TKJ (not real name), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC)’s star witness, on Wednesday, admitted she did not include in her two statements to the commission the allegations that Prof. Cyril Ndifon forced her to give him “a blow job” in his car because she was ashamed about the incident.
TKJ, who is the ICPC’s 2nd prosecution witness (PW2), stated this while being cross-examined by Ndifon’s counsel, Joe Agi, SAN, before Justice James Omotosho of a Federal High Court, Abuja.
The ICPC’s investigation, TKJ, one of the alleged victims of allegation of sexual harassment against Ndifon, the suspended Dean of Faculty of Law, University of Calabar (UNICAL), wrote two extra-judicial statements dated Nov 9, 2023 and Nov. 10, 2023 at the Calabar office of the anti-corruption commission.
Blow job, according to a dictionary meaning, is an act of oral sex performed on a man.
NAN had, on Tuesday, reported that the witness, while giving her evidence-in-chief, alleged that the suspended dean came to the front of her hostel in a tinted glass car and asked her to join him.
She alleged that while having a discussion with him, he tried to put his hand inside her trousers but she stopped him from doing that.
She further alleged that Ndifon later brought out his manhood and forcefully put it in her mouth.to suck.
Ndifon was, on Jan. 25, re-arraigned alongside Sunny Anyanwu as 1st and 2nd defendants on an amended four-count charge bordering on alleged sexual harassment and attempt to perverse the cause of justice.
Anyanwu, who is one of the lawyers in the defence, was joined in the amended charge filed on Jan. 22 by the ICPC on allegation that he called TKJ on her mobile telephone during the pendency of the charge against Ndifon to threatened her.
However, during cross-examination on Wednesday, Agi asked TKJ: “You told this court that the 1st defendant forced you to do a blow job?”
“Yes, in his car. He bent my neck and gave me N3000 after for treatment,” she responded.
“I put it to you that, that is not true,” the lawyer said, but TKJ insisted it was true.
Agi also put the question to TKJ that the allegation that Ndifon tried to make her do blow job with him in his office was also untrue but she said it was true.
The senior lawyer then asked her if she made statements to ICPC on those two occasions and she answered in affirmative.
“In those two different days, you never told ICPC in your statements that the 1st defendant did blow job with you; you just manufactured that later?” he asked.
Responding, TKJ said: “I did not tell them in my statements because I was ashamed about it.”
She had also told the court that when Ndifon forcefully bent her neck to give him a blow job, she cried and went and told her roommates in the hostel.
But when the lawyer asked her if she put the experience about informing her roommates in the statements, the witness admitted she did not.
She equally admitted that she did not put it in her statement that Ndifon gave her N3000 for treatment after the blow job experience.
TKJ said she only gave summary of what transpired between Ndifon and her, besides feeling ashamed of the whole scenario.
When Agi asked her how many people were with her when she was making the statements, the PW2 said about three people.
Reacting, the lawyer said it couldn’t have been shame that made her not to write details of her experience since there were more people in the courtroom than where she wrote the statements, “that you just don’t want to tell the true.”
But TKJ, who insisted it was shame, broke into tears behind the shield.
Agi further asked her if she wrote in her statements the allegation that Ndifon made her to do a nude video of herself putting her two fingers in her vargina inside toilet and sent to him.
“I did not tell the ICPC about the nude video I did inside the toilet where I put my two fingers in my vargina because I only did a summary of it in my statement,” she said.
The witness said she did all the chats and others with Ndifon because of the admission he promised her and because of her safety after the sexual harassment.
She disagreed with the lawyer that the anti-corruption commission guided her on what to write.
“The ICPC Did not guide me on what to write,” she said.
Taking TKJ on one of the exhibits which captured some of the WhatsApp chats with Ndifon, the lawyer asked that those communications which were between her and the embattled professor were supposed to be a secret between them, but the witness said she did not willingly do it
“Did he put a gun on your head?” he asked, but she said Ndifon did not put a gun on her head.
“Would you have been happy if 1st defendant had sent those messages and videos to people? Agi asked again.
“I will not be happy if he had shared it with people because I was not happy sending them,” she responded.
Earlier while being led in evidence by ICPC’s lawyer, Osuobeni Akponimisingha, TKJ said she received a strange call from Mr Sunny Anyanwu, one of Ndifon’s lawyers, after the suspended don was granted bail.
“A strange number called me and when I picked, the person called me by my native name.
“He told me his name was Barrister Sunny. And he said that Prof told him that I am from Enugu State.
“I told him I am not from Enugu State. He asked me where I am from and ai told him.
“I asked him why he called he said he called because of Professor Cyril, his friend.
“He said he is from Enugu State. He also said he blamed his friend for everything that had happened. He said they have been friends for long
“I told him that I have been traumatised a lot he said he knew” she said.
The witness told the court that Anyanwu told her on phone not to honour ICPC’s invitation or write anything if they asked her to.
“He said if I do what he asked me to do, he would give me a better admission outside University of Calabar,” she added
She said she had neither met nor seen Anyanwu before.
Meanwhile, Justice Omotosho had adjourned until Feb 9 to rule on the bail applications of Ndifon and Anyanwu.
The judge, who adjourned the matter after counsel for the defence and prosecution adopted their processes and presented their arguments for and against the bail plea, hinted that he was inclined to grant bail to the duo.
He said since bail was a constitutional right and the offences for which they were being charged were bailable ones, the defendants might likely be admitted to bail since the star witness who was alleged to have been threatened on phone had concluded her testimony.
