A university don, Prof. Elizabeth Balogun, on Wednesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, expressed her concern over the prevalence of prostitution among female undergraduates in the country.
Balogun said the sex trade had become rampant on Nigerian campuses to such an extent that 80 percent of prostitutes that patronise night clubs, hotels and tourist centres in Ogun State are students of tertiary institutions.
Prof. Balogun,a Biochemistry lecturer at the University of Ilorin, said this at a seminar organised by the National Association of Nigerian Students to mark its 31st anniversary where she delivered a lecture titled “Prostitution on our campuses: Effects and solutions.”
The guest speaker, who expressed regret said, “It is absurd to the level that young undergraduate lady would leave normal academic chores of attending lectures and visiting libraries for further studies during the day, only to metamorphose in the evening into a call-girl or pimp.
“There is no doubt that prostitution in the long run corrupts the quality of the nation’s future leaders and affects their values. Understanding that
young females constitute appreciable percentage of the nation’s population, little could be expected from them productively if they had been turned into cheap sexual machines, with warped self-esteem and self- actualisation.
“Inordinate desire for affluence and desperation by many Nigerians, especially ladies lure them to engage in immoral and illicit activities, despite high level of religiousness which Nigerians overtly demonstrate. Even the present scourge of HIV/AIDS and the menace of ritual killers that find easy prey among prostitutes, have not been strong enough to curb the rising trend of the practice.”
She urged the government to improve funding on education in order to drastically reduce cost of attaining higher education which will curb the rising trend of the practice.
