Ex-OAU Student Accuses Kunle Afolayan Of Stealing ‘Citation’ Story

An alumna of the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University has accused filmmaker Kunle Afolayan of profiting from her experience at the school by making it into his netflix movie titled; “Citation”, and failing to give her credit.

The ex-student whose name is Mrs Utitofon Ekanem, Neé Hanson, has revealed that she endured sexual harassment in the hands of an associate professor at the Political Science Department, Dr Sunday Akindele between years 2004-2007.

She reported that Akindele was eventually dismissed by the school authorities while she was celebrated as the first female student in the history of the institution to get a lecturer dismissed for sexual harassment.

Ekanem, who is now a teacher, said she reached out to Kunle, who directed the movie “Citation” and pitched the idea of producing a movie about sexual harassments in higher institutions and briefed him about her experience.

According to Ekanem; “I called Kunle Afolayan sometime in 2015 and I told him I had a story on sexual harassment based on my experience in OAU and I said I wanted to make a movie out of the true story and he said someone would contact me and he gave me an assurance that someone would call me. Our conversation was for about two minutes.

This year, I started receiving calls from friends, telling me to watch a movie titled ‘Citation’ which was directed by Kunle Afolayan starring Temi Otedola. Temi Otedola, who was the victim of sexual harassment in the movie, was actually me in real life.”

She further explained that the movie had very little differences from her personal experience.

The teacher stated, “The panel that was set up was taking place during school hours. The lecturer told the school that my allegations were false. The issue of students supporting and opposing me was the same as the movie. In the movie, someone gave the actress a letter and asked her to ensure that she wasn’t being used. That was my experience.

“People were putting my posters all over the school over the issue. It also happened in the movie. In the movie, Joke Silva was giving support to the main actress through an NGO. I also had such a person.

“In the movie, it was established that the lecturer had sexually harassed women in his previous school. All that happened to me. The lecturer I had a problem with was a lecturer at a polytechnic in Ikire before coming to OAU.

“I got in touch with someone in Ikire who also confirmed that the lecturer harassed her. So, there are many similarities. At the end of the movie, when the main actress entered the class at the end, students were drumming on the table to praise her and were calling her name. That happened to me as well.”

She also said that she had written a letter to Afolayan threatening to go to court if he did not meet her demands. However, Afolayan had refused to respond to Ekanem’s letter.

Afolayan has however denied the allegations against him, He called them baseless. According to him, Tunde Babalola wrote the script of “citation”.