“Whatever the state of the Students’ Union is, it did not arrive at its bearing without some distance.”
On Monday, May 29th 2017, students of the University of Ibadan, led by its then freshly sworn-in Union President, Ojo Aderemi, protested against the appalling state of the student community. The students mobilized from rooms to halls, two drums rolling in response to chants, and with placards of concerns firmly held flagged. A Galaxy TV news broadcast reported the occurrence thus.
Students boycotted classes. Ojoo-UI road was reportedly blocked. Mass of UI students had refused to leave the scene until the then Vice Chancellor, Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka would address them. But the Vice Chancellor in contrast to the students expectation did not visit the students scene to address their plights. That Monday demonstration, characterized by nonviolence, marked the curve of many results.
The Vice Chancellor on air – at the University radio, Diamond 101.1 FM, announced the sudden postponement of the University first semester exams, which already was within spitting distance. He, likewise, announced the immediate closure of the school through an order instructing students to vacate the University premises on the same date. As a thick addition, Ojo Aderemi, the Students’ Union President was, later, apportioned four semesters suspension by the University.
But what were the causes? The year 2017 protest was premised on the failure on the part of the University management to issue validated ID cards, as well as a protracted feud between the University administrators and the Students’ Union, over the suspended use of cooking appliances. The latter the Students’ Union suggested, should be discussed at the central level subsequent to the students demand of their inclusion in the Students Welfare Board.
Honest to the history of the Ibadan Students’ Union, as the UI’SU was referred, students have always had the course to disagree with both the Government or the University management when the parallels are boldly not connecting. It will never be new to see occur given Nigeria remains a developing country, quite marred by class struggle. A replica of what gave rise to the UI 2017 struggle, the Arab Spring, the education for all movement, and many others.
Conceptualizing the case today, without mincing the truth, students of the University of Ibadan, gets their identity cards approximately within a semester. Such can be inferred long as histories are meant to be conceptualized, and not defined. With regards to cooking in the hall, which was the other straw, the University management knows as much as the current generation of students, what is quite obtainable. It is to being economical and efficient that humanity owns their own survival, students moreso. The year 2017 was not the first time a disparity would happen. The rather unprecedented is the occurrence of deep-seated understanding of students plights and how to manage it amicably in the history of the University of Ibadan as an institution.
No doubt, May 2017 has retired, it has had furthered knock-on effects. Till date, University of Ibadan students’ reluctance to protest or express valid dissent, especially against ill treatment has remained a noticeable trend. Fleeting generation of students between 2017 and 2024 have only continued to chat about their several foiling concerns, both academic and extramural, the most without redress or real-time solutions. Arguably, seven tallying years after the #noIDcardnoexam May 30th action, students overtime have been today enraptured by fear, and simultaneously, gripped by ignorance. Team Patriotic Intelligentsia abrupt suspension, selectively tinted as an illustration, has been almost endlessly fictionalized or used as a leading-edge to prevent dissent within the University of Ibadan student community. Hence, more concerns.
It was no wonder why on Monday, May 13th 2024, during the inauguration of the current Students’ Union Executive and Legislative Councils, three students – UI’3 – peacefully holding placards, with a single demand that outrageous fees should fall, were met with scornful and mocking stares from their conquered peers, who subservient in their seats watched as what will remain a striking history unfurled. The three students; Aduwo Ayodele, Nice Linus, and Olamide Gbadegesin, were dragged out of the venue, openly away to the University security unit and handed over, by the University security unit, commonly called the Abefeles, to operatives of the Nigerian army, who drove the students away from the campus with their patrol van. The University, under the headship of Professor Kayode Adebowale, has even proceeded with the case. A disciplinary hearing summoned the students to the fearsome Student Disciplinary Committee panel, on Tuesday, July 2, 2024, at the Board room, Students Affairs Unit of the University.
The above, slightly mentioned in the possible recount of the seventy five historic years of the University of Ibadan Students’ Union, explains what and what happened in recent time to the indispensable idea of students democratic right to ventilate dissent. The University as an institution has always been legibly clear about its self-made standpoint with regards to student protests, or questioning the citadel of knowledge as an establishment. Entrenched, for instance, the University institutionalized initiative that basically discourage students from participating or engaging in democratic disagreement, by incorporating bureaucratic rules on both protest and making the workings of the Students’ Union concretely dependent on the University management.
The ‘unpopular’ handbook, which many students evidently have no access to, lays forth strict guidelines that only ‘must be adhered to’, despite its hardly satisfiable provisions. Its provisions, in some instances, contrast with the Nigerian constitution. In one of such, the Deputy Registrar of the University the rule stipulates, must be present at the Congress of students before a call for demonstration by students can be termed valid. It irreconcilably empowers the Deputy registrar an authority that should only reside in the Congress or general student force. This constraint, obviously a contrast of the Nigerian Constitution undermines the statutory right which rather guarantees the right to individual freedom of peaceful assembly and association, as expressly provided for under Section 40 of the Nigerian Constitution.
“Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular, he may form or belong to any political party, trade union, or any other association for the protection of his interests” the provision from anywhere in the country reads. The Student Handbook meant to be a University prospectus is only useful and dignifying when it respects and keep in mind the bare fact that students are Nigerian citizens, first or foremost. Students have an indispensable right to the freedoms and rights outlined in the Nigerian Constitution as sovereign citizens.
It is at this fulcrum that the Students’ Union is vested with a role, a responsibility to choose its own reforms. It becomes imperative on the part of the Union that it ascertain its independence and design its own policies in positive tune with the federal laws. Since representing interests and embodying welfare of student is a critical function of the Student Union, the leadership core duty, non-negotiable will eternally be to act as a liaison between the student body and the University administration or the Government, as the case may be. The vision of the Union must be an outlook of choices and policies that are only advantageous to the student body and the undiluted reasons the University existed in the first place. The positive changes have no legs of theirs.
Student leaders conscious involvement and active participation are pointers that really make the Union effective. Whether it is about fulfilling financial obligations, academic regulations, or housing arrangements on campus, the Union should remain an umbrella. The idea of the Students’ Union is again an idea, and so it does not die, regardless of the dates, 2017 or 2024.
Opposing excessive or unfair policies is traditionally reason and history of the University of Ibadan Students’ Union. No longer, in the view of this editorial, should students feel pressured to comply with laws that violate their rights or are harmful to their welfare. Rather, the Students’ Union need to take upon itself a natural role, an initiative to oppose practices that fist at it, and rather promote just and rational substitutes.
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