CSOs beg Tinubu to sign bill prohibiting sexual harassment in tertiary institutions

From Mustapha Adamu, Kano

The Anti-Sexual Harassment Advocacy Cluster, ASHA, has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to assent the Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Institution (prohibition) bill into law.
ASHA noted that the bill, if signed into law by the President, would help put an end to several cases of sexual harassment of undergraduates in tertiary institutions by lecturers.
The ASHA Cluster, comprises different Civil Society Organizations including; Centre for Awareness on Justice and Accountability, CAJA, Youth Alive Foundation YAF, Gender Mobile Initiative, Village Debbo Care Initiative, VDCare, and Sefjamil Media and Development, SMD.
Others include; Joint Association of Persons with Disability, JONAPWD, Gombe State Chapter, Women`s Rights and Health Project, WRAHP and Connected Development—Akwa Ibom State, CODE, working with other partners to address the prevalence of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
The CSOs made the appeal in Kano during a press conference, held at Tahir Guest Palace, on Friday.
The spokesman of the ASHA Cluster, Kabiru Dakata, who is the Executive Director of CAJA, expressed concern over prevalence of sexual harassment in Nigerian tertiary institutions, adding that it presents a different and grim picture, compared to other incidents across the globe.
He described as disturbing, cases of sexual harassments being recorded in Nigeria’s citadels of higher learning, an environment believed to be a molding and filtering ground for building virile leaders and intellectuals that will mount the stage of leadership tomorrow.
He recalled that: “In April 2018, Professor Richard Akindele of the Department of Accounting Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife was accused to have sexually harassed a female student named Monica Osagie (Alexandra, 2018; Lawal, 2018). Their recorded exchanges where the said lecturer was verbally harassing the female student was disclosed to the media and that became a matter of nation-wide discuss.
“Recently, the students of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, protested against persistent sexual harassment by the Dean of the faculty, Prof Cyril Ndifon.”
Dakata, however, expressed satisfaction that the 9th National Assembly passed the Anti-Sexual Harassment bill, which seeks to promote and protect ethical standards in tertiary institutions.