Editor's Note: This piece was first published on the author's Facebook page on July 9, 2026. Source: https://www.facebook.com/1276794559/posts/10233575958082253/?app=fbl
By Dr. Hashim Muhammad Suleiman, PhD
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| Dr. Hashim M. Suleiman, PhD, Dept. of Mass Communication, ABU Zaria |
As a Nigerian male-academic, the dangers one needs to surmount are many and varied. No matter your mastery of self control, one is, on daily basis, being confronted with multi sectoral attempts at being dragged down the drain.
You have layers of students from Ph.D, M. Sc, Master’s degrees, PGD, UG and in some instances, sub degree programmes. Each of these students comes in different shades: the good, the not so good and the bad ones. You also need some PPs to augment the peanut pay at the end of the month. You have to conduct researches, publish widely and conduct both administrative duties and community service in order to scale the promotion hurdles.
Yet, that’s not even where most of the dangers come from. The dangers mostly come from your relationship with your students, particularly those from your opposite sex. Indeed, almost all male-academics have stories to tell about this but the system and the community don’t want to know about those stories, the expectation is that as male-academic, you must have super human ability to resist all advances, unnecessary moves and devilish plans to lure you down the stream. Should you fail and become exposed, as a lecturer, you are already guilty even before being charged.
Permit me to use some few personal anecdotes to buttress some of the dangers we face daily as lecturers.
Some years back, I was the faculty examination officer. A lady was caught in the examination hall making use of smartwatch. The invigilators tried all they could to let her open the wristwatch but she refused. They eventually brought her to the faculty examination office. We asked her to show us the contents of the smartwatch but she quickly formatted it and erased all the contents. She looked at us with a crooked smile, in her assumption, she has destroyed all the evidence. We quietly notified her of a rule she had broken: “destruction of evidence” which carries a harsher punishment.
Was that the end?
No!!!
That lady went to town and put a price on my head. She was ready to pay hundreds of thousands of naira for any information that would lead to me being caught pants down “a inda nake zuwa neman mata.” Perhaps, if she had succeeded, I would also have been a viral social media sensation of how another university lecturer was caught with female students.
Secondly, there was this lady that was about to be withdrawn because of poor academic performance. A relative of hers happened to know me, in fact the relative was my UG classmate. That relative asked her to meet me for some pieces of advice though the relative did not inform me about it.
One very day, I strolled into the department’s general office to check if I had any mail. I saw the lady discussing with the departmental secretary and she greeted me. I recall she was dressed decently.
After getting my mails, I strolled to our small faculty suya joint to savour some delicacy. Less than an hour, that same lady I left in the department came to the suya joint. Only that she wasn’t on her previous dressing. She had changed into a tight trouser, a “show me” tight Tshirt and she was wearing heavy and disturbing makeup. She alighted from the motorcycle taxi, greeted the people around and said “Dr. Hashim I come to see you.”
I was instantly alarmed. My brain went into hyper loop to search for why she would do that, I got nothing in return. I retorted, “you come to see me?” “In this dressing?” “Ƙatuwa da ke kaman an jiƙa pilo?” She left dejected but she wasn’t done.
Eventually, she had to change to another department but she didn’t stop there. She developed a habit of gathering girls in her new department and even in the female hostel and was narrating to them how I was sneaking her out of campus in my car for “romantic outings.” Her numerous attempts at tarnishing my image finally got my attention. She received some serious warnings. I don’t know if she has stopped or she has other plans.
Also, some years back, another lady, a sub degree student was having difficulties with her studies. Her relative, a distant friend told me about it and ask if his sister could see me for possible advice towards her studies. I obliged. When she first came to my office, I realised she was keeping a company of unserious female friends, those we use to call “jam’iyar matan arewa.” So, I advised her to avoid them and concentrate on her studies.
The second time she came to my office, I asked her to bring out a piece of paper so that I could direct her to draw a reading timetable. Albeit, I noticed she came wearing heavy makeup and punching perfume. Well, she didn’t come with any paper. So, I decided to pick a paper from the printer. Lo and behold, that lady seated in my office, was using her phone to record what I was saying to her, with neither my consent nor me knowing.
I asked why she was recording me. Instantly, her countenance changed, with shaky hands, she pressed the stop recording button and told me she wasn’t aware the handset was recording me. Allah knows, I wasn’t angry. I picked my phone, called that her relative that introduced her to me and told him what transpired. I asked him why he would send his sister to record our conversation. He was miffed. He begged me to give her the phone to which I declined. I asked the lady to leave my office and never return.
Yet, it didn’t end there. The same lady met my wife in the mosque few weeks later. After the usual greetings, she asked my wife, “are you Dr. Hashim’s wife?” Of course, my wife said yes. She then told my wife, “are you aware that your husband loves me and is going out with me?” I was told my wife calmly told her, she was welcome to the family but my wife’s friend that was present there didn’t take it calmly with that lady.
Indeed, there are many more similar stories from the lecturers’ sides. Some stories are laughably mundane, some are trage-comedy, some are hilariously funny while some are ment only for film scripts.
No matter what, when it comes to male-academic-female-students issues, Nigerians assume that the lecturers are always guilty of harassment. Our side of the stories aren’t even given any listening ear: we are guilty as charged.
Despite all these and many more, I still maintain my stance: any lecturer that forces himself on any female student deserves to be met with the highest ill treatment.
~~~ Hashim Muhammad Suleiman, PhD
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.