The authorities of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife has dismissed a senior lecturer in the Department of Accounting, Professor Richard Akindele from the service of the institution for gross misconduct after he was found liable of sex for mark scandal with a student, Miss Monica Osagie.
The Vice Chancellor of he University, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, in a press statement said the Joint Committee of Council and Senate of the university that probed the allegation against the professor recommended his dismissal.
The Vice Chancellor said the professor conducted himself in an inappropriate relationship with Monica as established through their conversations in the audio recording.
Ogunbodede said the lecturer acted in a manner that is seen to have compromised his position as a teacher and examiner given the manner he was negotiating with Monica on about examination scores and inducement of favour for the alteration of examination scores.
“He offered to change Miss Osagie’s purported 33% result to a pass mark in consideration for sexual favours, this was established in the audio recording which he admitted.
“His claim that Miss Osagie knew that she had passed with a score of 45% but was seeking to score an A and that this led to him being sexually harassed by Miss Monica cannot be supported by any evidence.
“Professor Akindele’s action in requesting sexual favour from Osagie to change her examination score was scandalous behaviour that has brought ridicule to the name of the University and have tarnished the reputation of the University, as it portrays the university as an institution where its teachers and examiners trade mark for sex,” the statement reads.
Professor Ogunbodede said OAU is fully committed to the eradication of sexual and any other forms of harassment from the institution and that it would do all that is possible to curtail the menace.
