The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has commended the on-going prosecution of the dismissed lecturer of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Professor Richard Akindele by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
Prof. Akindele was on Thursday remanded in prison by a Federal High Court sitting in Osogbo for allegedly demanding sex from his Student, Osagie Monica
CPC in a statement signed by the Council’s Director General, Mr Babatunde Irukera, while commending the on-going prosecution, charged authorities of higher institutions in Nigeria to diligently confront sexual harassment and other related conducts within the institutions with a view to ensuring a conducive learning environment for students.
Irukera noted that such commitment to sexual harassment cases would restore the reputation of institutions.
The statement reads: “The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) charges authorities of higher institutions in Nigeria to diligently confront sexual harassment and other related conduct within the institutions with a view to ensuring a conducive learning environment for students, who are consumers of the schools’ educational services.
Irukera said such a commitment from the leadership of the institutions would not only be reassuring to students, who are primary consumers of the educational services of the schools, but would also restore institutional reputation.
The Council re-emphasizes the need for learning institutions to ”assiduously address sexual harassment and other ancillary conduct in order to promote or restore institutional reputation, and ensure that students, being consumers of educational services, can pursue scholarship on campuses that provide safe and liberal environments where the relationship between faculty and students leads to robust and confident knowledge sharing.”
The director general expressed the Council’s delight to, “the news that Professor Richard Akindele has been arraigned by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and is being criminally prosecuted for his gross and abusive conduct.
“The diligent prosecution and cooperation of all relevant stakeholders are vital to deterring others with this type of abhorrent tendencies from perpetrating such conduct,” he said.
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