A Twitter user by the name Chukwuleta Leonard has said he lost his MTN university scholarship due to corruption in the tertiary institution system. This is coming days after the #SexForGrades campaign was lodged on twitter, following a sexual harassment documentary produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Africa .
The documentary which exposed two lecturers in the University of Lagos and two other lecturers in Ghana, have given a lot of people courage to speak out about their experiences as well.
Leonard, who is a graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, told the story of opened up about how he lost his scholarship due to the greed of his then Head Of Department (HOD). According to him, the HOD refused to sign off on his result in order to allow him receive his scholarship payment for the next year because he didn’t share part of the money he gets with the HOD and the department.
He wrote:
“A thread. #SexForGrades. I won the much coveted MTN scholarship just after my first year in Uni. It was a proud moment for my family and I, and my widowed mother could not have been more grateful. MTN was set to pay me 200k every year provided I remained on a first class/2.1.
“The second year into my scholarship and I had done all that’s required of me to verify my results but for one last thing- My HOD had to sign and the results had to be sent to MTN from my department.The Man refused. #SexForGrades”
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“A date had been fixed for our results to get to @MTNFoundation . I went to meet him and pleaded with him and he arrogantly walked me out of his office saying I was supposed to bring a percentage of what @MTNNG paid me to him and a percentage to the department. #sexforgrades”
“and because I did not do that, he wasn’t going to approve this new payment. He then called me a wicked person. #sexforgrades.
“Deadline for sending verified result passed and I had to go to @MTNNG office in Ikoyi to explain the situation, they were kind enough to reach out to the Dean faculty of engineering asking him to look into the matter. The Dean called me in for a meeting and summoned my HOD.”
“My HOD got into the Deans office and when he saw me he hissed. The Dean told him why he was summoned and he responded- “is this why you called me?”, He hissed again and walked out. The Dean sighed and asked me to follow him. #Sexforgrades.
“At this point I was devastated to say the least. I put away every sense of pride, followed my HOD and started pleading, this man literally screamed at me saying if he sees me within sight again, he’ll call UNN security on me and lock me up. #SexForGrades”
“It goes without saying that this affected my results. I narrated my story to some people, and someone said to me- “guy you no try, why you self no find am something” from that statement, I got it.#sexforgrades
“I understood that the people (students) have become soooooo oppressed that they have become willing to give their dignity for freedom. And this is what this lecturers leverage on, this is what births the entitlement culture.#sexforgrades”
“Now I am imagining if that was my sister, daughter or my friend or any female out there in my position. What demands would he have made? #SexForGrades.”
I lost the scholarship, but today I feel joy that I can join my voice with @kikimordi and all the other bold women who made this documentary. This menace has to stop. Thank you @BBCAfrica #SexForGrades.
MTN however, replied to Leonard’s tweet requesting for the details of his withdrawn scholarship.
Yetunde Adegoke
