16-year-old student accuses UTME invigilator of sexual harassment, Senate requests

Chizitere Obioha, a 16-year-old student seeking admission to a higher institution, has accused one of the invigilators of the recent Uniform tertiary entrance examination (UTME) of sexually harassing her during the investigation.

Chizitere, in a petition to the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, said an invigilator identified as Mutiu Olayemi requested her phone number during the exam and she refused, and her result was withheld.

Chizitere’s father, Onyebuchi Obioha, appealed to lawmakers to intervene for his daughter.

Chairman of the committee, Neda Imasuen, presented the petition in the Senate last Tuesday.

While filing the petition, Mr Imasuen, the Senator representing Edo South, told the Upper House that the invigilator tried to befriend Chizitere during the examination but she refused and subsequently her result was withheld following an allegation that she involved was involved in malpractice during the exam. .

The petition

In the petition, Mr Obioha said his daughter wrote the recent UTME exercise at the Wisdom House CBT Center in Ogba, Lagos on April 22 at around noon.

He noted that when JAMB announced the exam results, Chizitere’s result was withheld. When he inquired, the examination body alleged that it was involved in exam malpractice.

Chizitere’s father said he lamented the outcome. However, the examination body continued to maintain that his daughter was guilty of malpractice, as evidenced by the report filed by the invigilators of the center where she sat the examination.

Sexual harassment

Mr Obioha specifically alleged that her daughter’s results were withheld because she refused to cooperate with the invigilator’s sexual advances.

He said that after the investigation, the invigilator gave Chizitere a piece of paper with his phone number on it and a note telling her to call him.

“I would like to bring to your attention a suspicion we have regarding this matter. We are very sure that our daughter is being punished for a crime she did not commit.

“When my daughter came out of the room on that fateful exam day, April 22, 2024, after telling me that the exam was good, she handed me a small piece of paper and told me that a man in the room told me it was up to her to call after the exam.

In her exact words, “He came over, looked at her name and said her name was a beautiful name.” He then left and came back almost as she was collecting, dropped this piece of paper and asked her to call him afterwards. She decided to bring the paper to me,” the petition reads.

Chizitere’s father further explained that he collected the paper from her daughter and then called the invigilator’s phone number to warn him to refrain from his daughter.

READ ALSO: 2024 UTME: Candidates can now print result slips – JAMB

He added that Chizitere’s mother had also called the invigilator and warned him to stay away from their daughter.

“I immediately called the number and asked him why he gave a little 16 year old girl his number to call him. He immediately denied it and said it was a wrong number. I checked the paper and told him it was his number he wrote and I was calling.

“He cut the line. When we got home, my daughter also told my wife, who also called him, but he denied again and also disconnected the line.

“I then sent him a WhatsApp message in the evening of the same day asking him to refrain from doing so and to apologise. He didn’t respond. I have that message. I’ve added it here too. The number is 08067366564. I checked Truecaller and the name that popped up was MUTIU OLAYEMI”.

Response

In a telephone interview with journalists on Sunday, Mr Olayemi denied handing over a piece of paper with his phone number to Chizitere during interrogation.

The invigilator confirmed that he was a supervisor at the exam center but insisted that he did not give any of the candidates his phone number.

“I did not toast anyone during the exam and did not give my phone number to any candidate. I am already in Abuja as directed by JAMB Abuja to defend myself,” he said.

On the issue of the examination malpractice allegation, Mr Olayemi said he was not the one who wrote the examination malpractice report against Chizitere.

He alleged that the Resident Monitor wrote the report against Ms Chizitere.