Professor Peter Okebukola, the former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, recently stirred the hornets’ nest by asserting that academically weak students are to blame for the rash of sex-for-marks incidents at Nigerian universities. Not surprisingly, the response has been harsh—at least as measured by posts on The Punch’s coverage of the comments on Tuesday.
Of the 15 posts (as of Tuesday night), 11 were highly critical, two were supportive (actually same terse comment by the same person), one provided the broader context, and one was indeterminate. This distribution is not surprising because those offended by a statement are more likely to go to battle than those in accord. In any case, the posts can’t possibly represent Nigerian public opinion.
Even then, they mirror a growing trend in the United States of not tolerating any suggestion that women could be culpable on such matters.
Indeed, one of the critics of Professor Okebukola’s assertion — someone with the screen name of “so ojuabeniko” — alluded to this reality. “Okebukola goofed badly on this one,” he or she posted. “What nonsense is he talking about? In a saner clime, what has been attributed to him, if true, is enough for him to lose his job.”
What the critic doesn’t seem to be aware of is that at the “saner clime,” the practice of punishing people for expressing contrary opinions is widely decried as “political correctness.” Indeed, the case can be made that on this score, Nigeria is a better democracy than the “saner climes.” When rational opinions cannot be expressed because of hypersensitivity and the fear of trolls, democracy becomes much like autocracy in permitting only orthodox views.
Even those of us who don’t have the vantage point of first-hand experience as students or academics at Nigerian universities can still point to developments that corroborate Professor Okebukola’s essential point. And that is that instances of sex-for-marks on Nigerian campuses are often initiated by students who seek higher scores.
Where Okebukola errs — assuming the reporter didn’t miss any nuances — is the suggestion that sex-for-marks involves only students who “are academically weak.”
“If, in the first instance, a student is academically good, what will a lecturer tell her, sex-for-which mark? All those girls who run after those lecturers or can be harassed by lecturers are those who are academically weak,” Okebukola is quoted as saying.“Even, if the lecturers do not want to get engaged with them sexually, the girls will offer them their bodies.
“If at the point of admitting our students, we ensure that they have met some respectable score that when you teach them in class, they can understand and do well on their own; then the problem would have been addressed.”
In so focusing his diagnosis, Okebukola overlooks the fact that there are lecherous and unethical lecturers and professors who leverage their power to extract sexual favours regardless of the students’ academic abilities.
Dr. Bunmi Binitie, who posted the most thoughtful comment on the news story, captures the complexity. “This is just one of the root causes of this distressing thing happening in our universities,” she writes in reference to Professor Okebukola’s assertion. “The cause is multi-focal and it includes the endemic corruption in the nation, declining moral standards in the society, defective home-training (some parents even encourage their children), lack of adequate reporting, lack of adequate punishment for the crime and so on.”
Certainly, in the power equation between female students and male lecturers/professors, the latter have the upper hand. Still, there is no underestimating the power of the female allure. And that power is more likely to be put to use by female students who lack the competence to perform well in exams. That’s the point Okebukola makes, and it is beyond reproach.
It wasn’t that long ago that there were various reports and comments on the public display of the female allure at Nigerian universities. There was (still is?) the widely observed practice of female students dressing scantily and sitting conspicuously in the front rows of lecture halls.
Even in the widely reported cases of sex-for-marks, there has been clear evidence that the students were willing partners. The most publicized case involved an Obafemi Awolowo University professor who was taped by a student with whom he was negotiating the terms of the barter. (I have withheld the names to not bring new attention to those involved.) In that case, the student who was seeking a higher score, was willing to grant one act of sexual favour, but not five, as the professor insisted on. It was not a difference in mores, but of numbers.
Not long after that, another student posted her own complaint about a breach in a sex-for-marks agreement. Her complaint was that after the deed was done, the lecturer reneged on awarding the higher grade. In the absence of a claim to the contrary, one may readily infer that the student initiated the bargain. And, as an indication of the deteriorated moral values Dr. Binitie points to, there was no shame in going public with the complaint.
About the time, I read the story of Professor Okebukola’s assertions, a friend sent me a video clip of CNN’s report on the goings-on at the Bois de Vincennes, the largest park in Paris. It is teeming with prostitutes, most of whom are young Nigerian women who mortgaged themselves to a network of traffickers.
The story has nothing to do with sex-for-marks. What they have in common is desperation to get by or get ahead. Aurelie Jeannerod, of the NGO Liberation for the Captives, said this of the Nigerian slave-prostitutes at the park: “They have no access to their documents, they have lost their identity… they have no freeness.”
Melissa Bell, the CNN correspondent, added this detail: “It is so shocking to see these women line up on the streets of this park. We asked Parisian police how this could be allowed to continue, and they said there simply isn’t very much they can do.
“The women are afraid to talk to them because of the network. And, they say, they are moved around Europe very often. And then … there is the problem that there is apparently a never-ending supply of Nigerian women desperate to come to Europe.”
This all puts sex-for-marks in perspective. As Dr. Binitie puts it, “the cause is multi-focal.” It is a reflection of all that is wrong with Nigeria: the economic hardship, the deteriorating values, the toleration of impunity, and the desire to “make it” at all cost.
Professor Okebukola erred in pointing to just one factor. He didn’t err in asserting that it is a major factor.
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