This commitment was revealed by Sunday Asefon, the Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Student Engagement. He made this disclosure during an event where Nigerian students presented pens to the president, urging him to give his assent to the Sexual Harassment Prohibition Bill currently before him.
Mr Asefon contributed his own pen to the collection of donated pens and emphasised the need for collaborative efforts to put an end to sexual harassment in the educational sector.
He stated, "I also want to use this medium to announce to you that soon, my office will be unveiling the Student Complaint Unit. There will be a website. The unit is all about complaints from students. You don’t need to know me, and I don’t need to know you. Once you have an issue of sexual harassment or sex for marks from the lecturers or oppressors, all you need to do is report through the website, which we shall provide, and we will take it up from there."
He expressed concern over the numerous cases of sexual harassment that have been reported but ignored due to the influence of the lecturers involved.
Mr Asefon assured the students that their message regarding the sexual harassment bill would be conveyed to Mr Tinubu promptly.
He said, "This bill will give judgment to criminalise sexual harassment offenders. And I want to assure you that my office will collaborate to renew the fight against sexual harassment and sex-for-marks in our institutions."
Earlier, Benita Olaniyan, the former Students Union president at the University of Abuja, appealed to the president to promptly review the bill before him and sign it into law to put an end to any form of harassment against students.
She said, "The education system is supposed to be a safe place for learning, but students have been harassed and sexually molested. The students across higher institutions of learning in this country, in their goodwill, have donated these pens to the president, and we believe there will be stricter punishment for offenders."
During the presentation of the pens to the president, Daniel Ayeni, speaking on behalf of the Nigerian students, stated that the presentation served as a framework for accenting the bill.