Office of Nigerian academic in ‘sex-for-grades’ film sealed

• Posted on October 8, 2019
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The office at the University of Lagos of an academic who featured in a BBC Africa Eye report about sex for grades has been sealed off.

Boniface Igbeneghu was suspended after he was caught on film propositioning and sexually harassing an undercover BBC reporter who was posing as a potential student.

Dr Igbeneghu has made no comment.

In response to the film, the BBC has heard from several students who have had similar experiences at different institutions.

“I felt extremely threatened,” one Nigerian graduate told BBC Newsday on Tuesday. “Even before I got to university I heard stories about this man – I had friends who were sexually harassed by him.”

She described feeling so intimidated by the staff member that she delayed submitting work to him.

“We are the students and we have more to lose. There is no balance of power here,” she added.

Another woman, named Catherine, said the practice happens “a lot” at universities in Ghana. She told the BBC’s Outside Source that she wept “like a baby” after being asked out by a lecturer in exchange for good grades.

“Unfortunately because there’s no good systems in place, when you [make a] report they ask you for evidence and because you don’t have evidence it’s rubbished and you end up being victimised,” she said.

-BBC