Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 elections, Atiku Abubakar, has reacted to the publication of a documentary by BBC Africa Eye exposing sexual harassment of students across public tertiary institutions in West Africa.
The 13-minute documentary published on Monday was focused on the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and the University of Ghana.
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A lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, UNILAG, Dr. Boniface Igbeneghu, was caught on camera trying to force himself on a journalist who posed as a 17-year-old admission seeker.
Another lecturer from the College of Education in Ghana, Dr. Paul Kwame, was also indicted in the documentary.
Reacting to the report on Twitter, Atiku called for “systemic strategies” to help stop such behaviour.
“I have just read the story on #SexForGrades across public tertiary institutions in many West African countries. This is unacceptable, and requires systemic strategies to put a deterrence to such behaviour,” Atiku said.
“As a society, we cannot allow a trend that is psychologically abusive to young women to thrive. In fact, that’s a direct opposite of what a sound educational system represents.”
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BBC Africa Eye said that despite repeated requests, the lecturer failed to react to the allegations of sexual harassment.
It also said that UNILAG authorities dissociated itself from the lecturer’s actions, stating that it has zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment.
