I was denied certificate after exposing randy lecturer, says Osagie

By Musa Adamu

Monica Osagie, the lady at the centre of the sex-for-mark scandal that led to the sack of a Professor Richard Akindele from the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife in Osun State, yesterday said she’s yet to get her certificate from the institution after exposing the randy lecturer.
Osagie disclosed this at a one-day public hearing on “Sexual Harassment of Students in Tertiary Educational Institution Prohibition Bill”, organized by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, chaired by Senator Bamidele Opeyemi (APC Ekiti Central) in Abuja.
Akindele, a professor of Management Accounting at the OAU, was recently dismissed and jailed after being found guilty of demanding for five days of sex from the then postgraduate student of the institution.
“I was denied my certificate because Professor Akindele went to jail. They said if she could incriminate Akindele, then she is not going to get her certificate. They kept saying, ‘she failed, she’s not going to get her certificate. She can either come back or re-sit all the courses again’, and that is not possible,” Osagie explained.
To curb the menace in tertiary institutions across the country, she canvassed for middlemen who can interact between students and lecturers.
The victim also pointed out that “It is not always a case of students not being intelligent for their failures in most courses. Many lecturers want students to cram what they taught words for words just to look for excuses of failing their targeted students, especially the female ones.”
“We should provide a mechanism where instead of student interacting with the lecturer, there should be a middleman, probably a graduate, a PhD holder, where the lecturer does not have to interact with the students,” she added.
Osagie further maintained that it was not true that female students often harass their lecturers, describing such allegation as malicious and should be discountenanced by all.
In her submission, Executive Director, Youth Alive Foundation, YAF, Dr. Uduak Okon said that the Independent Prohibitions Committee should be protected because the committee was the first point of redress for students.
“The committee is where the cases of assault can be reported, it can investigate and sanctions can happen. It is only when students are not happy can go out externally to high court.
“We have to ensure that we protect that committee so that it does what it’s meant to be,”She said.