OAU Ife sacks randy lecturer Professor Akindele at the centre of sex for marks scandal

OBAFEMI Awolowo University's (OAU) government council has sacked Professor Richard Akindele the lecturer who was charged for sexually harassing student Monica Osagie earlier this year.

In April this year, Professor Akindele created a storm after a conversation between him and an unnamed female student was made public. In the conversation, he demanded that the student have sex with him five times in exchange for him passing her in an accounting course which he was taking.

When the scandal became public, OAU came under pressure to take disciplinary action against the academic but the university maintained that it cannot do so unless a formal complaint is lodged. Eventually, the university suspended him pending an investigation into his conduct and yesterday, he was formally dismissed.

After a meeting yesterday, the university council dismissed the academic, accepting the recommendations of the university Senate on June 20. In its own submission, the senate had considered the report of the committee set up to investigate the allegations of sexual misconduct and established that Ms Osagie was truly sexually harassed by Professor Akindele.

In its report, the senate said: "Professor Akindele had an inappropriate relationship with his student Miss Osagie.  This was established through their conversation in the audio recording; his reply to the query, the oral evidence and the printed WhatsApp conversations tendered before the committee.

“He had acted in a manner that is seen to have compromised his position as a teacher and examiner, in that, his conversations with Miss Osagie were about examination scores and inducement of favour for the alteration of examination scores."

Miss Osagie, a student in the Masters of Business programme, had released a recorded telephone conversation, which went viral, in which the lecturer identified as Professor Akindele  demanded five rounds of sex to enhance her marks. OAU vice chancellor Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede said that the university senate at its meeting on June 14 considered the committee’s finding that Professor Akindele had an inappropriate relationship with his student.

Professor Ogunbodede said: "He offered to change Miss Osagie’s purported 33% result to a pass mark in consideration for sexual favours, which was established in the audio recording which he admitted. His claim that Miss Osagie knew that she had passed with a score of 45 but was seeking to score an A and that this led to him being sexually harassed by Miss Osagie cannot be supported by any evidence.

” Professor Akindele’s actions in requesting for sexual favours from Miss Osagie to change her examination scores was scandalous behaviour that has brought ridicule to the name of the university and has tarnished the reputation of the university, as it portrays the university as an institution where its teachers and examiners trade marks for sexual favours. From the evidence, Miss Osagie had no idea that she scored 45, a pass mark as later claimed by Professor Akindele, although she later found out she did not fail the course."

He added that in order to create conducive environment for teaching and learning, the university was creating more awareness and disseminating information on what constitutes sexual harassment. According to the vice chancellor, the veracity of  sexual harassment concepts includes sexual solicitation and advances, sex exploitation, prostitution, seduction, pimping, sexual assault, unwanted touching, vulgar sexual jokes and  rape among others.