UNICAL suspends professor over ‘sexual abuse’

The University of Calabar (UniCal) has suspended the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Prof. Cyril Ndifon, over allegations of sexual abuse of female student.

A statement by the institution’s Public Relations department, the suspension takes effect from August 17, 2023.

The decision to suspend Prof. Ndifon came as a response to his handling of a query issued to him by the university management.

In the wake of his response, the university Vice Chancellor, Professor Florence Banku Obi, expressed dissatisfaction with his explanations, leading to the subsequent suspension.

He has also been placed on suspension pending an investigation into the allegations.

This investigation will be carried out by a panel that will be set up specifically for this purpose.

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In a viral video on social media on Monday, the students of the faculty accused Ndifon of sexually assaulting and harassing them.

The students were seen storming the office of the school’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Florence Obi, bearing placards with inscriptions such as, “Ndifon must go for our sanity”, “We are tired of buying law journals”, “We are tired of lecturers not attending classes”, and “Law girls are not your bonanza; Prof. Ndifon should stop grabbing us and others.”

An online medium, CrossRiverWatch, had, however, quoted Ndifon as denying the allegations, stating that the protest was orchestrated by individuals within the faculty who held a grudge against him.

“For Christ’s sake, I don’t teach Year 2 B or Year one students, so I don’t know why they have chosen to drag my name into the mud. This was why I said earlier that the allegations were lies, cooked from the pit of hell, just to destroy a reputation that I had spent decades building,” he was partly quoted as saying.

Speaking on Tuesday, the university’s spokesperson, Eyo Bassey, said the school management had met with the aggrieved parties.

“They were invited by the vice-chancellor. The staffers of the Faculty of Law were invited to come and address management as well as their senior faculty staff about whatever might have been their complaints. They spoke and raised a lot of issues. It is not even just about sexual allegations. There are all kinds of other issues they raised and management commended them for bringing the issues to their attention.”