Photo credit: Legitnaija
There’s no doubting the fact that, as far as sexual harassment is concerned, most Nigerian higher institutions could not be said to be the safest places. In fact, one would emerge with a sad feeling after seeing happenings in our universities, polytechnics and even colleges of education.
It’s a very worrisome situation. But then, I do believe the respective institutions are trying to shake off, even if still unsuccessfully, the morass of sexual harassment. This is more so because most of the students therein are now underaged.
Rather unsuccessfully because victims might not come out to report due to societal and institutional leanings to such cases.
However, most people do condemn sexual harassment and I believe as time goes on, our campuses will be more accommodating to reports of sexual harassment and such cases will be considerably reduced.
While still being grateful to the British Broadcasting Corporation for exposing the cases in West Africa, I still very much believe there are some elements of opacity in their reports.
This is because the same BBC did an investigation of 124 universities out of 157 universities in the UK concerning sexual harassment. Indeed the universities recorded 1,436 allegations of sexual harassment or sexual violence against students in 2018/19.
In Nigeria, there are 174 universities while Ghana has 17. Out of these only two universities were picked by the BBC, one from each country. I don’t think this amounts to a fair representation of the number of universities in both countries.
While not throwing away the baby with the bathwater, I still very much suspect there is more to the matter.
And while recommending the stiffest punishments to the perpetrators and encouraging the victims to go and report such indecent acts, I would admonish the BBC that,
Orisa boo le gbe mi
Se mi boo se ba mi!
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