Sex for Grades: Victims to submit petition to UNIBEN authorities

A group of ex-female students and victims of sexual harassment in the University of Benin are set to submit a petition to the authorities by Friday next week. 

The ex-students who were from the Department of English and Literary Studies are led by Mr Aoiri Obaigbo, who convened the petition drive reports The Nation. 

The 1987 graduate of the same department said that it was their intention to expose lecturers who were infamous for harassing female students. 

Obaigbo said the petition drive became necessary to ‘investigate inter-generational allegations of sexual harassment of female students by male lecturers at the Department of English and Literature, University of Benin.

According to him, the petition drive had begun three years ago in a bid to help the present students overcome the issues faced by the previous ones. 

He said some female victims (names withheld) had sent petitions to the panel indicting eight lecturers of the department involved in brazen demands for sex from them.

A male student is also said to be involved as he pointed out how his female counterparts had been harassed and mistreated. 

The Nation gathered that some of the victims who had earlier testified withdrew their testimonies. While one had withdrawn because her husband had not approved of her being part of the petition, the other said that her family was worried about the ‘occultic’ repercussions of one of the lecturers who had molested her.