RICHARD Akindele, a professor in the Accounting Department of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, who was sacked for demanding for sex from a female student in order to increase her marks, has been remanded in prison.

Akindele was arraigned on Monday by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) before Justice Maureen Onyetenu of the Federal High Court, Osogbo, Osun State, on a four-count charge to which he pleaded not guilty.

The ICPC had said, via a statement last week, that Akindele had agreed to a plea bargain with the commission, but that was not what happened when the accused person was arraigned on Monday.

After taking his not guilty plea, Akindele’s counsel, F. Omotosho, made an oral application for his client to be granted bail, but the counsel to the ICPC, Kehinde Adetoye, opposed the application on the grounds that Akindele had serially violated the administrative bail granted him by the commission.

“We have been making efforts since 5th of November to effect the service of the process. They have refused to come back and they were not reachable on mobile phone. We were surprised to see them here today. We just served them the process,” Adetoye said.

Ruling on the application, Justice Onyetenu asked the defence counsel to file a formal bail application, and ordered Akindele to be remanded in prison custody until the next adjourned date, which was fixed for November 26, 2018.

Akindele’s sex-for-marks scandal became public knowledge after an audio recording of him demanding sex from one of his students, Monica Osagie, was posted on the youtube, and immediately went viral.

He was subsequently suspended by the OAU management but was eventually sacked following the recommendation of the investigative panel set up to look into the allegation.

Akindele, however, claims that contrary to Osagie’s allegations, he was the one that was being sexually harassed by the supposed victim.

He said Osagie sent him nude pictures of hers and one occasion had stripped herself bare in his office all in attempts to lure him to have sex with her.

But the OAU investigative panel held that Akindele ought to have reported the said harassments to the appropriate authority rather than make sexual demands of his own student.