The name Anthony Agbegbedia leaves a sour taste in the mouths of some students and former students of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Federal University of Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE).
Agbegbedia, a lecturer at the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, was the head of the department between 2021 and 2022.
To Sussanah Abiodun (not real name), Agbegbedia’s project supervisee in 2021, he was the lecturer who stood as the mountain between her and graduation by frustrating her efforts because she refused his sexual advances.
Yemi Olaoye (not real name) told FIJ her experience is similar to Abiodun’s. However, while Abiodun has graduated and escaped Agbegbedia’s reins, Olaoye still struggles to disentangle herself from his web.
To Abiodun Abolore, a former student of the department who served as the public relations officer of the students’ union government between 2021 and 2023, Agbegbedia was the lecturer who had his eyes fixated on the department’s students’ association purse and wanted to be a signatory to the account so he could have unrestricted access to the funds.
FRUSTRATED EFFORTS
Abiodun was close to spending an extra year in the university and not graduating with her mates. She said this happened because she refused Agbegbedia’s sexual advances.
She told FIJ on Friday that he frustrated her efforts to complete her final year project by making her redo the chapters of her long essay and nearly ensured she didn’t defend her project until another lecturer intervened.
Abiodun had submitted nine different topics to Agbegbedia a year before she began her Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) at a magistrate court in Ekiti in 2020. Still, the lecturer thought they were not good enough and suggested another topic.
When Abiodun returned to school after completing her SIWES in February of that year, she submitted her project’s first chapter, which her supervisor rejected.
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A month later, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked on a two-week warning strike followed by an indefinite strike which was called off in December of that year.
“While ASUU was on strike, I sent him another chapter after effecting the changes he suggested, but I got the same response. I decided to abandon the project and start all over when school resumed. But he would always check up on me and tell me how he liked how mature I was,” Abiodun told FIJ on Thursday.
In 2021, Abiodun returned to school.
Anthony Agbegbedia.
One Friday after his class, she went to Agbegbedia’s office to submit another chapter she had rewritten. She told FIJ that he asked her to wait for him so he could attend to other students waiting to see him.
“That was the first time he told me he liked me and would like to sleep with me. I told him I was like a daughter to him and he said he would do no such thing to his daughter. He told me I was not his daughter and I should think about what he said,” said Abiodun.
“I left his office, and that marked the beginning of the stress he had put me through. Anytime I sent my first chapter, he would always find one error or the other. I proceeded to begin working on the second chapter. While all this was happening, he talked to me about sleeping with him but I told him I was uninterested.”
This continued until June 2021, when it was time for Abiodun to defend the first three chapters of her project. A few weeks before her project defence, Agbegbedia kept rejecting her first chapter and at some point she started sending chapters one and two to him for approval.
One day, Agbegbedia asked Abiodun to meet him off-campus, but she declined. She told FIJ that she held on to faith and hoped he would have a change of heart.
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“A day before our first defence, I was in school till 6 pm just for him to approve my work. He rejected my chapter two and approved the first chapter. I left his office crying. It was late, and I could not get a cab. I decided to take a walk, and just as I was about to leave, he came out of his office and offered me a ride, but I declined the offer,” Abiodun told FIJ.
“When I got home that night, I learnt that the defence had been postponed. I sent three different versions of my work between that day and the following week, only for him to reject all of it. A day before the defence, he approved the three chapters I had written.
“After the defence, he told me that he only approved my work so I could defend my project and that I should redo the chapters I had written. It was unbearable.”
She told FIJ that this continued until a psychology lecturer intervened and allowed her to defend her project.
After her project defence, her supervisor told her to rewrite it. She disagreed with him because the judges had graded her project, and she left the school the following day because she was ill.
‘THE BALL IS IN YOUR COURT’
Olaoye, who rejected Agbegbedia’s advances when she was a 300-level student in 2023, has failed his course for two consecutive semesters and is worried she won’t graduate now that the school has released its senate graduating list.
While speaking to FIJ on Friday, she said it all started when she went to his office to write her name on the attendance list after missing one of his classes in 2023.
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“I was absent on the first day of his class. I met him after the second class to mark attendance, but he told me to message him on WhatsApp. When I did, he requested my matric number and asked me out. He asked me to meet with him off-campus and pressured me to do his bidding,” said Olaoye.
She added that she would always give him excuses whenever he asked her to meet with him, and when he discovered this, he told her the ball was in her court.
“He told me that exams were fast approaching and that I knew he would do whatever I wanted, so I should do what he wanted. Sometimes, he would ask to meet in school, but I always gave excuses. He told me the ball was in my court. I stopped responding to his messages,” Olaoye told FIJ.
Olaoye failed his course in the first semester of 400 Level. She told FIJ that his course was the only one she had failed. She also failed his course in the second semester of her final year as an undergraduate.
She started wondering if he was deliberately failing her because she refused his advances.
“This was when I spoke out. I told my father about it, and we wrote a letter to the vice-chancellor and the dean of my faculty, but they have not done anything about it. They have only said they are investigating. The senate graduating list is out. My name wasn’t on it. I am hoping my name will be on the second list,” said Olaoye.
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THREATS
In 2021, Agbegbedia ordered the executives of the department’s student association to transfer funds from the association’s account to his wife’s account.
When the student executives questioned him, he told them he had the authority to make such a request.
Screenshot of Agbegbedia’s chat with a student executive.
Abolore, who was the public relations officer of the school’s students union between 2021 and 2023, told FIJ that the executives accepted his request after he threatened them.
He also told FIJ that Agbegbedia demanded to be a signatory to the bank account so he could access the funds.
“This was when the association reported to the students’ union government, and we took it up. I was a student in the department and the PRO of the students’ union government. The vice chancellor constituted a panel to address the issue. The lecturer was advised to resolve the issue and not punish any of the executives who were involved,” Abolore told FIJ on Friday.
He added that there were several other allegations against the man in previous years, but there was no proof.
‘WE ARE INVESTIGATING’
FIJ sent Foluso Ogunmodede, FUOYE’s public relations officer, a message on Tuesday. In his response on Wednesday, he said that the school was investigating the claims against Agbegbedia.
“As for the subject matter, it is still being investigated by the authorities, and the outcome will be made public. Thank you,” Ogunmodede wrote FIJ on Wednesday.
Agbegbedia had not responded to FIJ’s messages or phone calls at press time.
The post Students Expose How FUOYE’s Anthony Agbegbedia Demands Sex for Grades appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.