The CEO of Tizeti, Kendall Ananyi was accused of sexual harassment by Kelechi Udoagwu a few days ago as Nigerians raised their voices against the rape and murder of Uwa and other victims.
In a tweet, Kelechi alleged that Kendall harassed her sexually.
“I just laughed sadly cos I remember one Naija tech mentor who was supposed to be mentoring me when I was in MEST & the dude (married) pulled out and put his dick on my hands in the bright afternoon, begging me to anything I could do *sigh.”
This caused a lot of commotion in the tech ecosystem in Nigeria as various founders in the industry responded by condemning such behaviour. They encouraged tech founders to ensure sexual harassment is not condoned and should be clearly stated in the company’s policy.
The founder of Africa Future, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji opined that “sexual harassment was one of the most difficult issues I had to deal with as I built two companies in Nigeria”
Kendall Ananyi responded to Kelechi’s allegations in a message that partly read, “due to the sensitive nature of this allegation, I have used the past few days to consult extremely with my family, colleagues and business partners at Tizeti on how to address this allegation…”
He stated that he never had a relationship with Kelechi during the MEST mentor-mentee program and they never had any mentorship sessions.
Although, today the Board and Management of Tizeti put out a statement re-affirming their plans for an investigation under new leadership. Patricia Aiyedun, current CFO and Ifeanyi Okonkwo, current COO will assume the position of interim co-CEOs.