Mr Opefeyitimi did not deny the allegations in a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES’ reporter but described the development as a “set-up.”
The lecturer, who has only four years until retirement, told this newspaper that what happened between him and the student was consensual and that Miss Bababunmi was his fiancee.
This fresh sex scandal is coming about seven months after a lecturer in the department of English Language Studies at the same faculty, Adebayo Mosobalaje, was sacked over similar allegations.
According to a petition addressed to the university through the office of the head of the department, Felix Fabunmi, a professor, Miss Bababunmi, a 400-level student, narrated how the elderly lecturer invited her to the university during the crisis that rocked the institution in March.
Some protesters barricaded the university’s entrance gates, even as they invaded the campus with fetish objects over the selection process of a substantive vice-chancellor.
Miss Bababunmi’s petition was dated March 21, 2020, and titled; “Report of Sexual Assault and Molestation against Professor Ayo Opefeyitimi.” She claimed the lecturer had sent her a message on WhatsApp on Thursday, March 17, and requested to see her on the campus between the hours of 8 a.m and 2 p.m on Friday, 18.
The student said Mr Opefeyitimi had always sought her help in the past to upload his notes on the university’s teaching platform during the coronavirus pandemic when the institution switched to online mode of studying.
She said: “But I was not always alone in his office then. There were usually other students. But I diplomatically stopped going to him because I was staying very far away from the school and the transportation fare was much for me then.
“But I later realised he did not like it and stopped answering my greetings whenever I saw him at the department. One day, he called a friend of mine to assist him and I accompanied her to his office where I knelt down to beg if I had offended him in any way. He then said there was no problem, and that if he had been angry with me, he would have shown me.”
Miss Bababunmi said she also later noticed that the lecturer had been envious of her relationship with another lecturer, Olusola Ajibade, a professor, whom she described as her mentor.
“So towards the end of 2021, Professor Ajibade travelled abroad, and Professor Ope, as he is popularly called, would keep asking me if I knew when he would return, which I didn’t know,” she said, adding that; “When the lecturer eventually returned in December 2021, he developed an eye problem and Professor Ope kept asking me about the man’s health. He would even tell me not to let him know that he was asking after him from me. I began to wonder what could be happening between them.”
Meanwhile, on March 10, Miss Bababunmi was, alongside four other awardees including the veteran thespian and former lecturer at the university, Kola Oyewo, honoured at an award ceremony organised by the Linguistics and African Languages Students’ Association.
Miss Bababunmi, who was the only student among the honorees, was awarded the best cultural female student in the department.
The excited student said she became the cynosure of all eyes and took pictures with everyone present including Mr Opefeyitimi.
“Just the way I shared pictures with everyone that appeared in the different copies, I also sent the one I took with Professor Ope to him. A friend, Fatimah Sekoni, is also in the picture with the professor,” the student explained.
The student said as a lecturer she respected, she obliged the request to see her because “I really couldn’t question his order.”
She narrated: “I got to his office around 1:23 pm. He told me that he only wanted to ask about what was going on on the campus since he wasn’t on campus the previous day.
“I was astounded to hear that but I told him to take the Road 7 route when ready to go home because road 1 was blocked. He asked me to sit down and he asked me the reason why the road was blocked. Then I told him that I didn’t really know and heard that it was all about the appointment of the new VC.
“He decided to leave the office immediately and he packed his things saying that I was God-sent to him because it was almost 2p.m and he needed to pick up his son from the school. He carried the bag and we were about to leave the office. I offered to help him with the bag but he declined and I headed to the door.
“He grabbed me from behind and held me so tight. At this point I was in shock, then he said and I quote “Mo fẹ́ kí èmi àti ẹ jọ wà papọ̀ ni [thrice] but problem tí mo ní tẹ́lẹ̀ ni boy Ajibade yẹn but mi ò rò pé ó yẹ kó jẹ́ problem mọ́- (I want the two of us to be together (three times), but the problem I had before was that boy called Ajibade, but I don’t think he should pose any challenge again.”
The student said until she went through the whole experience in her head again and married the events of the recent past together, she couldn’t understand what Mr Opefeyitimi was referring to when he mentioned the name of her mentor, Mr Ajibade.
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