Nigeria’s University of Calabar has suspended a high-ranking professor after a protest by female students accused him of sexual harassment.

On Monday, around 30 female students demonstrated on campus, which is in the southern state of Cross River, holding up placards detailing graphic accusations against the academic.

Cyril Ndifon did not respond to BBC messages but he has been quoted by some local newspapers as denying the allegations.

“This won’t work. Colleagues of mine who are bent on tarnishing my reputation just to destroy me. The question is, ‘Where are the victims of sexual harassment?’” he told CrossRiverWatch news site.

Dr Tony Eyang, the dean of students’ affairs at the university, told the BBC investigations began after the protest on Monday, which he said had taken the authorities by surprise.

Unsatisfied with a written response from Prof Ndifon, the university’s vice-chancellor has now removed him from his post as dean of the faculty of law and also suspended him.

The matter has also been referred to an official investigative panel.

Protests against sexual harassment are rare on Nigerian university campuses. One placard on Monday read: “Stop grabbing us. The faculty of law is not a brothel.”

Last year, parliament passed a bill that criminalises sexual harassment by lecturers, with offenders facing up to 14 years in jail.

It also does not allow mutual consent as a defence in the prosecution of sexual harassment cases at universities.

The legislation came after a BBC investigation in 2019 that uncovered alleged sexual misconduct by lecturers in Nigeria and Ghana.