A Federal High Court in Osun State on Monday, sentenced a former Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) lecturer, Richard Akindele, to two years in prison for demanding sex-for-marks from a student, Monica Osagie.
Justice Maureen Onyekenu gave the order after Akindele changed his plea from not guilty to guilty.
The trial judge ordered that the lecturer serves his sentence in Ilesa prison, due to the magnitude of the offence he committed “which is prevalent in the country”.
Onyekenu had earlier rejected a suspended sentence and plea bargain which the defendant’s counsel, Mr Francis Omotosho, had pleaded for, noting that suspended sentence and plea bargain should be premised on public interest.
She decried the gravity of the offence the convict committed, adding that someone must be used “as a scape goat without letting the issue of sexual harrasment in tertary institutions continue like that”.
Omotosho had earlier pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy in sentencing his client.
The lecturer was first arraigned before Justice Maureen Onyetenu on November 19 by the ICPC on four counts of alteration of age and demanding sex to pass his student.
