The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof. Florence Obi, has said that the institution’s administration has made all principal officers in the faculty of law women.
This is in response to the sexual harassment allegations made against the faculty’s suspended dean, Prof. Cyril Ndifon.
Obi made this known On Saturday’s Sunrise breakfast show on Channels Television, stating that both acting and Sub dean at the faculty are now women.
She stated that the school management has put in place measures to curtail cases of sexual harassment between lecturers and students.
This is following a protest, put up by female law students at the faculty accusing Prof. Ndifon of sexual harassment.
After series of blast, the university suspended Ndifon and set up a team to investigate the claims.
Speaking on this, the vice chancellor said the panel has constituted ways to tackle sexual harassment in the institution.
She said, “We have put up measures to see that, going forward, such occurrences are curtailed.
“You can’t completely eradicate sexual harassment in schools because it happens everywhere, every country. It does happen but the impunity, the serial abuse, the way and manner in which this is done, is where it becomes a problem.
“In my university, we have put up so many measures that we know, going forward, nobody in the Faculty of Law will hold students to ransom and make any female student so vulnerable to having an amoral relationship.
“We have put about seven committees in place. There is a committee to assign students to supervisors because there are accusations that the suspended dean took all female students to supervise and that made them vulnerable to his advances. Now, there is a committee to handle that.
“There is a committee to look at mobilisation to law school which students alleged in their protest letter to us that they (staff) use that as intimidation, as a way to getting some of them to succumb, and that if they don’t accept, they may not be mobilised to law school. We have set up a committee to look into that.
“There is a result vetting committee. We have also made a clean sweep in the faculty where we have the acting dean, for now, a woman; the sub-dean, a woman; the faculty officer, a woman; we want to see that the students are protected.”
