Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president of Nigeria, has advocated for legislation to check the upsurge in sex for grades cases in public tertiary institutions across West Africa.
In a release, Monday, signed by Paul Ibe, his media adviser, which was in response to Monday’s widely circulated video by an undercover BBC investigative journalist, which showed a lecturer at the University of Lagos (UINLAG) demanding sex from a ‘girl’, before he could help her secure admission at the institution.
The video has generated reactions across the country, while authorities of the institution, last night, moved swiftly to suspend the lecturer from the institution.
However, Atiku, who was the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2019 election, condemned the act, saying that there was an urgent need for action in order to avoid people taking laws into their hands.
He called for punitive measures to serve as a deterrent while seeking for the establishment of an institution to help victims overcome the psychological effect.
Atiku further advocated the review of mode of communication between lecturers and students, while advocating the use of technology in checking and assessing their interaction.
According to Atiku, “The overwhelming outrage, outpouring of examples and outright naming of perpetrators mean that unless something is done, and expeditiously too, young people might begin to take the laws into their own hands.
“Moreover, there is a compelling need to focus on helping the victims to also cope with their turmoil – at least one person wanted to kill herself three times.
“Punitive, exemplary measures and swift continuous legislation to stem this ‘epidemic’; going forward, there have to be checks and balances on the processes of communication between lecturers and students.
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“Away from the dormant, inactive and often unenforced university codes of conduct, we can rely on technology to assist – pre-booked online appointments that show a record of visits on a central system that can also be periodically accessed for auditing can help in raising red flags.
“To this end, the swift suspension and termination of the jobs of scores of lecturers implicated in various sexual harassment misdemeanour at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, are worthy of commendation and emulation by other universities,”.
