By Frank Ulom
ABUJA (CONVERSEER) – A Federal High Court in Abuja has convicted and sentenced Prof. Cyril Ndifon, suspended Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Calabar (UNICAL), to five years imprisonment for sexually harassing his female students.
According to Vanguard Newspapers, the court, in a judgment that was delivered by Justice James Omotosho, on Monday (17th November 2025), found Prof. Ndifon guilty on two out of a four-count charge brought before it by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
However, the court discharged and acquitted his co-defendant and lawyer Sunny Anyanwu, who was accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice in the matter.
It was the position of the court that the evidence the prosecution adduced before it did not nail the second defendant to the commission of any offence.
While Justice Omotosho sentenced Prof. Ndifon to two years in prison in one of the counts of the charge that was sustained by the court, he was handed a five-year jail term on another count.
The court held that both sentences would run concurrently.
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The ICPC had alleged that Ndifon, while serving as the Dean of the Faculty of Law at UNICAL, harassed his female students by demanding explicit photos from them.
He was alleged to have asked a particular female diploma student whose identity was replaced with the pseudonym ‘TJK’, to send him “pornographic, indecent and obscene photographs of herself” through WhatsApp chats.
The said student was among the four witnesses the ICPC produced that testified before the court.
Students at the UNICAL Law Faculty in 2023 staged a protest on Campus, accusing Ndifon of sexual harassment, manipulation, among others.
Allegations against the defendants bordered on sexual harassment, cybercrime, and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
After the ICPC closed its case on 14th February 2024, the embattled Dean filed a no-case submission which the court dismissed on 6th March 2024, and ordered him to open his defence to the charge.
In his defence, Prof. Ndifon testified as his own witness, while one CSP Babagana Mingali, a forensic analyst at the laboratory of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), also appeared as second witness, DW-2.
While denying the allegation against him, the first defendant insisted that the prosecution failed to establish, by way of any credible evidence, a prima facie case against him.
He contended that the totality of the testimony of all the witnesses, among whom included the alleged victim, was not sufficient or such that any court could rely upon to make a conviction.
