The Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) Resource Centre, which is a non-governmental organisation and non-partisan human rights and development league, has issued a Freedom of Information request to the authorities of the Lagos State University (LASU), seeking the report of investigation on allegation of rape, ungodly sexual assault and harassment made against one its lecturers, Dr Gbeleyi Emmanuel.

The FOI request, which was dated 12th September, 2018 and signed by the Chairman of the Resource Centre, Mr Olanrewaju Suraju, stated that allegations of such nature are capable of creating diffidence in the general society on the education of the girl child and more devastating effect on the confidence of students in higher institutions of learning.

The request reads: “Our office received a victim’s report on grounds of anonymity detailing how the above-named lecturer, Dr. Emmanuel injects his female students with unknown drugs in the name of experimentation and forcefully raping them without their consent when they become unconscious, due to the effect of the said injection.

“The victim who made the report claims that several students have fallen victim of this nefarious acts of the lecturer. As a civil society organisation poised towards enthroning human rights and condemnation of its violation in any form, we condemn the alleged actions of Mr. Emmanuel in its entirety, as we also vehemently insist that the alleged act is the height of violation of the student-teacher relationship, a corruption of the educational values of the institution and an incorrigible exploitation of naïve and unsuspecting students.

“We submit that these issues have a ripple effect on society in general and all efforts must be made to rid our institutions of learning of persons of questionable character who predates on naïve and innocent students.”

HEDA stated further: “We need not point out the fact that rape, sexual assault, harassment or intimidation of any form in a student-lecturer relationship normally result in a wide-ranging number of psychological effects on a student victim, from irritation, frustration to anxiety, stress, trauma and can even lead to extreme psychological damage in future while the impact on a victim’s academic career may be significant and leave them in total ruins, posing great problems both for the victims, the higher education institutions and the labour market in Nigeria.

“We do not want such for our daughters, sisters, friends and relatives who are students of LASU and in view of recent studies that show an upward trend of occurrence of rape, sexual assault and harassment in higher education institutions in South West, Nigeria, we were reliably informed by the victim that an official report was filed with your good office, demanding investigation into the particular case and other cases involving Dr. Gbeleyi. It is imperative for your good office to ensure an immediate and urgent action with a view to rid the institution of undesirable elements seeking to add the institution to the growing statistics.

Furthermore, we wish to suggest that you use your good office to ensure the development of key anti-sexual harassment policies for the institution, establishment of telephone hotlines for the report of cases and employment of trained counsellors to attend to victims in relevant cases.”

The Centre also stated its demands to the authorities to include:

*Reported cases of Lecturer-student rape, sexual assault and harassment in the institution in the last five years.

*Reported cases of rapes and sexual harassments particularly against Dr. Gbeleyi

*The actions taken by the management with respect to these cases.

*Details of the mechanisms and policies currently in place to curb, address or offer redress with respect to cases of rape, sexual assault and harassment in the institution.

“We make the above request pursuant to the provisions of Section 2, 3, and 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2011 and look forward to the prompt receipt of the requested information and in any event, within seven (7) days of this application as provided under the Freedom of Information Act, 2011,” HEDA said.

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