…Ndifon says claims were meant to tarnish his image.
“Ndifon must go”, was the chant of law students of the University of Calabar, UNICAL, who stood outside the Vice-Chancellor’s office on Monday, demanding the suspension of the faculty dean, Prof. Cyril Ndifon.
The protesting students carried placards with inscriptions suggesting that their demand was based on the dean’s unbridled sexual harassment of female students.
Some of the inscriptions read “Professor Ndifon, let the girls with big breasts breathe. Stop suffocating us”, “We are tired of sucking dicks”, and “Professor Ndifon must go for our sanity.”
Just In: Law Students Association of Nigeria LAWSAN, UNICAL Branch protest against Prof. Cyril Ndifon, Dean of the Faculty of Law. Accuse him of corruption and sexual assault.
Credit: Agba Jalingo (Reporter)
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The protest was led by the president of the Law Students Association of Nigeria, LAWSAN, UNICAL branch, Benedict Otu.
Reacting to the students’ protest, Prof. Ndifon described the students’ allegations as “lies” by his detectors intended to destroy his good reputation.
He was quoted by Cross River Watch as saying, “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 into the mud just because I won the faculty elections twice.
“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’s sake, I don’t teach Year 2 or Year 1 students, so I don’t know why they have chosen to drag my name into 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.”
His plucky defence notwithstanding, the dean was suspended in September 2015 following a petition to the then Vice Chancellor, Prof. James Ekpoke for allegedly raping a student in his private office.
He sued the institution at the National Industrial Court in Calabar in 2016 but lost the case. The following year, he also attempted to stop the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, from investigating and prosecuting him for abuse of office before the Federal High Court, Calabar. However, the case was dismissed by the presiding judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo.
But in 2021, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Florence Obi reappointed and reinstated him as the dean of the institution’s faculty of law.
Addressing the protesters, the Vice-Chancellor called for calm and assured the students of the university authority’s willingness to get the situation addressed and resolved.
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