By Oguwike Nwachuku
The storm caused by the BBC Africa Eye #SexForGrades documentary published on Monday, October 7, 2019 is yet to peter out.
The gale of suspension at the University of Lagos shortly after the documentary was aired is directly linked to the rage it generated.
We shall return to that shortly.
Initially, I was not keen on interrogating the sex scandal saga as it affects the University of Lagos in the recent BBC documentary until I stumbled and read a report about a woman who said she used sex to pay for a loan of N1.1 million she obtained from her creditor.
If I was running away from that, not when I also watched a video on Facebook of an American-based pastor whose calling to many appears more carnal than spiritual going by the position he has taken concerning sex.
He goes by the name Pastor David Wilson. He is based at Texarkana, Texas, the United States of America.
Pastor Wilson spoke in a way that debases sex as if the primary purpose God gave Eve to Adam was for sex. He spoke as if the life of a man revolves around sex and bragged about himself loving sex to the extent he cannot do without it. In summary, Pastor Wilson advocates reckless sex.
On October 16, a viral video purporting to show Pastor Wilson performing a sex act on a woman was spread on social media. When it caused influx of feelings on social media, it was reported that Pastor Wilson had exclusively spoken to his family members to dissuade them from believing the video to be real.
Consequently, the family members unanimously said whoever was spreading the video wanted to become famous off of Pastor Wilson’s name. But you needed to have watched Pastor Wilson’s views to know whether what he told his family is in sync with what trended.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) had reported that a lady trader, one Ejioma Ahibafu, 49, narrated to a Magistrate’s court in Ojo, Lagos State how she slept with her creditor to pay off a N1.1 million loan.
Ahibafu sells rice.
In the said report, the Prosecutor, Mr. Simon Uche, told the court that Ahibafu obtained a loan of N1.1 million from one Emma, a businessman, to enhance her rice business with a promise to pay back the money in six months but reneged on the payment.
The prosecutor said instead of Ahibafu (the defendant) paying up the loan she chose to be evasive, the reason the creditor took her to court.
The prosecutor added that the offences contravened Sections 287 and 314 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
Ahibafu who spoke in pidgin, told the court she actually obtained the said loan after a friend introduced her to the complainant, now her creditor.
However, Ahibafu noted that the creditor took her to a hotel on three occasions and slept with her, in what she perceives as in lieu of the loan.
Ahibafu explained that even before she was given the money, she had paid her creditor in “kind” on three different occasions in a hotel.
She also added that she delivered some bags of rice to the complainant with an understanding to pay up the balance.
Ahibafu therefore pleaded not guilty to the two-count charge of obtaining money by false pretence and stealing brought against her.
The Magistrate, Mr. A.A Adesanya, granted Ahibafu N250,000 bail with two sureties in like sum and adjourned the case until December 9 for mention.
The Ahibafu story, incidentally reported the same day the BBC documentary on University of Lagos and University of Ghana sex scandal broke, has agitated my mind.
It resonates with the BBC sex scandal and no doubt has left many with much lessons to learn from sex that has now been reduced to an article of trade, far from what it ought to be, a sacred act.
The 13-minute documentary that captured UNILAG and the University of Ghana centred primarily on exposing sexual harassment and abuse of students by lecturers.
It was anchored by a 17-year-old BBC undercover reporter, Kiki Mordi, who posed as an admission seeker at UNILAG.
When the documentary came out, it went viral and took its toll on both the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana, two citadel of learning in West Africa used by the reporter as case study in the BBC Africa Eye #SexForGrades.
A senior lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, UNILAG, Dr. Boniface Igbeneghu, who is also a pastor with the Foursquare Gospel Church featured prominently in the documentary.
Two other dons at the University of Ghana – Professor Ransford Gyampo and Dr. Paul Kwame Butakor were also named. However, both lecturers at the University of Ghana have denied they were offering “sex for grades” in the undercover exchanges.
Prof Gyampo in particular told a local media he plans to take legal action against the BBC over the documentary.
The University of Ghana on its part categorically denied protecting any staff or students who have engaged in sexual harassment.
Regardless, on Tuesday, October 8, the chairperson of the university’s anti-sexual harassment committee was reported to have hinted that the two lecturers would be investigated over the scandal, even though the documentary did not prove they offered grades for sex. The report of their findings is yet to be made public. That is the Ghana scenario.
But the situation is different in Nigeria.
Dr. Igbeneghu was suspended by the authorities of UNILAG and the Foursquare Gospel Church on strong suspicion his behaviour that was watched in the scandalous BBC documentary suggested he has been in the business of soliciting sex from regular and aspiring students in exchange for either grades or admission.
Dr. Igbeneghu was not alone in the act as he has partner(s). A day after his suspension, another lecturer, Dr. Samuel Oladipo of the Department of Economics was reportedly suspended over the same despicable weird sexual malfeasance.
Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, the UNILAG Vice-Chancellor, said the authorities are now taking steps to comprehensively look into the raging issue.
What are the issues? The lecturers at UNILAG who take advantage of their positions to sexually abuse their female students in manners that sully the image of the university, its leadership and products.
While Prof. Ogundipe announced the indefinite suspension of Dr. Igbeneghu, he said Dr. Oladipo would face a panel because he also featured in the second part of the documentary demanding sex in exchange for admission in his office.
During his interaction with the undercover reporter in the documentary, Dr. Igbeneghu talked about the “cold room” at UNILAG where senior staff of the institution apparently go to indulge in contemptible behaviour with their female students.
From Dr. Igbeneghu’s account, when the lecturers enter the so-called “cold room”, they not only turn off the lights to compel their prey female students to kiss them willy-nilly. It is not difficult to deduce that at the said cold room the lecturers keep morality under rap to shamelessly sexually level-up with their female students not minding they are young enough to be their daughters.
Indeed, emotions have been high, particularly from diverse section of the public – feminist protagonists, civil society organisations, churches, mosques, families, name it, since the documentary went public.
The concern of many is made worse by the fact that every day, news of sordid sexual abuse rent our landscape in such manner it is now believed sex no longer matters to both adults and children.
Those who felt sad about the BBC documentary like former Commissioner for Information, Rivers State and one time Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Ibim Semenitari, have every cause to do so because sexual assault, rather than abate, gets emboldened everyday due to what the society has turned into.
Sex, ordinarily, is meant for married people – husband and wife. And that is why adults who are not married are precluded from sexual relation and are liable of committing fornication if they engage in the act before marriage. Even married couples are enjoined to flee from sexual immorality such as adultery and fornication. It is a biblical injunction that further underscores the sacredness of sex. One is yet to see a faith that encourages immoral sexual activity, lacking in decorum and sanctity.
Today, unfortunately, sex has become an activity that has lost its sacredness. And this is made worse by the fact that those who ought to preserve the sanctity of sex – parents, teachers, pastors, imams, and other leaders – are at the forefront of its abuse.
In the book of Proverbs 22: 6, the Bible admonishes parents to “train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
I want to believe parents here include teachers, pastors, imams and other married and responsible leaders in our society who have been entrusted with the responsibility of mentoring those youth in their care who have been precluded from sexual immorality and activity until they are married.
The issue here is hardly about Dr. Igbeneghu and Dr. Oladipo of the UNILAG and the infamous cold room, and the dons at the University of Ghana. It is more about how parents in today’s world have contributed in making sex a common activity that anybody can engage in anywhere, anytime, anyhow without qualms.
In our attempt to promote human rights, level up with currents of civilization and socialization by deploying the use of gadgets and other technologies, the children are exposed to situations that turn out to be to their disadvantage.
Internet social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, to name a few, have become incubators for sexual activities that both parents and their wards no longer have control over, or are struggling to unlearn what is fast destroying the fabric of their moral standing.
Today, many parents whose own parents were never exposed to the issues around sex but rather treated the act with so much dignity and respect why bringing them up are now champions of the so-called sexual education even in the primary schools in the name of the new world.
Time was when women never faced the danger of sexual violation by anyone regardless of the circumstances they found themselves and when they chose to get married. Such tales, nay, luxury are rare now. On the contrary, today we hear stories of rape, not just involving the young girls but mothers and grandmothers as was sometime reported in parts of Nsukka in Enugu State.
Parenting has turned out to be a task that many homes do not want to be associated with.
As Wikipedia said: “Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood.”
Writing on ‘The Making of a child: Whose Responsibility?’, Arinade Faloye, Business Operations and Strategy Manager at Phanseas Nigeria Limited said: “Parenting well is more important than giving birth. School is never enough to replace the parental roles or to make up for the lost developmental time. Receiving news that a child is on the way does not automatically qualify you as a parent, no matter what many people believe. Being a parent requires a lot of work and comes with many responsibilities.”
Can we deny the fact that poor parental upbringing has a lot to do with children who are regularly sexually abused either by trusted family members or friends? Is it not likely that children routinely violated by bosses, harassed in school by anyone, or even molested through domestic violence, may be prone to poor parental upbringing? Let me explain.
What a mother brings in his adulterous male friend home in the name of widowhood before the children, male and female, and expects that she will be free from dirty stories of sexual immorality associated to those children?
What manner of father frolics with girls young enough to be his daughters in his office in the name of a boss as Dr. Igbeneghu and Dr. Oladipo were wont to do?
What manner of parents approve of dress codes that suggest their wards are at liberty to wear anything, or allow them the freedom to associate with all manner of socially-depraved and poorly-brought up peers and expect such wards to be above board and maintain high moral ground in due course?
If stories of parents pursuing one academic programme or the other in higher institutions who engage young boys and girls to help do their school assignments for some fees or other negotiated costs that can include sex are common, who expects that their children will not perfect such behaviour when they have the opportunity?
While a lot of students are busy “sorting” out their lecturers with money and sex to obtain grades they did not work for, many parents shamelessly brag to have paid so much to obtain admission for their wards in the universities. It is not unlikely such parents bought their own way through using either money or sex or both.
Sexual immorality in whatever colour can never be tolerated in our society, what more in our ivory towers, work places or at any other place for that matter because it stinks.
Those who have made it their past time in our higher institutions and other places cannot be adding to the development of the children put in their custody nor can they add the expected value in their places of assignment.
Such persons not only violate their offices and positions, they also violate the physical, psychological, emotional and academic development of their students.
Truth is that we have debased the essence of sex that it no longer matters to many.
If there is still a modicum of respect left for sex as God-ordained activity, the testimony given in the court by Ahibafu that she slept with her creditor three times in lieu of what she owes would have been heavy in her mouth to utter.
If Ahibafu has children your guess concerning the way she is bringing them up is as good as mine going by her mind set of what sex is meant for which she was proud to say before a court of competent jurisdiction.
If Ahibafu has regard for the sanctity of sex and benefitted from proper parental upbringing, she would have seen through the danger of caving in to the pressure by her creditor to sleep with him in exchange for the loan she obtained, assuming that was the situation.
But that was not to be because she is a typical example of how common sex has become regardless of the pretense.
For Pastor Wilson who said he has spent nearly 40 years in the ministry, and today rants on how he cannot do without sex, you can deduce why we seem to be living in another planet different from the one our forebears lived in.
