The acting Head of Department of Political Science and International Relations at Covenant University, Ota has apparently become a subject of widespread complaints and petitions by students and staff at the university. Several sources from within Covenant University say that the woman has been repeatedly reported to the University authorities for abuse of office and for publicly threatening and cursing students and members of the department, including professors.
It is said that students and staff walk about in fear of the HOD as she invokes threats and curses like a juju priest. Among other offenses, she is said to have publicly invoked heavy ancestral curses and abuses on some people, promising that they will never prosper even in future generation. She is accused of delaying the processing of official papers and has also threatened to withhold promotion from anyone who offends her. Sources add that students have taken to visiting the department for a chance to record some of her public outbursts, especially when she rains curses on lecturers who she believes did not greet her properly or who dare to ask her to attend to official business. Some recordings are currently circulating around the campus where she is screaming at lecturers and deriding them as “idiots”, “insane” or calling them “pathological liars” with "devilish faces". Some students have petitioned to complain that she insulted them during interviews and even threatened to slap them.
Unfortunately, it is believed that the appeals to the university leadership has not helped her victims since the HOD has apparently boasted publicly that the Vice Chancellor has given all such petitions back to her. Indeed, it is alleged that she has now increased the level of harassment faced by such students and lecturers as punishment for complaining about her.
The real question is whether there is any serious government oversight of what is going on in these private Nigerian universities where there are no real offices that can protect students or faculty from abuse. how can people escape this kind of tyranny in Nigeria whether it is from policemen or lecturers who feel like they are gods simply because they are given a minor title or a uniform that allows them to lord it over their fellow citizens? We can only hope the authorities at Covenant University will do the right thing, investigate and protect the innocent.