Ebizi Eradiri, the first female first-class law graduate of the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, who was recently made the Face of the Bayelsa Girl Child, has disclosed how some randy lecturers almost scuttled her ambition of making first class.
Eradiri, who also bagged first-class feat at the Nigerian Law School, spoke during a homecoming reception, tagged ‘#Schoolnobescam’ held in her honour by the Sele Eradiri Foundation in collaboration with other non-governmental organisations in Yenagoa on Wednesday.
Governor Douye Diri had on Monday formally received the Bayelsa-born female lawyer in company of her father, and announced the award of automatic scholarship for her master and doctorate degrees in any university in Nigeria or abroad.
Diri equally offered her automatic employment to lecture at the law faculty of the state-owned NDU and also declared her as the New Face of the Bayelsa Girl Child with a view to making her a role model for young girls in the state and the entire Ijaw nation to emulate.
Eradiri, who hails from the Yenagoa Local Government Area, said prayers, hard work and dedication to her studies helped her overcome the frustration by some sex-for-marks lecturers.
She said, “I was very conscious of my dressing, which enabled me to get the best dressed female student in the Faculty of Law, in the year l was graduating. I made sure I didn’t wear skimpy things that would expose sensitive parts of my body.
“I felt that was the starting point for me not to even attract the wrong lecturers to myself. I would say it was prayer because there was a time when we had a borrowed course and a particular lecturer was trying to do something funny.
“When I sensed it from that particular lecturer in the first semester, l called home and told them what was going on and we all prayed.
“At some point, l had to escalate the issue to my HoD and told her what the lecturer was doing; she called and warned him. These are some of the challenges the girl child is likely to face, but through prayers and escalating them to the appropriate quarters, l think they can scale through.”
Eradiri said the lowest grade she had during her university days was a ‘C’ which was given to her by a lecturer who insisted on having sexual intercourse with her.
She promised to deploy her appointment as the New Face of the Bayelsa Girl Child as a platform to propagate reading culture among the youth in the state.