The arrest of Agbeleoba Samuel Oyeyemi on Tuesday by the Department of State Services (DSS) was directly connected to the sexual harassment case involving Abayomi Sunday Fasina, a professor of pedology and the vice chancellor of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti.

Oyeyemi is a younger brother to Folasade Adebayo, a university staff who Fasina sexually harassed and intimidated. For this misconduct, a panel set up by the school’s governing council has been investigating the professor without suspending him from office.

Oyeyemi was released on Thursday around 7 pm. Shortly after his release on Thursday, Kayode Babatuyi, the chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ekiti State, told FIJ that the union found out that the arrest was in connection with the sexual misconduct case.

READ ALSO: JUST IN: DSS Arrests Younger Brother of FUOYE Staff Sexually Harassed by VC Fasina

“When we met with the DSS director Godwin Eze, he claimed that Oyeyemi was chatting on a WhatsApp group saying he was a DSS official. They said that was impersonation. They went to search his house and found nothing incriminating. They have now released him to us,” Babatuyi told FIJ.

FIJ was unable to reach Oyeyemi for comments at press time. A source close to him said that the DSS had warned him not to speak with the media.

Before Oyeyemi’s release, according to Babatuyi during a press conference on Thursday, Eze had said Oyeyemi was “cyberbullying” some FUOYE staff in the WhatsApp group.

“During our investigation, we found out that Yemi Agbeleoba based on an allegation that a WhatsApp platform was created in which he was a member, which according to the DSS, was involved in cyberbullying of some personality within the university community,” Babatuyi said during the press conference.

“Though no name was mentioned, (an) investigation by the union confirmed that the situation was connected to the current sexual harassment saga involving the vice chancellor of the university, Professor Abayomi Fasina.”

Babatuyi described the arrest as an attempt to bully people who were critical of Fasina’s misconduct into silence. He called on the secret police to release the man.

“It is on this note that (the NUJ) is calling on the management of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti to release Yemi Agbeleoba with immediate effect,” Babatuyi said.

“This is Nigeria, we cannot turn our country into a lawless society. People must be allowed to talk. Hiding under cyberbullying (claims) to shut people up will not be tolerated.

“We totally condemn the arrest of Dr Yemi Agbeleoba because, to us, it is unnecessary. It is only an attempt to silence, to victimise and to cover up the current case that is happening in the university.”

READ ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: FUOYE VC Abayomi Fasina Confesses: ‘I Paid N20m for the Appointments of Registrar, Bursar’

Mufutau Ibrahim, the FUOYE registrar whom Fasina had confessed to have bribed two previous governing council members to appoint, faintly dismissed the school’s involvement on Wednesday when he said that “the assertion that the vice chancellor ordered Agbeleoba’s arrest is pure falsehood”.

Even though the panel investigating Fasina had not concluded its work, Ibrahim cleared Fasina of any wrongdoing, saying, “The allegations of sexual harassment are also unfounded. We urge the public to disregard these false reports.”

Some staff of the school now fear that a similar fate might befall those who have expressed their disapproval of the sexual abuse by Fasina.

“I heard somewhere that Fasina will be arresting everyone who has spoken in connection to the issue of sexual harassment and that some of us should be prepared for Oyeyemi’s treatment,” a staff, who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation, told FIJ on Friday.