The former Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar (UNICAL) Professor Cyril Ndifon, who was suspended by the school authorities over allegations of sexual harassment of female students, has raised alarm over threats to his life.
Ndifon, who was also accused of high-handedness by some staff and colleagues, spoke to journalists in Calabar in an interview.
Recall that following the suspension and constitution of a panel to probe the allegations, Ndifon headed to the Industrial Court in Calabar and refused to appear before the panel set up by the school authorities.
He alleged that the panel would not be fair to him, claiming he narrowly escaped a kidnap attempt by some men disguised as security officials, supposedly sent by the school.
The University Don claimed he was in Church at about 8:18am performing his duty as a churchwarden on Sunday, when some men who claimed to be security officers came to arrest him but disappeared before the Rev. Father and some parishioners could question them.
Hear him, “At about 8:15am, whilst I continued my service at my church as a warden, there was information that some persons came to inform the Catechist that they came to arrest somebody. The catechist asked them for identification, but they didn’t have any. He asked for a search warrant; they didn’t have any, then the catechist asked them to wait for him to go and inform the Reverend Father but on returning to them, they had disappeared into thin air.
“From my discussion with the catechist later, I realized that the people complained that they had to come to church because they felt it was safe for them to operate there.
“Here is my concern if you are such a legal security agency, why don’t you have any form of identification, especially, in this era when cases of kidnap are rampant in Calabar?
“Last week, Thursday or thereabout, somebody sent a video to me, showing my office was sealed by the management of the University of Calabar. To me, there is more to this than meets the eye.
“To me, it is enough for me to raise the alarm over my safety. There are threats to my life. I think this is a security concern. If they are investigating, it should be done without threatening my life. I haven’t threatened anybody and I don’t think threats should be issued to me.
“The manner with which the sealing was done is obvious. I am still a staff of the University of Calabar no matter what it is, so why would they stop me from going to my office? What if I have my personal things I want to take from my office? So it is a bit shocking that people should go to the level of sealing my office.”
Last week, some stakeholders of the University further accused the law professor of sponsoring media campaigns against the Vice Chancellor, Prof Florence Obi, where she was alleged of squandering school resources to buy houses in Abuja and employing her daughter without due authority.
