Law professor speaks on sexual assault allegation, protest

The Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar (UNICAL), Prof. Cyril Ndifon, has opened up on the allegation of sexually harassing the female students of the department.

The Law students, in a viral video, had accused Ndifon of sexually assaulting and harassing them.

The female law students had, on Monday, August 14, 2023, stormed the office of the UNICAL Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Florence Obi, with claims of alleged sexual harassment by the Dean as well as extortion by their lecturers.

The students were armed with placards with inscriptions such as “We are tired of sucking d..ks”, “Ndifon Must Go For Our Sanity”, “We Are Tired of Buying Law Journals”, “We Are Tired of Lecturers Not Attending Classes”, and “Law Girls Are Not Your Bonanza, Prof Ndifon Should stop grabbing us”.

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The female students, therefore, called on the management of the university to address their concerns.

But the Dean has debunked the allegations.

Speaking in an interview with CrossRiverWatch, an online platform, Ndifon described the protest as the handiwork of his colleague whom he defeated in the faculty election.

His words: “Since I defeated some persons in an election that was keenly contested, to emerge as Dean of the faculty, it hasn’t been easy. I had skipped several booby traps. These allegations are baselessly masterminded by my detractor, who had vowed to ensure that my image is dragged to the mud just because I won the faculty elections twice.

“If you look at the placards you will discover that the placards have one person’s handwriting. Again how come the protesters know that we were holding a meeting with the Vice Chancellor if it is not the handiwork of an insider.

“We were supposed to hold a meeting with the Vice Chancellor to enable us iron out important issues troubling us in the faculty. While the meeting was on-going, we were told that some students were outside with placards, protesting against me, demanding that I should be unseated.

“From what I am told, LAWSAN President, Benedict Otu, cajoled some students that they were to go for a meeting with the Vice Chancellor at her office, only to dish out placards bearing false representations about the Dean, and asked his colleagues to chant slogans that berated my personality.

“This won’t work. Colleagues of mine who are bent on tarnishing my reputation just to destroy me. The question is: where are the victims of sexual harassment? Can someone harass girls without the ladies coming out to raise the alarm that they were sexually harassed?

“For Christ sake, I don’t teach Year 2 B or Year one students, so I don’t know why they have chosen to drag my name to the mud. This was why I said earlier that the allegations were lies, cooked from the pit of hell, just to destroy a reputation that I had spent decades building.”

It would be recalled that Ndifon was suspended by the institution in 2016 after a 20-year-old 400-level student (name withheld) accused him of sexually assaulting her.

His suspension was to last until he was exonerated from all allegations.

Unsatisfied by the suspension, Ndifon sued UNICAL claiming the university had no power to suspend him beyond the statutory three months according to the University of Calabar Act, LFN, 2004.

The suit was later dismissed by Justice Eunice Agbakoba.

The Star