OAU Crisis: Who Is To Blame?

By

Taiwo Ajayi

taiwoafrikana@yahoo.com

 

 

It becomes important to give some salient posers to the Nigerian public on why Prof. Faborode’s closure of the campus over a simple students demand for the harmattan examinations to be shifted by a week is not justifiable. Students had demanded that the University Management should respect its own laws by granting a week devoid of lectures and tests so as to prepare adequately for the exams more so that about 139 students went to the NUGA games held in Maiduguri. This lecture free week is legitimate and past Vice Chancellors found no problem in granting it but it was a surprise when Prof. Faborode declined even though it was clear that some lectures and tests held until Monday 26 February 2007 when the University proposed to start the examinations.

 

Contrary to the self-absolving posture of the University Management at a press conference held recently at Osogbo where the Vice-Chancellor promised that an investigative panel already set up to look into the crisis will identify whether any lecturer actually violated the lecture free week and that such lecturers will be punished, the University Management did not even give students demand an hearing thus preparing the ground for the crisis. One is baffled why the Vice-Chancellor opted to put the cart before the horse by doing last what he should have done first. In a University environment, which is supposed to be an enclave of democracy, having received petitions from students’ congresses that lectures and tests are still holding, a Vice-Chancellor is expected to verify the genuineness of the students’ complaints first rather than put up an attitude of authoritarianism. Unfortunately Prof. Faborode opted for the latter tactics and by the evening of Sunday 25th February 2007, a fierce contingent of Mobile Policemen were stationed at the gate in preparation for the next day Monday 26th February 2007 when the Management said examination must start.

 

This brings us to another stage in the whole issue. The Management has been claiming that it was Akinola Saburi (the expelled Students’ Union President) and his gangs that were opposed to examination while the generality of students were ready to write examinations. However, the management have not been able to explain how this gangs (if they ever exist) could have held a contingent of mobile policemen numbering about 500 armed with guns and tear gas for two days if the mass of students had not been involved. Of course, there were some students who wanted to write examinations but they were a minority and even many students in this category were motivated by fear of Managements victimizations. Left to their own, this group of students would accept a lecture free week to prepare for the examination. But the majority of students were angry at the Managements high handedness. It was not just a gang but the mass of students under the leadership of the Students Union that protested and newspaper reports confirms that thousands of students were seen protesting peacefully. This shows just how wrong the Management is in its cynical evaluation of the crisis.

 

Obviously, there is need for the OAU Management to wakeup from its delirium. Even if one agree without conceding that indeed the demand for a lecture free week before examinations was supported by just “a gang of students” as the Management is making us to believe, how does this reduce the rightness of the demand? It is obvious that the University management prioritized ego rather than objectivity in relating with the students on their demands. It remains to be said that the closure of campus totally shows that the Management is not sincere on this issue. A management that could not grant a week extension of examination had no scruple in closing down the campus indefinitely. Is their any justification in that? Everybody will agree that the demand for a lecture free week is legitimate and is the least issue that should cause a crisis of this scale. Even in secondary and primary schools, revision weeks are observed before examinations why not then in an ivory tower? The management has said it does not want students to stay on campus writing examinations during the April elections. What it means is that students should wait till May before resuming to complete the first Semester. It will be highly insensitive to use the politics of the thieving ruling class (the cause of crisis in the education sector), which has not benefited students as an excuse to ruin their career by unnecessarily prolonging the duration of their programs on campus. Even, the argument canversed is out of place because virtually all students registered for the elections on campus thus the best place they should be come April is on campus so as to exercise their franchise while writing their examinations.

 

Thus, the University Management should immediately open the campus for students to start the first Semester examinations. Also, Prof. Faborode should find better means of resolving the crisis other than banning of the Students Union and expulsion of perceived troublemakers as these actions will only compound and prolong the crisis. Union leaders cannot be punished for the democratic actions of the mass of their members. Everywhere it has been done, it has always generated greater hostility and fight back from students. Not only this, the proscription of the Students Union is unacceptable as this will pave the way for cultism effectively checkmated by the constant mobilization of students by the Union through political progammes to regenerate and grow to the detriment of the University community.  The example of University of Ibadan (U.I) is a lesson for all. Instead, a democratic penal of enquiry involving representatives of students, staff Unions, the press, community leaders and general public should be established to look into the crisis in order to fashion out means of resolving it on a lasting basis.

 

TAIWO AJAYI

Micro Biology, 400 level

Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU)

Ile Ife.  E-mail: - taiwoafrikana@yahoo.com