Despite a lingering leadership crisis over who is the authentic President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), the students’ body has held a peaceful protest in Abuja to demand the immediate intervention of the Federal Ministry of Education in the deepening crisis at the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), Ekiti State, over issues of sexual harassment.
The students described their action as collective and a moral urgency to defend the rights, dignity, and future of Nigerian students, who they say have become victims of a toxic academic environment engineered by impunity, abuse of power, and systemic injustice.
The National body of NANS, which is leading the protest said that at the heart of their action lies the disturbing and well-documented case of one Dr Agbegbedia, a staff of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, whose actions the students claim represent everything wrong with unchecked academic power.
The obviously angry students alleged that the said Dr Agbegbedia sexually harassed a female student and deliberately failed her after she refused to submit to his immoral demands, and when the matter was brought to light, her script was re-evaluated by an external panel and she passed honorably.
According to the protesting students, rather than discipline the predator, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Abayomi Sunday Fasina, protected and even rewarded him with a promotion.
They are therefore calling for the sack of the V.C, and the lecturer, warning that they will continue protesting to the Federal Ministry of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other agencies, until their demands are met.
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The student claimed after conducting what it called undercover investigations, it discovered that there is;
- Rampant sexual harassment, intimidation, and victimization of female students and staff, especially by individuals close to the Vice Chancellor including the certain Agbegbedia.
- Systemic protection of sexual offenders and silencing of victims.
- Wrongful dismissal of staff and lecturers who resist immoral advances or expose corruption, including the sacking of a first-class law lecturer.
- Widespread embezzlement and financial mismanagement involving procurement fraud, secret University accounts, and inflated legal fees
- Intimidation of student activists and Union leaders, and a hostile environment for academic freedom.
- Negligence leading to the death of Modupe, a student whose life could have been saved if security concerns had been acted upon, among other alleged infractions at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State.
(Editor: Ken Eseni)
