SEX CORRUPTION AND AIDS IN UNIVERSITIES

The list that was reportedly submitted in his confessional to the Priest contained the names of over five dozen female University students that he had been having sex with. Over 60 names! Some of the girls were recent graduates. The vine yard had it that some of the girls were present at the wake keeping. The youngest student on the list was said to be 18 years of age and a good friend and age mate of the daughter of the deceased University don. He now lay in casket, a charred-black face looking pale white from the mortician’s reconstruction and restitution efforts. Yet, even though tuned out of his mortal remains, the world behind him could not help but continue wondering at the monstrosity of what his sexual licentiousness meant to his dependent family, disillusioned mistresses, the University and community at large.

He had been a lecturer at the Yaounde University in Cameroon, West Africa. He had established more than a reputation for himself after several years of lecturing in the English Department. Pass grades were not always attributed to studious, smart and attentive female students. Rather, any pretty witless female student that dropped her dross in his office-turned-motel-room scored more than the pass grade. In fact, it now became an open-secret that those female students were possibly on his “A” list for possible AIDS infection.

The idea of a “list” that could not be made public was repugnant, repulsive and shocking depending on who you talked to. But it certainly gave lee way for a lot of speculation on who was or not on the list. If true, the number of students on that list was a tenth of the entire female population in the English department. That would be 1 of every 10 girls. Who was that one?

I could not help but count myself lucky for not enrolling in the Department. Even better, my girlfriend was reading Law like myself. But I got the adrenaline rush from revisiting conversations of her telling me of a Teacher Associate (TA) that she was frequenting in the English Department. She never disclosed the nature of the relationship, only telling me how insecure I was. So I started thinking the worst. What if she had a sexual relationship with this “friend” who may have had unprotected sex with one of the “infected” mistresses? After all, TA’s wield enough power over undergraduate students. It was already midnight past. I would go to her hostel in the morning.

The question was to the point: - “Are you having sex with that “friend” of yours in the English Department?”

What?” She asked.

Just answer my question and stop buying time. You heard me…

Well, go hang yourself! Why should it bother you, Mr. Condom?

So, how come you accused “Mr. Condom” of your pregnancy some four months ago?

I was pulling your legs to squeeze some money out of you…

You ought to be ashamed of yourself….I said on my way out, feeling the weight of the world fall off my shoulders. Still, the relief would be temporal until the results of an AIDS test that came back negative a couple of years later.

The military, students and prostitutes have respectively led the AIDS prevalence charts in Cameroon. There is a nexus between the proclivities for reckless sexual behavior with multiple partners and high wages or salaries. The military in Cameroon remains the only institution that never suffered any salary cuts after the devaluations of the CFA currency that is pegged to the French Franc. Instead, military men and women have continued enjoying salary increases; which is good measure by the dictator president to keep his rivals at bay. As a result, their purchasing power has continued to grow as that of the rest of the country has plummeted, excepting those of rapaciously corrupt civil servants and the business community. The colossal currency collapse and devaluations annihilated the buying power of the civil service middle class and the hard working poor farmers – the very ones that are struggling to guarantee the education of their children in national / local universities.

Therefore, saddled by cancerous financial backbones in an expensive economy, coupled with shaky moral compasses and bleak futures, many of the female students succumbed to the easy life of mistresses. The Nouveau riche military, erstwhile in the distant back, became front runners that were disbursing cash payments most of the time. As for the University faculty, the tactic has always been to make life a living hell for many attractive female students by failing them at exams unless they trade sex favors for pass grades. These girls generally have their true boyfriends that are campus students also, with whom they may have unprotected sex. But the boyfriends are not naïve. They know the pressures of campus life on their girlfriends, and since fighting the patron is a losing proposition, they compensate their loss by stepping down to high schools for their own flings….It is a circus.

How do we stop it? The thirst and lust for younger, tender female skin has been unquenchable from time immemorial. We may not stop it ever. However, mindfulness about some truths and facts will lead to certain decisions and actions that will remove us and our dear ones from harms way.

1) Acknowledge the fact that University education for all is a misleading and dangerous proposition that is directly tied to dysfunctional economies. University education is for those who can afford it or those who earn it through brain power – scholarships. It should be understood that University education is not an end in and of itself. It is a means to other ends.

2) Every University must have a Career Counseling division for every eligible university candidate. It will help those without a purpose to figure out what they want and whether or not investing in University education is worth their time.

3) Establish a General Counseling office that would retain chaplain services among other expertise. This office will be a pillar focusing on those areas of student and even faculty life that are not strictly academic. For instance, counseling AIDS infected individuals that seek their services.

4) Every University should have an Independent Examinations Review Committee that will be reviewing manuscripts of complaining students that may be victimized by faculty desiring sex favors.

5) Mandatory AIDS testing for all University staff at the beginning of every semester at an independent trusted and vetted health facility.

6) Criminalize verifiable sex relationships between a faculty member and a current student.

7) Pressure for more community schools focusing on trades.

These and other measures that you are free to suggest will be geared towards un-cluttering University campuses. Young people who have no business wasting their time and scarce money in University education will identify other profitable career paths much earlier than later. This leaves a university campus free of adventurers and gives breathing space for those that can afford academic pursuit or can earn it by their wit. This means that University faculty would have to be very careful with whom they are messing up. The rich can afford to be heard in court and the poor smart students have the Independent Examination Review Committee to count on. In addition, the mandatory AIDS testing for faculty, including TA’s, will be a safeguard to their pathetic selves, their spouses and the students that may fall through the cracks of sex corruption.

Innocent Chia
Citizen Journalist
Email: innochia@gmail.com