BOOK SERIAL

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

YESTERDAY

The author examined the concept of rule of law, the judiciary and their relationships to elective government, beginning with Albert Venn Dicey.

Today, he looks at how the courts in Africa have overreached themselves and the consequences, citing Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mali as examples before dwelling on Nigeria where the problem appears to be worst.

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) guarantees that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government,” and that “this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage.” This right to political participation is the anchor of electoral legitimacy, which is the basis of the right to govern. However, this norm is increasingly under threat from diverse forces leading to what has been described as  crisis of so-called democratic recession.” Such forces include a global rise in populist authoritarianism and, on the African continent, increasing incidents of unconstitutional changes in government.

Regardless, a focus on these forces can downplay more subtle trends that have enabled the corrosion of democratic participation, especially in emerging or transitional democracies. Following an era of constitutional instability in the aftermath of independence, Nic Cheeseman suggests that by the turn of the millennium, “elections and term limits replaced death and coup d’etat as the most common ways in which African presidents and prime ministers left office.”’

The fact that presidents leave office through elections, however, does not mean that their successors necessarily get installed through the popular will. Across Africa, judges are increasingly involved in determining the winners and losers of elections. Depending on the extent of this involvement, the consequence could be, first, a transfer of the ultimate decision on the mandate to rule from the people to the judges; and second, the creation of an incentive for the erosion of the independence and impartiality of the judiciary as a longstanding foundation of the rule of law. This trend bears close attention.

Courts can overreach in determining not merely the rules governing the validity of elections but also in making calls as to the winners and losers of specific electoral contests. This degree of judicialisation of elections enables democratic recession in three ways. First, it vitiates the right to democratic participation and retrenches the popular will as the basis for democratic legitimacy. Second, it enables the courts to expropriate electoral legitimacy from the people and transfer it to the judges. Third, it provides perverse incentives for political interference with judicial independence, increasingly making the judiciary a site of contest over the pre-determination of election outcomes in many countries.

In Malawi in 2020, for instance, the people had to take to the streets to resist the effort by the president to remove the Chief Justice in order for the president to secure a Supreme Court panel more solicitous of his will in the run-up to a presidential re-run following a rigged contest that had been struck down by the courts. The following year, in neighbouring Zimbabwe, the ruling party pressured the Constitutional Court to overrule an earlier decision of the High Court blocking an extension of the tenure of the Chief Justice after he had attained the mandatory retirement age, placing him on a contract, which made him manifestly subject to presidential whim. Ahead of contentious national elections two years later, the same president decided to advance $400,000 to all serving judges in Zimbabwe as “housing loan” with no repayment obligations. The beneficiaries included the chair of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), herself a serving judge.

Unsurprisingly, such developments can endanger a government founded on the will of the people. In April 2020, Mali’s Constitutional Court overturned the results in thirty-one parliamentary seats won by the opposition. Its decision to hand these seats over to the ruling party sparked an uprising that led to the dissolution of the Constitutional Court;’” and was followed by the overthrow of the government in a military coup.

Electoralism and Judicial Independence in Nigeria

Among political scientists, there is a point of view that when EMBs are incapable or compromised, institutions of “oblique accountability,” such as courts, can step in to cure their deficiencies. This argument appears to overlook three issues. First, looking to courts to cure habitual deficits of will or capacity in EMBs casts a shadow over elections and their legitimacy because in deploying courts to cure substantial failures in election administration, the risk is that the site of electoral legitimacy is relocated from the people to judges. Second, the question could arise as to whether the same forces capable of compromising the independence and integrity of an EMB would be reluctant to extend the same treatment to the judiciary. Third, this does not reckon with any sense of what the consequences could be for both the effectiveness of courts and for public perceptions of the judiciary.

Few countries have been overtaken by this trend like Nigeria. When Nigerian judges began overturning the results of elections and declaring their own, many took a sanguine view of the development, describing it as “an instrument of democratic advancement and stability.” Since then, however, opinions have evolved and judges at the highest levels now complain that “the entire Nigerian judicial system is inundated with electoral litigation and adjudication almost all year round,” which are “taking a monumental toll” on the courts. This toll resounds both in metrics of judicial service provision as well as in the credibility of the courts and judges.

In Nigeria, for instance, over 80% of the contested offices in elections in any cycle can be decided by the judges. Nigerian courts can set aside official electoral returns and substitute their own or routinely re-compute returns by the EMB. This has created a situation described by the Economist as a “democracy by court order.” In 2011, for instance, the courts for the third time returned to the upper chamber of the national parliament a man who had never won an election.

Two cycles of elections later, they conferred the mandate in a state governorship election on a man who had been well beaten into fourth position. When it decided to replace a duly elected candidate for the position of state governor in a state in North-West Nigeria in 2019 with a candidate who was well beaten into a distant second, Nigeria’s Supreme Court incredibly crystallized a doctrine that the votes of the winning candidate whom it had chosen to oust on a preelection technicality were “wasted.” Surely, a democracy cannot be founded on jurisprudence that renders votes so casually expendable. Under the cover of “judicialism”, the use of courts in this manner subverts the will of the people in a manner not dissimilar to the effect of a military coup.

Among transitional democracies in Africa, few are as significant as Nigeria. It is not just the most populous African country, it is also the African country with the most extensive record of judicial immersion in election dispute adjudication, with a history that pre-dates the onset of presidentialism in 1979, and a jurisprudence of election dispute adjudication influential beyond its shores. In over half a century, election dispute resolution in Nigeria has metastasized to a level that now suggests that it is the primary preoccupation of the courts.

On its own, the dysfunction of courts derailed from their primary mission by a preoccupation with election dispute resolution is very much deserving of attention. A bigger concern, however, lies in the reality that the primary reason for this dysfunction is the fact that in Nigeria, courts have emerged as the predominant venue for acquiring the mandate to rule and judges have become the only people whose votes count for that purpose. Put differently, the Constitution may designate the people as the electorate, but they have been toppled by the judges who have installed themselves as a Selectorate. This book examines and illustrates the origins of this trajectory and its consequences for both right to participation and for judicial integrity and independence. Before proceeding to this inquiry, a brief institutional context of the place of courts in the political economy of Nigeria is essential.

TOMORROW…

We skip many juicy pages to Chapter 6, where the author tells exactly how judges became the selectorate. 

BOOK SERIAL

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

YESTERDAY
The author laid the groundwork for his thesis that judges, whom he calls “the selectorate”, have toppled the people in deciding who rules them. Today, he examines the concept of rule of law, the judiciary and their relationships to elective government, beginning with Albert Venn Dicey.

The Constitution’s Design

The usual fare is to begin every examination of the judiciary and rule of law in the Common Law world with an obligatory genuflection before the altar of Albert Venn Dicey and his Victorian notions of the rule of law.

These were founded on benevolent notions of predictability and equality policed under an unwritten constitution by “the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals.” Inherent in Dicey’s concept of the rule of law is the idea of a judiciary whose effectiveness is essentially guaranteed by their notional independence, impartiality and predictability.

Dicey’s ideas were originally published in 1893 at the onset of the European occupation of Africa. The world that Dicey described and analysed, however, did not treat people of colour as humans, and the benevolence that he took for granted as a Caucasian was unknown to the interaction between his people and colonial subjects. This certainly was the case in Africa. For present purposes, therefore, an examination of the rule of law, the judiciary and their relationship to elective government is more usefully situated in the seminal distinction drawn by Ernst Fraenkel between the “Normative State” of credible institutions and rule constraint on the one hand and the “Prerogative State” of caprice on the other.”

Democratic process, as a rule-constrained system for the transfer and exercise of power in political society, assumes the existence of what Ernst Fraenkel called the normative state of the rule of law, which he distinguished from the authoritarian prerogative state.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has similarly distinguished between a state with rule of law and judicial independence on the one hand, and the “rule of power, which is typically arbitrary, self-interested and Subject to influences which may have nothing to do with the applicable law…,” on the other.

The state with the rule of law as described can only exist where there is a reasonably independent judiciary to arbitrate and interpret the norms applicable to the democratic process. It is possible, however, for courts to be instrumentalised in a manner that uses the appearance of a norm-constrained process to engineer into existence authoritarian conditions. In many African countries, this appears to be happening.

To understand how this occurs, it is essential to stress that the role of the judiciary in the democratic process of electing government is a narrow one. As pointed out by the Supreme Court of India, the role of the courts is to oversee the validity of the electoral process in order to ensure that while the rules are certain, the outcomes of elections are uncertain or not predetermined until the votes of the people are cast and counted. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the rights of democratic participation and to vote as the basis of legitimate government. To implement these, countries establish election management bodies (EMBs), which supervise and organise their elections and declare their outcomes.

When elections occur in this manner, they ensure that democratic legitimacy resides with the people. The Supreme Court of the United States has rightly cautioned about “the vital limits on judicial authority” concerning “the Constitution’s design to leave the selection of the President to the people, through their legislatures, and to the political sphere.” In Nigeria, the Electoral Reform Panel chaired by former Chief Justice, Lawal Uwais, similarly warned in 2008 that “care should be taken not to drag the judiciary into the political arena too often as this can affect its credibility.”

Elections are, therefore, globally accepted normatively as how the people choose who governs them but the quality of what counts for elections varies widely across the globe. This most consequential of decisions in most countries around the continent increasingly involves judges in varying degrees of intimacy, if not capture.” Following the wave of democratisation around the continent in the 1990s, this role of the judiciary was largely seen in a positive light as a source of “hope.” This verdict proved to be premature at best.

Judges are supposed to be independent of politics. Yet, the assumption exists that they can continue to make the most consequential decisions in a democracy while retaining independence from external influence. Hakeem Yusuf strongly suggests that the immersion of the judiciary in political change “seriously tasks the institutional integrity of the judiciary.”

This book argues that the immersion of judges in election dispute resolution around Africa endangers the judiciary, imperils the project of building independent institutions, and retrenches the will of the people as the foundation of legitimate government. It illustrates these triple crises with a narrative of how the immersion of Nigeria’s judiciary in election dispute resolution has over time intensely altered the traditional assumptions that underpin the judicial function as we know it but first, it is important to explain why such an inquiry is essential.

Judges, Democracy and Elections

The judicial function is now globally accepted as foundational to the role of the state and essential to Iegitimate government but its delimitation is underpinned by both fluidity and contradiction.” Notionally, the judiciary embodies the very essence of what has been described in constitutional design as “politically neutral zones.” At the African continental level, State parties to the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance (ACDEG) undertake to “establish and strengthen national mechanisms that redress election-related disputes promptly.” They also agree to “strive to institutionalise good political governance through an independent judiciary.” In the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, they equally subscribe to a “duty to guarantee the independence of the courts.”

But what does an independent judiciary entail? Ordinarily, it imports structural and institutional assumptions that recognise the judiciary as an arm of government in a scheme of separation of powers coexisting in juxtaposition with the legislative and executive branches but free from interference or manipulation from the latter two.” To assure this, formal standards of judicial independence are recognised internationally,” and instituted in the constitutions of different countries, addressing such issues as processes of appointment; security of tenure, discipline and removal; remuneration; and preclusion of reprisals or liability for exercise of judicial function. By and large, judicial independence embodies at least three complementary elements. These include adjudication by “a neutral third”, institutional insulation from political interference or pressure, and guarantees of effective coexistence as a separate branch of government.” However, around the world, the judiciary is also widely seen as a political institution, which functions in the role of political accountability.”

Howsoever the judicial function is conceived, independence is widely seen as constitutive of its being. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Independence of Judges and Lawyers has argued that judicial independence belongs to the domain of a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens), although he stops short of explicating the elements of such a norm.

The scope and meaning of judicial independence exist in a zone of contradiction and dynamic ambiguity that encompasses institutional as well as procedural; inherent and instrumental; normative and situational; structural and behavioural; prophylactic and propositional: as well as formal and informal dimensions.

Yet, political rulers can often suborn the judiciary to legitimise themselves and the effectiveness of the judicial institution is reputedly shaped by political context. Courts and judges are at once institutions and employees of the state and yet, agents of the government. Notwithstanding its description by Baron de Montesquieu as “in some measure next to nothing,” the judiciary is nevertheless eulogised in comparative jurisprudence as the ultimate custodian of constitutional government, the “lifeblood of constitutionalism,” and as the avatar of the people against autocracy.”

The adjudication of election-related disputes tests the limits of these assumptions about the judiciary and has been delicately described as a “compromise between law and political expediency.” In many African countries, the people may vote but the question of who wins or loses the presidency is increasingly resolved as a judicial dispute in compelling spectacles of judicial pusillanimity. Uganda’s former Chief Justice, Benjamin Josses Odoki, “smiled when commenting that to nullify a presidential election would be suicidal,” suggesting that the independence of judicial decision making in any country is reflected in both the scope of judicial imagination and in its institutional psychology.

A mere seven years after this claim by Uganda’s Chief Justice, David Maraga, as Chief Justice in neighbouring Kenya, led the Supreme Court in that country to accomplish precisely that,” and less than three years later, the Constitutional Court did the same in Malawi, with a bench of judges dressed in bullet-proof vests.” It must be said that these could not have occurred under the constitutional systems bequeathed by colonialism at Independence. By the time these developments occurred, these countries had re-engineered their constitutional foundations forged in bitter experience.

But, if judges can be so powerful as to strike down election returns, it is natural to expect that assertions of their independence will not go without political pushback. Naturally, therefore, the involvement of judges in electoral adjudication makes their independence a zone of political contest.

TOMORROW…
The author discusses how the courts in Africa have overreached themselves and the consequences, citing as examples Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mali before zeroing in on Nigeria, saying “few countries have been overtaken by this trend like Nigeria.”

Professor Olatunji Tajudeen Fasasi ‘OTF’ Abanikanda became the dean of the Lagos State University School of Agriculture (LASUSOA) in 2020. From the very moment Abanikanda assumed this position, students and staff began to have a lot more to worry about.

To clash with Abanikanda requires very little effort and bears grave consequences. For instance, Judith Aluko’s* offence was that he deemed her rude. For failing to greet Abanikanda once, Al paid for it with an extra year. Aluko told FIJ that she had greeted him several times without getting a response.

Whether it was a pregnant student who had to buy and carry five heavy slates on a bike for unintentionally breaking one during her Farm Practical Year (FPY) or a male student whose prostration in the rain was not enough to appease OTF Abanikanda, most LASU Agriculture students have little to tell of their encounter with the dean since 2020 but tales of terror.

Abanikanda’s tenure was hellish enough for students that they all learnt to avoid getting into his bad books. However, avoiding his troubles was not enough, what seemed minute and inconsequential could cost a student an academic session.

ABANIKANDA: The Despot of Epe

Abanikanda’s professorship appointment came under controversy in the past. In 2016, LASU stripped him of the appointment after claiming that he skipped the position of an associate professor.

An expert in animal breeding and genetics, Abanikanda was demoted to the position of a senior lecturer, but in 2019, the National Industrial Court ruled that he be reinstated, and within a year, he became the dean of the School of Agriculture in 2020.

LASU operates three major campuses: Ojo, Ikeja and Epe. The Ojo campus is the main campus with houses the central administration and a handful of faculties. Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM) is situated in the Ikeja campus, while the Epe campus accommodates the Faculty of Engineering, School of Agriculture (LASUSOA) and the Institute for Organic Agriculture and Green Economy.

As the dean of LASUSOA, the rectification of students’ results fell under Abanikanda’s jurisdiction, and he used this to his bidding against many students he was displeased with.

Numerous sources who spoke with FIJ, especially those in the faculty of agriculture, said Abanikanda shoved it in students’ faces that he had an authority no one could question in the school, not even the vice chancellor.

Abanikanda also boasts of being a spiritually-fortified person. He threatens his students with his deanship powers and spiritual powers.

“He chants incantations, curses people and even tells us that there is nothing the university can do to him,” Emmanuel Ogunniyi, a former student of Animal Science, recounted.

While Ogunniyi was a student of LASUSOA and undergoing his Farm Practical Year, he had an encounter with Abanikanda that made him spend an additional year.

“For Farm Practical Year, attendance was supposed to be 70 marks and aptitude test was supposed to be 30 marks. At the end of the practical year, we were all expecting to have As, but at the end, I was seeing Ds. In FPY 416, I got zero,” he narrated.

“Farm practical is made up of many courses.

“I went to Miss Oso, the lecturer in charge, and she said she did not understand what was going on, that I should go to the coordinator. Dr Kareem, the coordinator, said I did not have enough marks in the practicals. Meanwhile, I was present in everything we did. There were some people who missed one whole month, they never had any issue. I never missed a day. I took it in good faith that I was going to sort it in my 500 level.

“In 500 level, when I was done with my project and exams and it was time for people to be cleared to go for NYSC. The dean was my supervisor then, and he said I was not going to be cleared because of that 400 level course. He made me do heavy farm work. From all us of who had the issue, I was the only person made to write an exam. Every other person didn’t.

“I passed the exam, but they didn’t upload it. The dean told me to write him a mail that he was going to upload it. Meanwhile, I was supposed to go for one career fair at the main campus. I could not attend the career fair and I mailed him that I would not be able to attend because I was sick. The career fair was not even a part of our course at all, it did not concern us.

“After the career fair, he didn’t upload my result. I went to school to see him with a friend of mine.

“We apologised and prostrated. He promised me there that because I did not attend the career fair, he would not upload my result and make me stay one extra year in the school.”

Ogunniyi added that at a time, Abanikanda refused to allow his students leave during the December break despite having been in school for a whole year.

READ ALSO: LASU Quietly Suspends Abanikanda as Students Seek Justice After Abuse

“December 25, 26, 31 and January 1, we were working on the farm. He didn’t allow us to go home. We didn’t offend him. He just would not let us go home to our families. Then at one point, he felt we had suffered enough and he could let us go home, he allowed us go home for just two days,” one of Abanikanda’s students told FIJ.

“If you go home for a few days and a poultry bird dies whilst you are away, he makes you pay for it. If you don’t pay, he threatens you with an extra year. Even if a bird dies during your shift on the farm, you will pay for that bird. And not just that, you have to make provision for him to still sell the dead bird. So, he’s making money in two places. There was a particular time I went home, 15 birds died. He calculated it at N112,000 and I had to pay for it.

“For five days in a week, I slept on the farm from 11 pm to 7 am. Then I had to go to class from 8 am to 5 pm for four months.”

Aluko had a similar tale to tell about Abanikanda.

“From the start, he never liked me and I did not care. Anytime I greet him, he snubs me. During the period I was doing my final year project, I was going to the farm to water my plants with my cousin and we both greeted this man, and as usual, he snubbed us. Then after walking down he called me back that I was disrespectful and he started threatening me,” Aluko told FIJ.

“He reported me to lecturers including my project supervisor. He said that I was disrespectful and he’s going to make sure I did not graduate.

“He kept reporting me to lecturers. Even my supervisor kept calling me that I should apologise to him. Anytime I go to his office, he would ignore me. He would use me as an example not to be followed by the 400 level students. I was in 500 level then.

“In 400 level, no one could register first semester courses.

“I had to register some first semester courses in my second semester, which was my own personal mistake, but it’s something that could be rectified for me. So, when our results were uploaded, three of my results did not come out in the second semester which got me bothered. I went to meet the dean and Mrs Kareem, our coordinator then who was in charge. She kept assuring me that it would be rectified, but the dean used the opportunity to delay me for a whole year.

“Even when I went to Ojo to complain, they said the problem could only be fixed in my faculty; all they had to was just send a message to the ICT to upload my result.”

Another lecturer, Professor Yinka Okunbena, tried to intervene in the situation, Aluko said. She continuously pleaded with the ICT department to open the portal for the affected, but Abanikanda stood against her. Okunbena’s death did not allow her see the fight till the end.

“He was telling lecturers that he did it intentionally just because he wanted to punish me. After wasting a year, what he delayed me for barely took him two minutes to fix on his laptop,” Aluko recounted.

ABANIKANDA: Sexual Harasser, Sexual Predator

Apart from constantly threatening students with extra years, Abanikanda also leveraged his position to sexually harass and molest female students.

For instance, Adesuwa Alade, an ex-student, told FIJ that Abanikanda would publicly tell students that he was having a sexual affair with another lecturer.

“There is one Miss Osho, she was one of our crops lecturers back then, but I heard she has left. Everyone knew then that they were having an affair. The man used to say before everybody, ‘I took off her pants last night’. Osho would be trying to caution him, but he would ask her to disprove him by swearing to Ogun. She would just stand there looking,” Alade explained.

Adesuwa Alade*, an alumnus of the school, first had some problems with her results in her penultimate year. After completing her FPY, she had an underwhelming result which she tried to challenge, but one of the lecturers in charge of the course told her that she had to accept whatever she got.

As punishment, Alade and the other affected students had to do their final year project and also work two months on the farm concurrently.

“He gave us unbelievable tasks. He even told us to join the current 400 level then to do whatever they were doing. He said we must not leave the farm without his approval,” Alade said.

“So, when all of that was done and we reached the end of our 500 level, I realised that I failed one 500 level course, which was not supposed to be. So I went to meet the lecturer in charge and he said there was nothing he could do. I told him that I was going to call for my script, that we have rights as students. But he told that I know what that faculty entails.

“I cried, begged, nothing was done. Two of us failed the course. They promised to review it but nothing was done, so I had to do an extra year.

“During my extra year, I would have to leave home from Epe and if I get there ten minutes late, I would have to stay outside to take the note. I did all the assignments and practical. When result came out, I failed again. There were two lecturers taking the course at the time. I went to meet one of them. He did not give me audience. He would rather be listening to music or surfing the internet. When I was explaining myself, he was just listening to music all along.”

Professor Akinbile, the other lecturer, however, told Alade that he was sure she did well having read her work. But all he recommended was for Alade to meet the dean.

“I went to meet the dean, he didn’t give me audience. He told me to just wait for his email. After a week, he gave me a time to come see him in his office. When I got there and explained, he asked me why I was no longer friends with Asake*,” Alade said.

Asake*, Alade explained, was another student Abanikanda had an affair with, and it was public enough that many students were aware of it.

“I told him nothing happened between Asake and me, we just stopped being friends,” she recalled.

“He told me to do a 360 turn. He then started to comment on my body. He said I’m chubby and he liked what he saw. He came closer and was touching my chest, that he likes the way my boobs were full. He said he was not sure I would come back to show gratitude if he helps me. So I told him I would definitely be back to show appreciation, and I would bring whatever gifts he wants me to.

“He said I should know that he does not accept gifts and bribes. He assured me he would do something about my issue.”

Within a week, her result changed, Alade told FIJ. “Since then, I never went there to thank him”.

Alade and Ogunniyi both confirmed to FIJ that Abanikanda harassed Moslem hijab sisters because of their religious tenets that forbids them from making any physical contact with the opposite gender.

“There’s also Zainab, a hijab sister who always covered up but her face. He once threatened her to dress like every regular lady, if not, she would not graduate,” Alade added.

For Ojuolape Davidson*, her encounter with the dean began when he called her a “hookup girl” unprovoked.

The sexual harassment started towards the end of second semester of 400 level.

“In 400 level, he called me to talk to me on a Sunday morning as I was on morning shift. I can’t remember what we were discussing that day, but when we finished talking, he commented, ‘Ashawo, see how your nipple is standing’. I was embarrassed, so I didn’t give him audience,” Davidson recalled.

The worst experience however, happened a year later when he barged into while she was stark naked in a bathroom.

“In 500 level, one morning when we were sleeping on the farm, me and a friend went to the faculty to have our bath. We have designated toilets for male and female. Even the guys know, so they don’t come to where ladies have their bath,” Davidson narrated.

“One girl was in the toilet already, so the other girl entered the toilet to ease herself. I was the only one outside the toilet, naked. I was on my phone because I wanted to play music on my phone before entering the toilet I heard footstep and I asked ‘who is that’ twice.

“The person did not reply, then Abanikanda showed up. He saw me fully naked. He went back and said I shouldn’t be that careless next time. He asked if I had covered myself and I said yes.”

That very night, Abanikanda summoned Davidson. To her, it was going to be a conversation where he apologised, but to her surprise, his intention was to leverage on the earlier event to ask her to a date. She said the lecturer referred to her as the “first woman I have seen naked without dating”.

Davidson said she rejected his advances, even when he offered to help boost her grades.

“He started talking about my result, trying to manipulate me with it because I had a bad result and that was what he did to other people,” she added.

While in 400 level, during her FPY, Sekinah Razaq* endured sexual harassment from Abanikanda. During one of their FPY activities, he tried to get touchy. Razaq maintained her stance but Abanikanda would not stop. However, when he persisted with the touches, Razaq gave in.

“He was always coming around whenever It was my shift. I could not tell anyone because he is the dean. I knew he came because of me. He would come, press my breast. I would just stand there until he was done,” she narrated.

“There was a time he told me to use my hand to massage his penis. He would not bring it out but he would ask me to put it into his trouser. Sometimes, he would […] his penis against my buttocks. Sometimes, I don’t allow him know whenever I was on shift or not.

“During my 500 level, he once asked me to come to his office. He wanted to continue what he had started.

“There was a day he wanted to kiss me by force. He also tried to force his hand inside my breast but I resisted him so strongly. He wanted to force his way but a lecturer knocked and I took that opportunity to escape.”

When the students complaints about Abanikanda’s maltreatment first surfaced on X, the post went viral. LASU moved to quietly suspend Abanikanda. FIJ checked and saw his profile had been removed from the school’s website.

When FIJ called Abanikanda, his phone number did not connect.

FIJ also sent him a text message but he said it was not the “due process”.

“I am aware of FIJ but not sure this is their modus operandi. It is an organisation I respect and will be willing to interact with when they follow due process,” Abanikanda’s response read.

Insiders claimed that Abanikanda had been reported to the school authorities in the past but LASU refused to act until it became a popular affair on social media.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Names with asterisks have been changed to protect the students of LASU’s School of Agriculture who spoke with FIJ for this story.

This article was originally written and published by FIJ.ng