The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Monday convicted the suspended Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar (UNICAL), Prof. Cyril Ndifon, and sentenced him to five years imprisonment for sexually harassing his female students.
The court, in a judgement that was delivered by Justice James Omotosho, found him guilty on two out of a four-count charge the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), preferred against him.
However, the court discharged and acquitted his co-defendant and lawyer, Mr Sunny Anyanwu, who was accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice in the matter.
It was the position of the court that evidence the prosecution adduced before it, did not nail the 2nd defendant to the commission of any offence.
While Justice Omotosho sentenced Prof. Ndifon to two years in prison in one of the counts of the charge that was sustained by the court, he was handed five-year jail term on another count.
The court held that both sentences would run concurrently.
The ICPC had alleged that Ndifon, while serving as the Dean of the Faculty of Law at UNICAL, harassed his female students by demanding explicit photos from them.
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He was alleged to have asked a particular female diploma student whose identity was replaced with the pseudonym ‘TJK’, to send him “pornographic, indecent and obscene photographs of herself” through WhatsApp chats.
The said student was among the four witnesses the ICPC produced that testified before the court.
Allegations against the defendants bordered on sexual harassment, cybercrime, and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
After the ICPC closed its case on February 14, 2024, the embattled Dean filed a no-case-sunmission which the court dismissed on March 6, 2024, and ordered him to open his defence to the charge.
In 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.
While denying the allegation against him, the 1st defendant insisted that the prosecution failed to by way of any credible evidence, establish a prima-facie case against him.
He contended that the totality of the testimony of all the witnesses, among whom included the alleged victim, were not sufficient or such that any court could rely upon to make a conviction.
