Trigger Warning #metoo: Remembering my time as a Teaching Assistant in a Nigerian school

Written by Woma Nereniger

On October 7th at 6 PM (GMT), BBC Africa Eye an hour-long docu-film that shone a light into the poison of sexual harassment has long plagued Nigerian institutions across the nation. BBC Africa Eye’s lead journalist, Kiki Mordi, who herself was a victim of sexual harassment at a Nigerian university, and her colleagues let us in on the whispered conversations and propositions that occurred between lecturers and their female students behind closed doors.

A few hours before the documentary was published in its entirety to BBC News Africa’s Youtube channel, I, like thousands of Nigerians on social media, had watched the 13-minute-long online cut that went viral on Nigerian twitter.

I saw the trigger warning message that preceded the video and ignored it, assuring myself that I could handle whatever was coming. I was wrong.

I was so triggered that I could not bring myself to watch the full feature documentary. As I listened to Dr. Boniface, the now suspended lecturer of French at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), attempt to coerce Kemi, one of the young undercover journalist who worked with BBC Africa Eye on the story, into kissing him and allowing him to touch her, I was immediately catapulted to 2017.

In 2017, I worked as a Teaching Assistant (TA) at a prestigious and private high school in Lagos; it was my first salaried job since I moved back to the country, from New York, in 2016. My first few months at the school were relatively quiet and asides from a cheeky comment or two from the older male students, I was as invincible as they come. Or so I thought.

About halfway through my first year at the school, I suddenly became the apple of the vice principal’s eye. He was a tall, lanky man who had an affinity for short sleeved suits and bad haircuts.

Some days, he would pay me a compliment or comment on how much I looked like a ‘grown woman.’ Most days, he would merely smile a suggestive smile as he walked past me on school grounds.

Since the Nigerian culture demands we respect our elders, I would respond to his compliments with a quiet ‘thank you sir’, briskly walking away before he had the opportunity to purse the conversation further.

Even though I was growing increasingly uncomfortable under his watchful eye, I said nothing. I was not ready to cry wolf until I saw the damn beast was at my door, threatening to force its way into my safe space.

In most Nigerian workplaces, new employees are hired on a probationary basis that lasts anywhere between 3–6 months. After the probationary period is up, they are then confirmed and are free to request leave days and renegotiate their salaries. When my 6 months were up, I found myself face to face with the very wolf I had been hiding from.

Like Dr. Boniface, the Vice Principal was a pastor at his local church. He was also married with one child, a daughter. I remember sitting across from him and watching the ends of his lips curl into salacious grin.

“So, what is that you want?” His, much like an open carry gun, was loaded.

“Well, sir, I want to discuss my salary. I’d like the board to consider increasing it to N200,000.” I swallowed my nerves and kept my voice controlled.

“If you want more money, you know what you have do, don’t you?” There it was again. The loaded question.

“Sorry sir, I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Don’t play dumb. You are a beautiful girl and you know I admire you and your body.” The wolf was scratching at my door now, whining loudly and biting the doorknob with his sharp teeth.

I remember gasping when the weight of his comment sank in. I remember listening to the printer whir in the background as he continued talking about my shape and booking a hotel close to the school. I remember noticing the letterhead stamped at the top of the paper that came out of the printer — ‘The Redeemed Christian Church of God.’ I left his office in a blind daze, vowing to never tell anyone what happened in his office.

My raise never came but the harassment persisted. He showed up in my classroom in the middle of my lessons. He cornered me in the back of the assembly hall at the end of our morning assemblies. He became a thorn in my flesh.

After 3 months of carrying this heavy secret, I broke down during a Wednesday prayer meeting. The women were incensed, and the men were speechless. I was advised to report him to the school board; a female pastor threatened to castrate him; someone suggested finding a new job. I sobbed, sniffled and welcomed the much-needed sympathy.

A month after my teary confession, the vice principal summoned me to his office and in a moment of je ne sais quoi, I decided to record our conversation. I was not expecting him to be inappropriate, but I was hoping he would say something that would indict him in the future. In what ended up being the last conversation I would ever have with him, he explicitly told me he would increase my salary if I had sex with him. I was shocked, disgusted but elated that I had caught his words on tape.

A few days before the school closed for their half-term, I quit my job and was hired at a fintech startup a week after my resignation. I kept the audio recording, hell-bent on taking my experience at the school to the grave with me. But a friend urged me to report the harassment to the school’s principal. It took a month to muster the courage, but I found myself, once again, in the dreaded admin building that brought back so many awful memories. As I recounted my experience with his VP, the principal’s face turned beetroot red (he was white) and he stuttered and stammered his way through an explanation.

“Surely Victor would never do something like this; He’s married for goodness sake!”

“Well he did, and I have proof.”

The next day, I was brought before a board of directors who grilled me and suggested that maybe I, the single 25-year old woman, had seduced the man who had been a pillar of success at the school for almost 12 years! I sat through the meeting with gritted teeth, holding back angry tears. When they were through with their line of questioning, I placed my phone on the table and played the audio recording. The room fell into a hushed silence and I watched the directors’ expressions change from disbelief to disgust. I left the meeting drained but proud that I had spoken up.

A month later, when I was well settled into my new job, I got a call from the school. They had fired the vice principal and they were sorry for the ordeal they put me through at the meeting. I told them all was forgiven and wished them the best of luck.

In a time when more and more women are sharing their #metoo stories, I am hopeful for the wind of change that is making its way through the world. Nigeria may be progressing at a snail pace but with BBC Africa Eye exposing the hell Nigerian female students go through at the hands of their male lecturers, I am confident that we are on our way to cracking the foundation of institutionalized sexual harassment in our country.