A federal high court in Osogbo, Osun state, has sentenced Richard Akindele, sacked lecturer of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, to two years in prison.

Prof. Richard Akindele

The court handed the sentence after Akindele pleaded guilty to a four-count charge filed against him.

Akindele was arraigned by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) for “attempting to have sex” with Monica Osagie, one of his students, in exchange for marks.

In an audio which went viral online in April, Akindele was heard demanding five sessions of sex to award Osagie a pass mark in a course she failed.

Maurine Onyetenu, the presiding judge, held that it was necessary to punish the professor to serve as a deterrent to other lecturers.

The judge ordered that the lecturer serve his sentence in Ilesa prison due to the magnitude of the offence he committed “which is prevalent in the country”.

Onyekenu had earlier rejected a suspended sentence and plea bargain which the defendant’s counsel, Francis Omotosho , had pleaded for, noting that suspended sentence and plea bargain should be premised on public interest.

She decried the gravity of the offence the convict committed, adding that someone must be used “as a scapegoat without letting the issue of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions continue like that”.

The lecturer was first arraigned before Onyetenu on November 19 by the ICPC on four counts of alteration of age and demanding sex to pass his student.

OAU had dismissed Akindele in June after a panel set up to probe the allegation indicted him.