The 17-year-old student of the
University of Ilorin said she had asked her lecturer for help on two occasions.
The first time, she requested
assistance with signing her course form after she became frustrated with the
official responsible for authenticating the document. Later, she spoke to him
about her inability to pay for a matriculation gown at a crowded campus bank.
The Arts Education teacher,
introduced by a graduate friend to help keep an eye on her academic progress,
never asked for a romantic relationship nor propositioned her, the 200 level
student said.
Then, one day in February this
year, the man locked his office while she was still inside, pushed her to a
table and raped her. The man covered her mouth to stifle screams and later left
her alone in the office after the encounter.
The accused staff, Solomon
Olowookere, a senior lecturer, denied the allegations. He said he had helped
the student multiple times but denied there was any possibility of a sexual
incident between them. Mr Olowookere said the story was made-up.
But multiple interviews with
senior university officials, including the head of Department of Arts
Education, the dean of Faculty of Education and the dean of Students’ Affairs,
confirmed the attack occurred.
The officials said Mr Olowookere
had admitted to them he assaulted the girl and had pleaded for help, but later
changed his testimony. They said in committing the act, the lecturer abused his
position further by increasing the student’s test score as compensation.
The interviews, conducted by a
panel set up by the university to review the case, formed the basis for a
recommendation the lecturer be dismissed. Two months after the report was submitted to the authorities, the university is yet to act,
either by adopting or rejecting it. The lecturer has also remained in the
employment of the institution.
The vice chancellor of the
university, Sulyman Abdulkareem, said he would prefer not to comment on the
matter because it “was in court” already. He said the school would make its
decision known later.
A spokesperson for the
university, Tunde Akogun, also declined comment, saying he had not been briefed
on the case.
Together, the report provides a
rich coverage of a case that has shocked staff and students of the university,
one of Nigeria’s oldest and best-known tertiary institutions. In the age of
#MeToo, it sheds light on the challenge of rampant sexual harassment in
Nigerian schools and how institutions struggle to check its occurrence or
manage the fallouts.
With no reliable statistics,
little is known about the exact scale of the problem, particularly as few cases
go to court. But many universities have in the last year been enmeshed in
sexual harassment scandals as reported in the media, especially those involving
lecturers trading marks for sex.
In June, the Ekiti State
University said it questioned a lecturer after a video circulated on the
Internet showing the official trying to sleep with his student in return for
high scores.
Between April and June 2018,
three Nigerian universities – Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Lagos,
and Lagos State University – faced similar scandals. In the most widely
reported case, the Obafemi Awolowo University sacked a professor, Richard
Akindele, for demanding sex from a student, Monica Osagie, in exchange for
marks.
Ms. Osagie released a secretly-recorded
conversation with the lecturer that was widely circulated on social media. Mr
Akindele was sentenced in December 2018 to two years in prison, a rare
prosecution success for a matter whose judicial prospect experts say is usually
undermined by the inability to gather formidable evidence.
In building its case, the
University of Ilorin panel said it relied on a surfeit of interviews and a
recording of Mr Olowookere’s admission of guilt.
The panel repeatedly interviewed
Mr Olowookere and his accuser – whose name PREMIUM TIMES has decided to
withhold since she might be stigmatised. The panel also interrogated two deans,
the head of department, two faculty professors, and the lecturer responsible
for signing course forms.
Denying rape
In his first testimony, Mr
Olowookere said his accuser was introduced to him by a former student he
supervised, and that the girl later sought his help to sign her course form
after the staff who should have done so, called the level adviser, seemed
difficult to track. She also complained about not being able to pay for her
matriculation gown because the bank was congested.
He said he introduced the student
to the level adviser who later signed the form and nothing happened beyond
that. He said the next day he was summoned to the dean’s office, accused of
raping the student.
Mr Olowookere hinged his
rejection of the probability of rape on the fact that the corridor to his
office was always busy and if anyone had screamed, students would have been
attracted. That is more so since the level adviser, a photocopy vendor and
another lecturer were around that day.
Second, he said the
air-conditioner in his office never worked since he took up the space, as a
result his windows were always open. He also said if indeed the girl was raped,
she would have cried out of his office and her clothes would not have been
intact.
Mr Olowookere said at a second
meeting with faculty professors and the girl, her guardian and a lawyer, that
the guardian told him he did not rape the girl and that “she was not a virgin
as she claimed”. He said the guardian said tests conducted on the girl turned
negative and that it was a “set-up”.
At a third meeting, he said he
was informed by the head of department, Folakemi Adeniyi-Egbeola, that the
faculty was trying to prevail on the student to drop the matter, and that he
should pay N5 million as damages for the case to be resolved. When he said he
had no such money, he was asked to pay N1 million instead. He declined still,
and was later made to face a faculty panel and was queried by the registrar of
the school about two weeks after the controversy started.
When asked why he offered to
resign if he was not guilty, the lecturer who has worked with the school for
five years, said he was advised by friends that men stood little chance of
being believed in rape charges.
“They said some things that are
almost true; that when an allegation of this nature is raised against a man,
people would listen to the female; that I would be ridiculed and put to shame
and honestly, the girl was given more attention than me,” he was quoted as
saying.
Mr Olowookere said he later
withdrew the resignation after being so advised. Asked why the girl would have
chosen him for a frame-up from amongst all other lecturers, he said he did not
know.
Asking for justice
The victim contradicted most of
Mr Olowookere’s claims.
The student said she first met
the lecturer few weeks after she was transferred from the Faculty of Social
Sciences to Education. She said she was at the level adviser’s office when Mr
Olowookere asked her to get him water from one of the shops. She delivered.
She said on another day, she met
the man when she had issues with signing her course form. She said Mr
Olowookere assured he could sign the form personally since his signature was
recognised in the faculty and could be honoured. The level adviser later signed
the form, and she returned to the lecturer’s office to inform him not to
bother. She also paid for her matriculation gown after initial difficulty.
The student said as she was
leaving the faculty, Mr Olowookere drove in and asked her to see him in his
office. There, the lecturer showed her her script for a course test he was only
asked by the head of department to help invigilate.
She scored 24 over 40, but he
offered to raise to 30. The student said she declined the offer. He said the
lecturer continued and said the course was tedious, and she did not argue with
him again.
She said the lecturer started
asking about her state and church and finally allowed her leave. But as she
stood up and took her bag, the man locked the door. She said she tried to open
the door but he would not allow her. The duo struggled before he pushed her to
a table.
She said she tried to scream but
the man covered her mouth with his hand. The attacker pulled down her underwear
and forcefully penetrated her. After the incident, he left her in the office.
“I wore my cloth and walked out
of his office to one corner as I did not want anybody to see me,” she said.
It was her first sexual
experience, she said. Asked by the committee what signs she felt, she described
swelling in her genitals. She said she reported to the hospital hours later,
and was told she was late in coming.
“They said whatever test they would
have done then there would have been a lot of evidence. I went a day after the
incident and they did not find much of him in me. I had swelling but no bruises
at all,” she said.
There was no blood stain on her
clothe after the alleged attack, the student said.
“Semen, I don’t know about that.
But as for blood stain, there was no blood stain on my underwear. I did not do
proper scrutiny of my underwear I just soaked it in water because it was not
something I want to be talking about.”
The committee pressed further:
“Or maybe he did not penetrate? He only attempted to?” She responded: “He did.
In the medical report it was stated there.”
Asked why she did struggle or
shout, especially since the man covered her mouth with one hand, meaning he
used only one to attack her, she answered, “I want to believe that I have some
level of strength, but not enough to overpower him to make my way out of his
office.”
On why she turned down the favour
of a score upgrade, she answered: “First of all, I am Christian and it is
against my religion to have aid to enable me pass a course. In my family they
won’t encourage failure.”
The panel pressed further:
Q: From what you have said,
this thing definitely happened, but the other party said that it did not happen
at all; are you sure you are not lying?
A: “I am not lying sir.”
Q: Are you trying to implicate
him for some reasons? You are a good Christian, you should know that God is
watching you and God is always with the righteous. You know the implication of
getting him involved in this?”
A: “Yes, I do sir. For a case as
delicate as this one, I don’t think anybody in his right frame of mind would
want to punish somebody for what he did not do. He has wronged me in any way. I
have never met him before. I can’t just wake up and say I don’t not like this
man. All of these things have been a lot for me. I was supposed to be in Abuja
now by my father had to cancel all his appointments to enable me honour the
invitation to appear before this committee. My family is under a lot of
pressure.”
The committee said it consoled
the student not to cry and commended her courage. It also asked her about the
N5 million or N1 million demand. She said proceedings and charges were all done
by the lawyer and only the lawyer could answer the question. PREMIUM TIMES
could not reach the lawyer for comments.
Asked what she wanted from the
Mr Olowookere, she responded:
“In as much as people committed
offence or crime, rape cases are very rampant in Nigeria and people don’t want
to hear about it because it is stigma. If at all I should be an example to the
coming generation, there have to be processes and procedures. Dr. S.K.
Olowookere to the legal people is a criminal. Right now, a criminal is let
loose walking around the street. Who knows whether he has been doing this
before or this is the first time. The law should be allowed to take its just
course. He should be jailed if tried and found guilty.”
When contacted, Mr Olowookere said,
“That’s a lie. I have never done such.” Asked whether it was consensual sex, he
insisted without clarifying that “I have never done such, never. And I will
never do it.”
Told that his senior colleagues
involved in the case said he admitted he raped the student, he said “That is a
misguided information. It is not true.”
He said the newspaper can carry
out its investigation since the lady has gone to court.
More testimonies
While Mr Olowookere told the
panel he did no wrong, his senior colleagues said he had earlier admitted
assaulting the student. To some, he said the sex was consensual, and to another
he blamed the devil.
The dean of the faculty, Medinat
Salman, a professor, said when the matter first came to her, she invited senior
professors and Mr Olowookere to meet with the student and her family. There,
the lecturer said the intercourse was consensual, but the student insisted it
was forceful.
She said at that instance, the
lecturer confessed before all present that the allegation was true. She said
they tried to pacify the family and pleaded that the school would handle the
matter administratively.
At a second meeting, Mr
Olowookere came with his wife and prostrated while his wife knelt as they
apologised to the student’s family. She said the matter was reported to the
deputy vice chancellor and the registrar.
Professor D. O. Durosaro, who
headed a faculty panel to probe the matter, also said the lecturer confessed
but later denied.
The Dean of student’s affairs,
L.T. Ajibade, a professor, said the lecturer admitted during a meeting with him
that he raped the girl but said it was the work of the devil. It was Mr Ajibade
who first confronted Mr Olowookere with a list of his four alleged offences.
First, he showed the student her
test score; second, he altered the score; third he raped the girl and fourth
the sexual assault took place in his office.
Mr Ajibade said when the gravity
of the offences dawned on Mr Olowookere, he broke down and wept. He said there
was solid evidence of the confession as the interaction with the lecturer was
recorded.
Still denying rape
Confronted with the counter
testimonies, Mr Olowookere stood his ground.
But asked this time whether he
changed the girl’s test score, he said, “I wouldn’t know.”
Told that the dean of his faculty
said he had confessed to the offence, he said he only cried and that he cried
because the allegation was “false”.
At the final meeting, the
committee finally invited the student into the venue of the meeting to meet Mr
Olowookere face to face.
She insisted the man raped her
and reaffirmed her claim that he adjusted her score from 24 to 30. Asked to
respond to the allegations, Mr Olowookere said he could not remember.
The committee in its report said
Mr Olowookere “lied and was not truthful” in his submission before the Staff
Disciplinary and Appeals Committee.
“Based on the totality of
evidence before the committee, Dr. Solomon Kehinde Olowookere was found
culpable of: wrongly, deliberately and forcefully sexually assaulting” the
student in his office on February 27. The committee recommended his dismissal.
It cautioned the level adviser,
Mr Badru, that the controversy might have been averted if he had attended to
students as expected, and signed their course forms without duress.
It advised the head of
department, Mrs Adeniyi-Egbeola, to be on the lookout whenever students flock
around a particular lecturer.
Culled: PremiumTimes
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com