according to Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC) is not admissible into the exam hall, except there are rational reasons which must have been communicated to the office of the Registrar as soon as the need arose.
Many times, students do not attend lectures, or sit for tests or other assessments but merely, memorize textbooks which they pour on their answer booklets should they have the opportunity to sit for the examinations. Such students insist on luring the lecturers into sexual relationships to get by, and when such efforts fail, they turn around to cry wolf.
The consequences of this bill under review are dire, and if Nigeria must redeem the academic glory of yesteryears, this bill should be paralyzed forthwith or reset to include every academic stakeholder. It is illogical, inappropriate, inane, and lacks credulity. The fact that one student was victimized by a lecturer does not pronounce all lecturers gullible and randy. Many lecturers who were discovered as failing students for not complying with their sexual invitations were dismissed without emoluments. Whenever such a case came up, a committee was usually setup and is made up of both the male and female genders. All investigations were delved into, summations were derived and all parties and proves were laid bare on the table. As soon as the fact of the case was established, the culprit (lecturer) was usually dismissed unceremoniously and this decision mostly dissipated to other institutions of higher learning to ensure that the lecturer would not be hired ever again in any institution.
Unfortunately, many students who accuse lecturers of sexual harassment do not either have sufficient proofs, or are basically unserious with their studies or perhaps, is clear case of love turned sour. A former president of Nigeria was once said to have started his journey to the marriage with his wife while she was his student in a College of Education. What the legislators should have done primarily would have been to investigate most of these sexual abuse cases, understand the background and proffer lasting solutions. If they are indeed, willing and astute enough to protect the educational sector of this country, besides a malicious attempt to silence lecturers, there should also be an inclusion of such penalty on a student who makes unfounded accusation of sexual abuse relating to a lecturer, or any student who offers to remunerate a lecturer to score a pass mark in a course in cash or kind with relevant evidences on ground. The same goes to any village head, member of the institution’s community, legislator, the Force, government workers, church leaders and other citizens who would cajole, coerce, pester or threaten any lecturer to pass a student in a specific course of study. This bill should portend an honest willingness to bring every culprit to book irrespective of the personalities involved, if it were moved for the benefit of all.
Like a social media commentator wrote in the thread of one of my posts, Nigerians are mostly bigots. They sanction only issues that favor their interests be it religious, tribal or socio-economic. When their wives, daughters or nieces fall victim, then they must use their powers to work against it. Otherwise, many lecturers in many universities are owed salaries running into several millions of naira, yet no one questions the relevant authorities who collect the requisite school fees from their students to the last kobo, but do not pay these teachers who risk their lives especially in war-torn zones, terrorism-prone areas, and far away from their kith, to offer their services wholeheartedly, their deserved monthly salaries.
Many of these lecturers have nuclear and extended families to carter for, bills to pay and many other expenditure to handle, yet no legislator has called for a bill that should question the seizure of or non-payment of salary arrears of lecturers in these unfortunate circumstances. In many institutions, lecturers are owed salaries from three, five, seven, eleven and even thirteen months; how many legislators can survive for five months without salaries and other ‘back-kicks’ to be frank?
What do you expect an adult who is irredeemably broke to do? A hungry adult is prone to any misdemeanor at all; if not, why were the legislators very desperate to serve their constituencies if not the presence of the associated remuneration and wherewithal such responsibilities would fetch them? If they were really interested in only serving the people without any gain, would they be so desperate – jumping from one political party to another, getting into a truce or the other and seeking political godfathers and godmothers everywhere?
In a nutshell, it would be a good thing to know that at last, the National Assembly has taken interest to bring lasting sanity to the educational sector but this must be universal in approach, rather than a malicious method that targets only a particular group in this sector. Any bill that must be passed should contain an all-inclusive clause that would hold both the lecturers, the students, the village heads, government workers, church leaders and all the citizens of this country, responsible for anything that is uncomplimentary in the delivery of sound education as well as protecting the rights of individuals in the pursuance of education; ensuring also, that every actor in a case is given a fair hearing and every stakeholder in a misdemeanor is punished, irrespective of who and how many culprits are involved. Lecturers are not the only actors in cases of sexual abuse in institutions of higher learning. In world where human rights is the fad, anyone can claim to be sexually abuse; but holistic investigations would either debunk or authenticate this claim and both the victim or the false alarm ‘blower’ should face the music thereof.
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