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Tamale, Ghana – Some female students of the Tamale School of Hygiene have expressed disappointment in the leadership of the school for their unwillingness to take a decisive action on the sexual harassment scandal involving a tutor by name Solomon Ossom Asare alias King Solomon.
According to the aggrieved students, the loud silence of the school’s acting Principal Seiwu Bello on the matter involving their tutor and one of their colleagues by name Portia is an indication that he does not care about the rights and welfare of students but rather the tutor.
Rather than shielding the tutor and blaming other people for speaking to the media about the incident as if it never happened, the students said they want the principal to demonstrate to the whole world that their parents as well as government can continue to have faith in him as head of the school.
“It’s now clear after two solid weeks that our principal and other senior management staff have taken side with Solomon against our colleague. Since the incident came to their attention till date, we have not heard of any official pronouncement on the matter. And we don’t want to believe that Solomon is innocent that is why he still comes to school to teach and supervise other assignments.
“Everybody including the principal, tutors and students knows that the tutor is like that, that’s his character. The principal himself confirmed this to the journalists who exposed the issue to the public. So, why is Solomon not suspended, sacked or transferred? If Solomon is not guilty of the so called accusations, why is the principal and other staff persistently harassing and blaming Portia our colleague for informing her parents instead them? Now we live in fear because Solomon and other tutors like him will become emboldened to commit worse acts in future,” one of the students lamented in phone conversation with this reporter.
“I have also read another story of a former student by name Rashida. Rashida our senior gave vivid account of what she went through in the hands of Solomon which is similar to the current incident involving him and our colleague Portia. If the school authorities don’t take care, in future many parents will not like to enroll their daughters in this school because the authorities see no evil and hear no evil”, another student noted.
The students, who want to remain anonymous, reiterated their appeal to the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources and all other institutions of state responsible for managing the school to institute widespread investigations in the school’s management and bring to book anyone who is engaged in one form of wrongdoing or the other.
They also called on concerned citizens including nongovernmental organisations in Tamale to take special interest in the issue so that the right thing will be done otherwise all female students in the school are likely to face severe persecution and abuse from now onwards in the hands of tutors like Solomon.
According to the students, many female students are in a fixed as they cannot report tutors who make sexual advances at them otherwise they will be deliberately failed in their exam by such tutors.
What King Solomon Did
On the night of Saturday May 4, 2019, Miss Portia, a first year student went to the roadside near the school to buy mobile airtime. While on her way back to her dormitory, King Solomon appeared from nowhere calling her to stop for a minute chat.
According to our source, King Solomon verbally assaulted Portia by calling her a foolish and unwise girl who has been going around telling people on campus that he has proposed to her.
Dumbfounded by the sudden change of attitude by her tutor who used to act nicely towards her, Portia kept quiet but that did not stop her tutor to hold by the neck and continued to insult her.
King Solomon eventually left Portia but not without telling her “you’ll see”, a statement she found to be a threat and decided to call her parents and inform them about what happened according to our source.
This incident by King Solomon on the night of May 4th happened after he had persistently pestered Portia via phone calls and whatsApp chats to have a romantic affair with him but failed. Unable to further tolerate Portia’s persistent rejection, he accosted her and verbally and physically assaulted her that night.
What School Authorities Have Done
It has been exactly two weeks today since that incident on May 4th but authorities of the school have not taken any decisive decision on how to deal with the matter which could have cost the life of a student.
The perpetrator of the act, King Solomon according to our sources, still comes to school to teach and perform other official duties after having admitted to the school authorities including the principal, two other vice principals and the administrator when he was summoned to a meeting.
Having established some truth about the matter, one would have expected that the authorities would punish King Solomon for misconducting himself as a tutor. However, the authorities have chosen to invite Portia every now and then to interrogate her in an attempt to establish whether she has been speaking to the media, our sources said.
Our sources also said that as a result of the constant harassment and interrogation by authorities of the school, Portia now feels very apprehensive and unable to concentrate on her studies.
By savannahnewsonline.com/Joseph Ziem
