06:24
thing in tertiary institutions in Nigeria and
globally, with many people tagging it as the
“greatest education epidemic” ever known.
But in Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, Edo State, one
of the first four federal polytechnics established
in the country — in 1963 — frustrated students
told our correspondent the extent some randy
male lecturers go before they could pass them in
their courses.
“The better ones among the lecturers give us the
option of paying by cash for the course or
finding a lady who will sleep with them on our
behalf before we can pass. Passing a course
costs us between N10,000 and N20,000,” a
Higher National Diploma student of the
Department of Accountancy, simply called Alex,
told Saturday PUNCH on the telephone.
However, the downside to choosing to pay by
cash rather than sex, according to Alex, is that
the student can never get more than a C grade.
He continued, “Paying by cash is for those who
want just a pass. But if I find a girl who will
sleep with the lecturer on my behalf, I’ll get an A,
for sure. I’ll get at least 90 per cent in the
course, even if I write nothing exceptional in the
exam. This option of paying with money instead
of sex only comes from about one or two of the
lecturers out of 10.
“Some of the lecturers tell us point blank that
they don’t need our money. They will tell us to
find them ladies who will sleep with them before
we can pass their courses. They teach very
important courses, so you cannot ignore them.
They will keep failing us until we’re given notice
of withdrawal from the institution. It’s something
that has happened to a friend who claimed to be
a born-again Christian. The guy wrote the Unified
Tertiary Matriculation Examination afresh and is
now at the University of Benin.
“So this is what we guys do: If I have a loyal
girlfriend and I beg her, she can sleep with the
lecturer on my behalf. The lecturer picks the
hotel of his choice on the day we’ve agreed. I
will book for it. I’ll order for the meal he’ll eat
before the action. He will sleep with my girl and
give me my A. I’ll give the lady my name so that
the lecturer will know she’s from me.
“But if my girlfriend says no, then I have to hire
someone else. I will get a prostitute from
outside, pay her, book for the hotel the lecturer
has picked, order for their meal and then I get an
A in his course. I have done this for three
lecturers now.
“The reality is we can’t pass their courses by
mere brilliance. Only one or two lecturers are
sane in my department. They don’t ask for
anything. We read hard to pass their own
courses. For the rest, sex is the key. This is why
most of us don’t fidget when exam period
approaches. We know the way out. The lecturers
have shown us.”
Another male student in the Department of
Accountancy who spoke with Saturday PUNCH,
simply named Dickson, in HND 1, said he usually
budgets some money right from the beginning of
the semester to hire prostitutes who will sleep
with the randy lecturers on his behalf.
Joseph
He said, “I love my girlfriend and can’t allow her
to sleep for me. Some other guys do that. They
beg their girlfriends to help them. It’s not a
coded thing. We all discuss it. The prostitutes
make serious money from us, all because of the
extent these lecturers have gone.
“Apart from the money my parents give me, I
hustle on my own in the school. If I want to pass
a course now, I need to budget at least N20,000
for it — N7,000 for hotel booking, N3,000 for
meal and N10,000 to pay the prostitute.”
Asked how he hustles on the campus, he said he
co-founded a computer centre outside the school
premises from which he makes some money.
Alex and Dickson told Saturday PUNCH that the
randy lecturers usually pick the expensive hotels
in the city to enjoy the pleasure at the cost to
the students.
“Some of the hotels are along the Benin-Okene
Expressway, Ekpoma-Auchi Road, Benin-Auchi
Road, etc. The least amount for booking is
N5,000,” they said.
A lawyer and social commentator in Lagos,
Bisoye Odubona, said the “devilish practice” the
lecturers had caused the students to indulge in
could turn them into riff-raff.
He said, “How will a student get N20,000 to pay
the ‘total package’ on a course, all because of a
randy lecturer? Don’t be surprised that these
students might be stealing laptops and
smartphones of their colleagues and selling them
in order to raise money just to get an A.
“I know sexual harassment happens in tertiary
institutions, just like everywhere else, but I never
knew it had gone to this level. These are the
lecturers turning our graduates to riff-raff. They
deserve a cruel punishment if they are ever
caught and I hope they are.”
All-expenses paid sex nights
According to some other students who spoke
with Saturday PUNCH, sex is the only bailout
option from these randy lecturers’ snares.
But even the sex option doesn’t come cheap.
“There was a lecturer then, a very randy one,
who taught us Public Sector Accounting in HND
1. That was around 2013. He would tell us
openly in the class, ‘I don’t want your money. I
am richer than you. Give me a girl and you get
your A,’” an ex-student of the department, simply
known as Sam, who now works in Port Harcourt,
told our correspondent.
He added, “There is a popular hotel along the
Benin-Auchi Road where these lecturers used to
tell us to book when they wanted to sleep with
the ladies we gave them. It is one of the most
expensive hotels to rent in the city. It’s also a
bit distant from the school, so they would not be
seen, I guess. They chose whatever hotel they
wanted and we would pay for it. It’s an overnight
session. An all-expenses paid sex night for them.
“Some other lecturers gave us two options to get
good marks — sex or money. If you chose sex,
you were sure of getting grade A in the course.
If you chose money, you would get C, D or E,
depending on how much you paid. The least was
N10,000 per course when I was in HND 1 and
N15,000 for HND 2 students. Out of the 10
courses I offered in HND 1, three of the lecturers
wanted sex only. Four others would give you the
option of sex or money, depending on the grade
you wanted.
“In HND 2, I offered nine courses. Five of the
lecturers taking the courses were highly randy.
Only two were good lecturers. They would give
you marks according to what you wrote. Those
two were highly disciplined. There was a
particular lecturer who would tell us to come to
class (even on Sundays) at so-so time. He would
be in class 10 minutes before the time and start
teaching empty class if no student was around.
He would be talking to the board and empty
seats until we arrived. He was very strict, but I
liked him.”
Apart from the Accountancy Department,
Saturday PUNCH also gathered that this practice
also happens in some other departments, for
example, the departments of business
administration and management, public
administration, banking and finance, and so on.
“It’s only that the practice was rampant in
Accounting Department. Everybody knew that,”
said Moses Franklin, a former student of the
school who graduated in 2014 and now works
and lives in Lagos.
He added, “The situation is just not too obvious
in some other departments. If you sleep with the
lecturer, you get a good A, like 90 per cent, even
if you know nothing. Sex is their food. They
cannot do without it. They are cursed with it.
Alex
“I remember a certain lecturer then, one of the
randy ones, who was paralysed in an accident
while I was in HND 1. God was merciful on him,
he didn’t die. But despite that, the man came
into the class in a wheelchair one day and said,
‘The fact that I’m paralysed doesn’t mean I’m
impotent. I can still use my hands.’ From the way
he was making gestures, he meant he could still
use his hands to handle ladies’ breasts and
buttocks; a very mad man.”
“Sleep for two”
This is a slogan some students of the school
have coined from the situation, as explained by
Joseph, another HND 1 student of the
Department of Accountancy of the school.
He narrated how it works, “For the lecturers who
want only sex to pass us, they demand from the
ladies as well. Any lady who refuses to agree is
frustrated by the lecturer. But for us guys, since
they can’t have sex with us, they ask us to bring
somebody that will do the job for us.
“We hire prostitutes to do the job for us. We
rent the hotel room, pay for the lecturer’s meal,
then pay the prostitute some cash, depending on
our agreement.
“But surprisingly, some female students in our
department are also exploiting this situation to
make money for themselves. They tell us not to
go outside to hire prostitutes. Instead of paying
prostitutes, they ask us to let them assist us and
we pay them. But in the process, the female
student, apart from doing the male student a
favour, also does herself one. She sleeps with
the lecturer for the guy, for her own sake too
and she still gets paid by the male student.
“It’s called ‘sleep for two.’ The lady helps both
the guy and herself at once. Both of them get
As. But if the male student has a loyal girlfriend,
she does the job freely, except that the guy still
pays for the hotel booking and meal.”
“This is highly sickening,” an educationist in Port
Harcourt, Dr. Fidelia Peters, simply said, not
knowing what else to say when she heard about
the situation.She only added, “Those lecturers
deserve to be placed in front of the firing squad
and be got rid of. All of them will perhaps be
blaming Nigeria’s woes on corruption, but look at
it, are they not also corrupt?
“Talking about eliminating corruption, this is
where it should start from. How can we improve
or be intellectually sound if we are being taught
by these sorts of lecturers? How can our
education system improve? Not sure this is
possible.”
The President of the Academic Staff Union of
Polytechnics, Mr. Usman Dutse, said members of
the body were always being cautioned against
extorting and sexually victimising students.
“The students should report to the management.
If they want the situation to be addressed, they
have to report such lecturers. If perhaps they are
afraid, they could report under condition of
anonymity and such lecturers will be dealt with.
But when they keep quiet, nothing much can be
done. We hear these things too and we usually
caution our members,” he said.
Sleeping for marks: Ex-female student’s account
While male students hire prostitutes, female
students have to sleep with the randy lecturers
themselves or they risk failing. For them, there is
no option of hiring a prostitute or paying with
cash in order to pass.
A former student of the school, simply called
Mercy, who graduated in 2014, narrated her
experience to our correspondent in Lagos.
She said, “All along, I was a very serious
student, and of course, I should. I was sent to
the school to study, not to sleep with lecturers to
get marks.
“I didn’t do my National Diploma in Auchi Poly. I
only did my HND there. I was not exposed to
that kind of practice in my previous school.
Probably it was not rampant there. When I got to
Auchi Poly, I didn’t know those lecturers had set
their eyes on me until when it was time to do my
project. All the courses I offered while in the
school, I never got more than a C, maybe in one
or two. I did have lots of Ds and Es, and
sometimes Fs, despite studying and writing well.
That is why I graduated with just a pass from the
school.
“When it was time for project, I never knew why
this particular lecturer who taught us Public
Sector Accounting in HND 1 was frustrating me.
He also took us Financial Management in HND 2.
He was my project supervisor. I submitted 10
project topics to him, but he didn’t approve any. I
started submitting project topics to him right
from the beginning of the first semester in HND
2, but he didn’t approve any until it got to mid-
second semester. It got to a point when I was
frustrated and felt like committing suicide. So I
approached him one day, ‘Sir, I don’t even have
any project topic idea. Please tell me what topic
to work on.’ He replied, ‘You’re funny. It’s
because you don’t know what to do like your
colleagues. Go and ask what your friends are
doing. Have you ever come to greet me in my
office?’ I became dumb, couldn’t utter a word. I
made up my mind never to succumb to his
pressure. That’s why he approved my project
topic in the middle of second semester when
most students had gone far ahead of me in
writing almost all the chapters of theirs.
“When he finally approved it, I started rushing
through it. He approved the last chapter of my
project two days before the day of defence. I
was helpless, but there was nothing I could do
but to accept my fate. On the day he approved
it, I had to sleep in a business centre in the
school to write, type, print, make photocopies
and spiral-bind it. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t take my
bath. I slept in the school till the morning of the
day of defence. I couldn’t go to the hostel for
two days. In the morning of the day of defence, I
showed up and tried my best. After my
presentation, he shook my hand and refused to
let it go. He was practically handling with my
fingers. He asked me, ‘You think you are smart,
right?’ It was when the final results came that I
knew what he was talking about.
“Other lecturers who took us Managerial
Economics, Accounting Theory and Practice and
some others were like that. Very randy people.
The lecturer teaching us Taxation had his only
special way. His case was different from others.
No matter what you wrote, you could never get
more than a C grade. He could set his eyes on
and sleep with a female student, but that didn’t
translate to special marks. His was not a quid-
pro-quo situation. We were always scared of
him. He was a great womaniser.
“If a lady refused to give him sex, he would
frustrate her. If he saw a guy hanging out
frequently with the lady he had set his eyes on,
he would assume the guy to be the lady’s
boyfriend. He then set his eyes on the guy. He
would take the guy as his competitor and the
reason why the lady refused him. He would
frustrate him by failing him over and over again
until the guy was given a notice of withdrawal.
We ladies used to pray that the man shouldn’t
like us.”
Mercy said she wished she didn’t school in the
institution, adding, “but to get an admission is
not easy in this country. I am carrying a pass
certificate around because of what I passed
through in those lecturers’ hands. I do wish
sometimes I didn’t school in Nigeria.”
“I tried reporting, but the lecturers would tell us
they’re irremovable from the system. They
wielded great influence, they claimed. ‘If you
like, go and report to the rector, there’s nothing
she can do,’ they would say,” she said of the
lecturers.
Why students give in
Sexual harassment in tertiary institutions is used
as a tool to create a fear of the future in the
minds of the students by the lecturers who
indulge in it, a psychologist, Mrs. Moyo Owolabi,
said.
She said, “The students want good grades to
boost their Grade Point Averages, which have an
eternal influence on the way they are treated in
the job market later in life. Everyone knows that
most companies hire based on the academic
result a candidate has.
“If you don’t have a minimum of 2-1, for
instance, there are some jobs you cannot apply
for. They tell you specifically it’s a minimum of
2-1. So the desperation for good marks will
always be there. The lecturers too know this, and
they use it to exploit the students. ‘If you want a
good score, sleep with me or pay with money.’
That’s what they say. In many tertiary
institutions, this is happening.”
The institution’s spokesperson, Mr. Mustapha
Oshiobugie, asked students to report the
lecturers to the school authorities, vowing that
lecturers who harass their students sexually
would be sanctioned if found guilty after
investigation.
He said, “We hear all these things, but they are
false. When we ask students to report such
lecturers, they wouldn’t come forward. No
lecturer is above the law here, so when students
come forward with reports, we will question the
lecturer, but they wouldn’t come.
“We tell them that if perhaps they are afraid,
they should tell their parents to report on their
behalf, but we don’t see anyone. The students
can also write us with proof and we will look into
the allegations.
“We cannot just question a lecturer without a
proof. There are policies in place which allow us
to deal with such lecturers, but we need the
students to report first, not just carrying rumours
about. Our former rector — Dr. (Mrs.) Philipa
Idogho — even gave her phone numbers to the
students, but they wouldn’t report. And we can’t
take on a lecturer based on rumours.
“They have the opportunity to report to even the
Dean of Student Affairs, or why do we have him?
We encourage our students to avail themselves
of the opportunity to report.”
An education advocate in Lagos, Ms Viola
Akhigbe, told our correspondent via Twitter that
it was high time the authorities set up structures
to fight sexual harassment in all forms in the
institution.
She said of sexual harassment, “I think it is one
of the most horrible developments of our time. In
all fairness, some tertiary institutions in Nigeria,
as in other parts of the world, have put
structures in place to prevent incidences of
sexual harassment, such as policies, increased
awareness and heavy sanctions. Unfortunately,
the effects of these measures have not been
significant enough to stop the perpetrators.
“In the first place, we need to see sexual
harassment, not as a school problem, but as a
societal issue. It is a social crime which requires
a whole societal response. Institutions need to
be more articulate, decisive, sincere and
transparent in their policy provisions and
procedures for handling incidences of sexual
harassment so that people are not only aware,
but can also trust that justice will be served.
“Students themselves have to become smarter in
handling such cases. Technology can definitely
be helpful here, because evidence is also
important. Our society is becoming more alive to
issues of social responsibility and technology has
been such a blessing. So lecturers, and indeed
institutions, should not imagine that they will
continue to get away with sexual harassment. It
just must stop!”
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