Another sex-for-mark scandal rocks LASU

Barely three months after a professor, Richard Akindele, was sacked by the management of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) after being found culpable in a sexual harassment scandal, another professor in the Lagos state University (LASU) has been issued a query over alleged sexual assault of a female student.

Adekoya Martins, LASU’s spokesperson said Odubunmi Sunkanmi, an associate professor in the Department of Economics is a facing a joint action disciplinary committee of the school over the matter, stressing that the management of the institution has zero tolerance for such act.

Unknown to him, the student had sought the help of a non-governmental organisation to garner evidence to nail the lecturer.

Martins said the case, already before the disciplinary committee, would thereafter be forwarded to the university senate for consideration.

Meanwhile, Olayinka Amuni, the university registrar, said the sanction for such act once established would be dismissal. “Once we are able to establish that a staff engages in an illegal relationship with any student, the person is dismissed from the system because it is the height of academic irresponsibility,” Amuni had said.

The school management set up a probe panel and in June, Eyitope Ogunbodede, OAU vice-chancellor, announced that the governing council of the institution had approved the sack of the lecturer, “having found him guilty of all the charges against him.”

The dust was yet to settle on Akindele’s case when Joy Nwanna, a student of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), raised the alarm that Olusegun Awonusi, a professor at UNILAG, was demanding sexual favour from her.

Nwanna accused Awonusi, a lecturer in the English department of the institution, and former vice-chancellor of Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED), Ogun state, of habitually harassing female students each time they go to his office.

The student released semi-nude pictures of Awonusi in one of her “encounters” with him in his office.