Prof Ndifon, UNICAL’s Dean Faculty Of  Law, Jailed For Se*xually Harassing Students

By Adesina Soyooye

The Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Calabar, Professor Cyril Ndifon has been convicted and jailed  five years for se*xually harassing his female students.

Professor Ndifon was jailed on Monday by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja. The convict had earlier been suspended from office.

In  a judgement  delivered by Justice James Omotosho, Ndifon was found  guilty on two out of a four-count charge preferred against him by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC.

His co-defendant, a Lawyer, Sunny Anyanwu, was, however, discharged and acquitted by the Court  Anyanwu was accused of trying to pervert the course of justice in the scandalous case.

Justice Omotosho sentenced Prof. Ndifon to two years in prison in one of the counts,  he was slammed with a five-year jail term on another count.

Both sentences would run concurrently.

Ndifon, the ICPC had alleged had, while serving as the Dean of the Faculty of Law UNICAL, harassed his female students by demanding explicit photos from them.

In a particular case, he was  alleged to have asked a  female diploma student, identified with the pseudonym ‘TJK’, to send  “pornographic, indecent and obscene photographs of herself” to him through WhatsApp chats.

The Diploma student was among the witnesses produced by the ICPC to testify before the court.

The defendants faced allegations which bordered on se*ual harassment, cybercrime, and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The ICPC closed its case on February 14, 2024. But the disgraced Dean filed a no-case-submission which the the court dismissed on March 6, 2024, and ordered him to open his defence.

Prof. Ndifon testified as his own witness, while one CSP Babagana Mingali, a forensic analyst at the laboratory of the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, also appeared as second witness, DW-2.

He denied the allegation against him and insisted that the prosecution failed to establish a prima-facie case against him. He lost.