Dr Omowumi Olabode Steven Ekundayo, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Benin has broken his silence after being discharged and acquitted of allegations of s3xual assault against a final-year female student.
Gatekeepers News reports that the final year student had reported that the alleged incident occurred on October 5, 2021.
Following the accusations, Dr Ekundayo was placed on interdiction and granted bail under stringent conditions. After over three years of legal proceedings, the court found insufficient proof against him.
Reacting to the development, Dr Ekundayo expressed gratitude to those who supported him throughout the three-year ordeal, including his family, colleagues, students, and the medical professionals who provided crucial testimony.
In a heartfelt statement, he recounted the events that transpired since the allegations surfaced on October 5, 2021. He described how his pictures were taken and shared with damaging captions, and how he was falsely accused of confessing to the crime and apologising for it. The lecturer noted the immense pain and trauma he and his family endured.
He further emphasised his commitment to continuing his work with integrity and compassion.
Read full statement below:
ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS GOD, I THANK YOU! ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS BABA’ OOO! E SHE!
They submerged me in a disgusting pool of human excreta and urine and paraded me a sordid spectacle worldwide. At UniBen Health Centre where some medical experts were examining Anita Adesuwa Efosa to verify her claims, Mrs Ruth Elizabeth Osa-Osifo, UniBen Chief Security Officer (CSO) then, and Bryan Oshiomah Bologi, who was Anita’s boyfriend and fellow conspirator, took my pictures and later sent them to the entire world with horrible captions. Bryan Bologi, whoever knows him, a medical student, cajoled and joined Anita to scandalise me in the social media worldwide, after which he abandoned her. Bryan Bologi has a date with his own kharma in future.
They announced that I had confessed raping Anita and apologised for it; that I locked her up for hours after raping and injuring her; that they had to break my office door to rescue Anita Adesuwa; that I was a fugitive on the run and the Police were looking for me… So, many people seamlessly, rapidly and uncritically jumped in the bandwagon.
I was placed on interdiction, arrested, detained for a couple of weeks and paraded round the campus in handcuffs during investigation. Words and writing skills are inadequate for me to graphically express the pain from the trauma and obliquy that my family and I have had to undergo in the past three long years, whose vestiges yet linger in the seared terrains of my memory. Just Google my name and you see horrible captions about me, so much that who doesn’t know me won’t want to touch me even with longest of poles.
My salaries were withheld, contrary to the rules of engagement and established procedures for resolving criminal allegations. A staff member on interdiction or suspension ought to be entitled to his or her basic salary. However, at no time have I been paid my basic salary since 2021. Rather, what I started receiving was 6,000 naira, monthly, which was later increased to 9,000 naira, then to 13,000, to 17, 000, to 29,000,…etc. Those were my basic salaries as a Senior Lecturer or Associate Professor, the level I had just been assessed for before the phenomenal allegation of phantom rape.
Fortunately, the Almighty surrounded me with sympathetic human presence, material assistance and spiritual succour. I survived without borrowing a farthing or naira from anybody, and, above all, nature and divine grace strengthened me to retain my sound health and sanity in spite of practical threats to my health and sanity that accompanied the damaging scandal. My family remained intact, hale and hearty! A rare feat, given that scandalous miasma that whirled around us. That is the very reason I have now emerged triumphant and entered the hall of fame of the likes of the Biblical Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Daniel in the lion’s den, Shadrach & his brothers who survived Nebuchadnezzar’s immense furnace and Prophet Modaciah.
I must necessarily thank some human angels and institutions that God used to redeem me from the intractable claws and talons of organised vengeance, wickedness and conspiracy against me.
I thank the female and male medical doctors who first examined Anita Adesuwa at UniBen Health Centre, whom I do not even know from Adam and Eve, and Dr (Mrs) C.O. Enofe, the Medical Director at that time, who wrote the medical report and insisted on writing it right without censorship and influence in accordance with the Hyppocratic Oath. I don’t also know her from Adam or Eve. But I owe them gratitude for being so sincere and committed to professionalism. Their clinical and sincere medical report, which was being suppressed and questioned until the Police intervened, later perforated big holes on the balloon of the allegation and media trial orchestrated against me.
Second, I am immensely grateful to the Nigerian Police typified by the impartial crack team of detectives who investigated the allegation: CSP Regina, DSP Marian Onose and Inspector Justina Idemudia, the Investigation Police Officer (IPO) who all insisted on carrying out professional investigation and submitting an unbiased and uninfluenced report. If they had compromised, then water would have gone dry in my crab’s burrow.
Third, I am grateful to the Judiciary and the Bar. Truly, the Judiciary remains the hope of the common person though some rotted eggs there do tarn the Third Estate of the Realm with corrupt names and colours. First person in this regard is my legal counsel, Dr Osage Obayuwana of Unity Chambers, former Attorney General of Edo State, the ‘Urban Guerrilla’, a prodigious legal luminary, undoubtedly one of the best in Edo and Nigeria. I also thank Barrister Igbuan Ilofuan of Prosperity Chambers for his camaraderie and legal counsel rendered pro bono.
When the case was referred to the court for adjudication and it was assigned to a female Judge, I screamed: ‘Another woman again!’ I wept for many days and assumed that I was finally going to be finished in the hands of this Judge who might take side with the prosecution. However, I soon discovered on enquiry that His Lordship (as is in legal jargon) Justice Mary Itsueli, the Judge, maintains a good reputation, a meticulous mind and incorruptible character. So, I heaved a sigh of relief. On 25th October, 2024, three years after, His Lordship, made me shed the tears of joy and victory in the court, as he averred that “the defendant is hereby discharged and acquitted.”
Furthermore, I will forever savour the unalloyed love and support that my siblings, my aged mother at over 90 years, my extended family brothers and sisters wove impenetrably round me, including all my ‘siblings-in-law’ and parents-in-law. Daily, they prayed, fasted and counselled me to cheer up, as nothing lasts forever. Indeed!
And then my comrades and friends from the Social Movement. They all rallied round me nationwide. Men and women of God who prayed for me daily across the faiths; kinsmen who showed deep concerned; journalists who reported without bias, etc. I bow to you all in sincere gratitude.
My secondary school classmates, undergraduate and postgraduate classmates who showed me understanding and sympathy, contributing money for me on several occasions and some of them visiting my family to warm and heal my battered sensibilities. I prostrate to say thank you immensely.
My students all over the world are a beauty of character and kindness to associate with and forever remember. Imagine, I have three students’ WhatsApp groups dedicated to me, teeming with my well wishers all over Nigeria. Students contributed money for me now and then, some bought me bags of rice and other food items. Some others religiously sent me money monthly, like they were paying me salary. Yet, I must admit that, at times, the condition looked hard and the prospect not sanguine. To the few who mocked and booed at me, even some people that I had been kind and selfless to, I thank you all, I thank you very much.
Honestly, at a point, I started wondering how and why I became a beneficiary of such outpourings of love and kindness from my students and people from all the cardinal points. Then I remembered and appreciated the Bible quotation: “If men refuse to praise me, then I will raise up stones to praise me.” Now I see that teachers’ reward is on earth, before their reward in heaven!
Similarly, some of my colleagues from different departments empathised with me, visiting, calling, praying and bringing hampers to my family, openly and quietly. I am very much grateful to all my colleagues in this category. May you never experience what I suffered in the hands of those who believe that they own and control the universe.
Lastly, for now, I want to eulogise my girlfriend and wife, my confidante and counsellor, my dearest, courageous, rationale, liberated, lovely, lively and loving wife, Mrs Agore Bridget Okoh Ekundayo. I called you last because it is the biggest firewood that lasts in the oven. A good woman who can find? Ask me, I have found a good woman more precious than diamond and gold. She was/is my utility fighter in the battle field, a ‘woman of steel.’
I will take time to tell my story properly for humanity. The good Lord, Society and Nature have shown me love and protection these past three critical years of anguish so much that my heart is filled with love and forgiveness for humanity, friends, relations and even those who attacked and scandalised me. I will continue to be who God created me to be. We give what we have to the world. Some minds broil with vengeance, evil machinations and jealousy, possessed by a destroy-him demon and a pull-him-down goblin. As for me, I have love, justice, tenderness, truth, courage and equity to bequeath to humanity. I have a ‘pull-him-up daemon’ and a ‘rehabilitate-and-help-them’ mindset. Let us all give what we have and allow God to be the unchallengeable final Arbiter and Punisher.
The Nigerian university system is at a crucial junction/juncture of civilisation in which it requires dire radical lobotomy. Where dogs eat their puppies alive and where people confront mere scorpions crawling to sting an adult, but ignore the boas about to swallow him, THERE, we are faced with a paradox that invokes sombre reflection and permeates tomorrow’s picture with dark despondency.
According to William Shakespeare, ”Sweeter are the uses of adversity, which comes as ugly and poisonous as a toad, but wears yet a precious jewel on its head.” So, ‘all I have to say is Baba’ oo, e she(God, I thank you).
