The Cross River State Police Command, has confirmed the arrest of the suspended dean of law faculty of the University of Calabar (UNICAL), Professor Cyril Osim Ndifon by security operatives, while noting that it was not an abduction.
The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Irene Ugbo, confirmed this on Thursday, saying “Prof Ndifon was arrested by a government security agency (not the police) for interrogation.”
SaharaReporters had earlier reported that some gunmen, numbering about 8, stormed the residence of Prof Ndifon at Akpabuyo at about 1am and whisked him away.
A family source had told journalists that the heavily armed men jumped over the fence into the compound and went straight into his room, picked him up, dragged him into a waiting van and zoomed off.
“The incident happened between the hours of 12:00–1:00 a.m. on Thursday while we were asleep. We heard a bang on our door, and a voice shouted we should open the door or else they would blow the door open if we did not open it at that moment.
“Without dilly-dallying, ten heavily armed men jumped over the fence into the compound and went straight into Oga’s room, picked him up, dragged him into a waiting van and zoomed off,” a family source had said.
SaharaReporters in August reported that female students of the faculty of law at UNICAL staged a protest in the university, demanding the immediate removal of Ndifon for allegedly sexually harassing them.
Though Ndifon had claimed that the allegation of sexual harassment was plotted against him because he won the faculty election, the university management suspended him and constituted a panel to investigate the allegation.
The school’s vice-chancellor, Prof. Florence Obi, constituted the administrative panel to thoroughly investigate the allegations against Ndifon.
Earlier in September, SaharaReporters reported that Ndifon failed to appear before the panel constituted to investigate the allegations against him.
The probe panel later found the senior lecturer guilty of gross misconduct.
In the report of the panel obtained by SaharaReporters, it “established that the suspended Dean, Prof. Cyril Osim Ndifon was using his official position to both intimidate and bargain for sexual favour from female students in the Faculty of Law”.
It also “established that the suspended Dean had been involved in students’ exploitation”.
“Elaborately, he had been perpetrating cruelty against students by forestalling the graduation of especially some female students at the appropriate time by withholding and refusing to release their results and threatening some that they would never graduate from the Faculty or go to the law school,” the panel stated in the report.
