UNILAG gives update on probe involving professor accused sexual exploitation

The management of University of Lagos, Akoka, has given the situation report on the probe panel constituted over the allegation of sexual abuse involving a lecturer in the university.

The Principal Assistant Registrar, Communications Unit of the institution, Taiwo Oloyede, spoke with CAMPUS REPORTER by telephone on Sunday.

The university set up the panel three weeks ago after a student, whose identity remains unravelled, accused a professor of English studies, Olusegun Awonusi, of sexual exploitation and shared explicit pictures of the lecturer.

She shared her story and the pictures with blogger Linda Ikeji who then reported on the scandal.

The student said molestation is a way for Mr Awonusi, a former commissioner of Education in Ogun State and former vice-chancellor of Tai Solarin University of Education, Ogun State. In addition, she said she was reaching out to the public to stop the professor’s victimisation as many students had allegedly been his victims.

Speaking on the work of the probe panel, Mrs Oloyede, the assistant registrar, told CAMPUS REPORTER that in order to follow the due process the panel had been receiving memoranda in order to ensure a proper investigation.

“Following due process, right now we are still receiving memoranda and after that, the panel will now start sitting proper. But now, we are still receiving memoranda from the public,” she said. “Even if you have any valuable information, please share it with us.”

When CAMPUS REPORTER asked if there was a deadline for the submission of memoranda, Mrs Oloyede told our correspondent that “to make it as transparent as possible, I am sure in the next one week or two, we should close the call for memoranda because it has been on for about three weeks.”

On a statement of the vice-chancellor that the student’s non-appearance before the panel could hamper the process of the probe, she said the VC misrepresented.

She said: “Sometimes we are always quoted out of context. What he was trying to say was to encourage the young lady to make herself available. Maybe not even through conventional ways. She can come through any means”, Mrs Oloyede said.

Recently, the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, dismissed a lecturer, Richard Akindele, after he was exposed for soliciting sex to pass a student, Monica Osaghie